Field of Sorrows

I stumbled this morning upon an unanticipated field, in an unexpected place. It took my soul unaware … painting a picture my eyes had n’er before beheld, filling my heart with immeasurable sorrow.

It’s a field of another I’d been visiting these past few days, the field of Cain, maybe better understood, I think, as the field of self.

It’s a field I hadn’t been all too comfortable in, hitting a little too close to home as I had to ask myself how often had I, in bringing offerings to God, been little different from Cain. How often had I brought self, fully inflated, before the Lord, rather than a vessel emptied of self … rather than a heart more attuned to Abel’s?

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. (Hebrews 11:4 – ESV)

But any allusion of comfort shattered this morning when the eyes of my heart alighted upon that field … as One stood before me holding out a cup and a piece of bread, broken.

And Cain saith unto Abel his brother, `Let us go into the field;' and it cometh to pass in their being in the field, that Cain riseth up against Abel his brother, and slayeth him. (Genesis 4:8 – YLT)

Suddenly I understood that field as my field, where self and righteousness cannot abide together. A field where I, in my own sin, rose up against God’s righteousness … and slew Him. A field purchased by love, purchased by blood, that I might truly die to self and live to God.

I stood in that field this morning, Communion Sunday, in a fresh and new way. I don’t want to be like Cain, clinging so fast, so tightly, to self that I will choose to flee the presence of Almighty God.

In Hebrew Cain’s response to God’s truth can also be rendered: My evil is greater than I can bear. And, indeed, it is … so Grace chose to bear that burden, and I stand awash in it this morning because the Righteousness of God shed His own blood on my behalf.

I don’t know that I will ever sit in a Communion service quite the same again, picturing the bludgeoning that took place in that field of sorrow, I bludgeoning my own hand is guilty of, a field known in the beginning … yet a shadow of another field of sorrow that would cover my sin for all eternity.

Maybe it was said best in a song familiar to each of us.


O Sacred Head, Now Wounded

O Sacred head now wounded
With grief and shame weighed down
Now scornfully surrounded
With thorns Thy only crown
How art Thou pale with anguish
With sore abuse and scorn
How does that visage languish
Which once was bright as morn

What Thou my Lord hast suffered
Was all for sinner's gain
Mine mine was the transgression
But Thine the deadly pain
Lo here I fall my Savior
Tis I deserve Thy place
Look on me with Thy favor
Assist me with Thy grace

What language shall I borrow
To thank Thee dearest Friend
For this Thy dying sorrow
Thy pity without end
O make me Thine forever
And should I fainting be
Lord let me never never
Outlive my love to Thee





© 8 January 2006
DeAnna L. Brooks

Two Brothers

Why is Abel mentioned first in Genesis 4:2, to be followed then by Cain? What is the hidden treasure? I’m not certain, but I’m immediately but in mind of anther set of brothers soon to follow: Jacob and Essau. Though Essau was ‘the oldest’ by minutes, most often his name is preceded by Jacob’s. Born of the same seed, their natures differed. Essau sold his birthright for a pot of stew. Not just his temporal inheritance, but the spiritual birthright, as well. Genesis 25 tells us that Esau despised his birthright.

Are we already seeing this played out here, right beyond Eden’s gates? Hebrews 11:4 may shed some light, keeping the truth in mind that while man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart.

… by faith Abel offered unto God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous …

There was something very different about these two presentations to God. Only here in Genesis 4 is the word translated ‘offering.’ Every other time it’s used in Genesis it takes on the connotation of ‘gift’ or ‘present.’ But here, in Genesis 4, something was at work.

It puts me in mind of God’s heart revealed in Romans 12:1-2.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Two brothers, residents of the same physical world, but hearts in two different realms, came before Jehovah, the Self-existent One, offering Him the gift of self. Abel’s offering representing a faith sacrifice … a humble acceptance and recognition of his need for God’s covering of grace and forgiveness. A placing of himself into God’s hands.

… apart from shedding of blood there is no remission … (Heb. 9:22)

Cain’s ‘offering’ of self feels different, somehow. It carries pride’s voice. Look what my hands have wrought. I give You the best of what I can do. Accept now what I did by myself. I hear no humility, no confession of need; but rather the voice of self-sufficiency.

I don’t sense this family was a stranger to God’s voice, nor a stranger to a system of offerings already ordained. Cain’s own words when God confronts him after Abel’s murder signify he was accustomed to God’s presence.

From Your face shall I be hid (absent).

God never indicated any such thing. Nor did God banish Cain. God simply told him that the fruits of the earth would no longer yield themselves readily and richly to his hands. Cain would need to gathering where he found it.

Genesis 4:16 reveals the truest picture of Cain’s heart in the matter of spiritual things:

And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD.

So different from his parents.

Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground
from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man … (Genesis 3:23-24)

Cain chose to leave the place of God’s presence, the place and attitude of worship.
He chose to severe himself from not only his family, but from any all ‘fear of God.”

Two world orders, firmly established, right outside the gates of Eden ... how God must have grieved.

So much more to say ... but time escapes me.





[birthright = a favored covenant-relationship with Yaweh; function as priest of family]

The Day of Knowing

Genesis 3:5 … God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil …

Satan, by his very nature, is a deceiver. Jesus calls him the Father of lies. Realizing that, I’ve turned to take a closer look at the serpent’s first words to Eve. What might they reveal about Satan? What corrupted picture of God might he have been imparting to Eve?

A single word was the first lie. The inclusion of not into the exceedingly abundant provision and permission God had given Eve. It brings to mind the saying, “Give them and inch, they’ll take a mile.”

God withheld from His beloved nothing, save one thing. To not eat of the single thing that would endanger, would bring harm, in a world that otherwise held no limitations.

Scantly clad in orphan attire, holding out a now empty porridge bowl having known only meager portions, Oliver’s voice suddenly bursts upon the page: More please!

But Eve was no orphan … nor were her provisions meager. They were abundant beyond measure, beyond what she could have consumed in a lifetime.

I fear desire already lived and breathed within this feminine clay … desire for the forbidden, because it was forbidden.

The fertile heart soil lay ready, waiting … and the serpent, reading the signs well, dropped the seed. Growth was instantaneous.

Eve grabbed the bait, added her own lie nor shall you touch it, and glossed over the consequences. God had left no question to the cost of disobedience: you shall surely die. He couldn’t have stated it more clearly. But Eve displayed a heart already questioning God, already displaying a deafness to His Word: lest you die.

God’s pronouncement declares certain death; Eve’s rendition held only the possibility of death.

I’ve never appreciated ‘dumb blonde’ jokes, but I must admit at this moment a deep desire to chalk up Eve’s subtle word shadings to a ‘blondeness’ in her thinking. But God personally built Eve in His image, and I just can’t make ‘blondeness’ fit that scenario.

She chose. Deliberately. Intentionally. Selecting the lens through which she would look and listen. It hurts, because I want to make excuses for her, excuses for me. When I read the passage quickly, I can; but not when I look into a heart so clearly revealed there.

Not until Eve had revealed her heart did the serpent strike the deathblow, permission already granted him through her own lies.

And that’s where I began, looking at those words, wondering the picture of God they painted. Was it a picture the serpent believed? Knowing from where he came that seems unfathomable. A portrait Eve wanted to claim, because it would make godhood attainable for her? Regardless, they both wanted the same thing … to attain godhood. It’s a portrayal that certainly twists and perverts the very nature of God.

… in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil …

Could Eve, or anyone for that matter, truly believe that God’s essence is knowing good from evil? Not righteousness. Not holiness. Not love. Not light. Not all the things that God reveals Himself to be … none of which are attainable by man.

Knowing, through discernment and personal experience and involvement in, does not make for godhood. It’s contrary, in one respect. God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.

Eve had to have known that. Adam, who was there through it all, certainly did, a witness to God’s creative nature. But even if, for a fleeting moment Eve bought the lie, choice still followed. Choice revealing a darkness of heart already looking for another god.

The serpent had indeed found fertile soil, innocence already gone. It wasn’t the ‘sight’ of the eye the serpent appealed to, but the ‘sight’ of the soul, the perception, that seat of understanding we’re all tempted daily to lean upon.

Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.

Where that dark seed first knew life within the Potter’s clay remains a mystery. But on the day of knowing, that mystery no longer mattered. It’s fruit no longer hidden, Grace’s covering, also, came visibly into play.

Eve displayed more than her own nature that day, a nature I share with her. With a single bite, she also put on display the nature of God. Mercy and Righteousness lay in full view … before Eve … before Adam … before a serpent … before this heart of clay who speaks the words of one after God’s own heart – Create in me a clean heart, O LORD, and renew a right spirit in me.








© 5 December 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks

Desire's Need

Ezekiel 28:12-17 sheds additional insight upon the eternal battle raging between the Serpent and the Light!

You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect beauty.

You were in Eden, the garden of God;

Every precious stone was your covering:

The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.

The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created.

You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you;

You wee on the holy mountain of God;

You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.

You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you....

You became filled with violence within, And you sinned;

Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God;

And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones.

Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty,

You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor...

Wow! A covering cherub ... disguising himself later as an angel of light ... whose very first words to man necessitated a Divine covering ... that no fig leaves, no false light, could imitate. It took a bloodied covering, flowing scarlet to return Light to that which had chosen darkness.

* * * * * * *

What did Eve desire? What drove her to place her will, her understanding, above God’s? Was it not the seedbed of pride? A desire to know as God knew.

There is a way that seems right to a man; but the end of it is death.

Upon the eating, Eve gained what she desired … gained more than she bargained for. Suddenly she knew what God had always known, and it drove her to disguise herself, to hide the now awful truth from the very One who walked with her in the cool of the evening.

Every fiber of Eve’s being, of Adam’s being, vibrated the truth that apart from God only darkness exists … apart from Him all is vanity. And they had not yet come to understand LOVE.

So rather than running to it, they hid themselves in feeble makeshift garments that on another occasion would weave a garment of laughter, but on this day could only bring tears.

Then LOVE steps in, and they begin to understand.

I can’t help but speculate that what they had so taken for granted, up until now, suddenly took wing … no longer remaining earthbound. Grace covered every interaction, every conversation between their hearts and God’s, with mercy. In the midst of their pain, of their sorrow, they discovered unfathomable joy and a loving gratitude toward their Creator they’d not tasted of before. Sweet juice of the Vine replaced the bitterness of a forbidden bite … and they knew that they knew that they knew that surely joy indeed comes in the morning.

Your Eyes Will Be Opened

The serpent spoke tremendous truth with the words, “...your eyes will be opened.” Possible more truth than he imagined. Up until that moment it seems outward appearances were the garb in vogue. Appearances that were stripped away while forbidden juice still lay upon the tongue, tasting sweet. Bitterness came on a swallow, swallowing up falsehood. Suddenly everything was laid bare. And looking at one another, their nakedness revealed, nothing preventing them from seeing the darkness within their own hearts, what did they do. They immediately went to covering the transparency causing so much pain, so much shame, so much disillusionment.

Truth reveals all darkness, necessitates transparency, for nothing can be hidden from the Eyes that know all … and yet still choose to love.

But transparency wasn’t safe in Eden, not any longer, so man attempted to cover truth revealed in a bite, longing self to remain disguised, beautified.

… and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings (3:7)

Once again I’d missed what God wants me to see, to understand. Covering in Hebrew is a word more accurately translated armor.

New meaning now breathes in God’s counsel, Put on the whole armor of God. The girdle. The breast-plate. The helmet.

Adam and Eve weren’t simply attempting to clothe their physical flesh. They were desiring to protect themselves. To arm themselves against a frightening truth they saw, in themselves, in one another.

It would be fascinating to explore this, but words quickly come to mind that seem so appropriate here.

Love covers a multitude of sins.

And that is exactly what LOVE did. He provided the perfect covering for man’s sins … Himself … worn here first in its shadow, until that day assigned before the foundation of the earth when it would be worn in its fullness.

And when that first drop of blood spilled onto Eden’s sod, it reveal to hiding hearts that the battle was not against each other, but against a deceiver whose own desire was to claim them for his own.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the LORD and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done so, to stand. (Ephesians 6:10-13)

A Serpent Slithers

Rationalization screams through Eden as the serpent, at last, makes his own voice heard. I can’t help but picture him slyly watching, listening in to grace-filled conversations as man and his Creator walk together in the cool of the night. Watching. Waiting. Though Eternal eyes fully took in his presence, clay eyes remained blinded to the danger.

Would that I could hear their conversation, for somehow I fully image warning wrapped within the Divine words, just as they imbued the words Jesus spoke to those walking with Him.

But ears didn’t hear, didn’t comprehend, so the watcher continued his pursuit. Plotting. Revenge, the darkness of its cloak, clutched tightly around his heart. His first words to the Almighty’s beloved say it all.

“Has God indeed said, ‘ You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?.”

Can’t you hear his voice, dripping with honey, with malicious cunning dressed in the guise of innocent wonderment? Isn’t that always where a good lie starts, infiltrating cunningly, smoothly, deceptively clothed in innocent’s raiment.

Discernment fled, or lay buried beneath desire.

No voice could be heard within this clay trumpeting truth, bearing the armor to extinguish the fiery darts. Clay ears remained deafened, not listening:

Cursed be the deceiver ...

So he feared Me
And was reverent before My name.
The law of truth was in his mouth,
And injustice was not found on his lips.
He walked with Me in peace and equity,
And turned many away from iniquity.

Adam remained silent … and darkness fell … ‘til the Second Adam restored light. Can you hear the whisper?

“They shall be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts,
“On the day that I make them My jewels.
And I will spare them
As a man spares his own son who serves him.”
Then you shall discern
Between the righteous and the wicked,
Between one who serves God
And one who does not serve Him. (Malachi)

But at this moment, discernment had fled, and its absence laid bare a heart needing covering … a heart awash in desire … a heart hungering for self rather than Light!

How unlike the One Who knew to feast only on Heaven’s fare.

Now when the tempter came to Him (Jesus), he said, “if You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Eden was not deficient of God’s Word. It permeated the air, it entered with every breath drawn in and should have exhaled on every word spoken. But when most needed, it wasn’t God’s word breathing out of Edenic clay ... but a dark seed, twisting, turning, polluting the Divine Voice ‘til it served self, planting doubt, granting disobedience permission to serve another master.

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.”

And with its utterance, death gasped its first breath while a serpent slithered in glee ... slithering still.

A Bigger Picture

Genesis 2:6-7
“… but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

I missed the sequence until now, the fine-tuning from the bigger picture to the more and more specific picture, from the intent of blessing to the twisting of the same until blessing was diminished.

God, in His first creative act outside the heavenly sphere that was His home, created earth … that realm which would be the abode of our temporal being. His first separation was to set aside the waters from the ground. Spilling upward out of that ground a life-giving mist blessing the face of the ground. When next God looked to the ground it would be to gather its parts, the dust of the ground, and from it lovingly fashion man … that being that was to be a reflection of His own image. But God would ‘zoom in’ closer still, gathering from the rib of that dust-based man, and build (re-form) a woman perfectly designed for him, to pour blessing of heart and soul and flesh upon man. Their union producing the blessing of life.

I guess what really captured my attention came when I began looking closer still at ‘ground,’ quickly discovering the slide back into dust, away from blessing. The ground was the substance (for want of a better term) from which God chose to create life: every tree, every beast of the field, every bird of the air, man himself.

When God confronts Adam for eating the fruit Eve gave him, God pronounced a curse upon the ground. Interestingly, not because Eve ate, but because Adam, apparently with awareness of his actions, followed after ‘another god’ in his heart.

Not only would the ground experience the curse, mankind would continue to eat of that curse, becoming a slave to the very things from which God had intended the outpouring of blessing, the very substance from which man himself was created. In essence, becoming a slave to self.

Maybe I’m off base, but the delineation seems so clear. And, therefore, it makes all the more sense that when Cain later offered the fruits of the ground, they could be only one thing … unacceptable to God. It may seem harsh, but I think there is much hidden here. They were the direct fruits of that which was cursed because of Adam choosing ‘another god’.

I still hear the apostle John: God is light; in Him is no darkness at all.

Where is Eve in all this, you ask? It is after she ate of that which was forbidden that Adam named her “Life-Giver.” God had left them hope. Eve, she who was re-built (built anew) would house the seed of life … the seed of Promise … the seed of hope … the very seed of Heaven. He Who would know no earthly father … He whose only Father was Light, and Truth, and Life Himself.

Yes, Eve took the serpent’s bait. But she still rested under the ‘covering’ of her husband. Eve would suffer her own consequences, without doubt; yet her consequences appear to fall on none other than herself. Adam’s consequences, however, would ripple into every aspect of every living thing yet to come.

In the midst of all playing out here in Eden lies a deceiver … a deceiver whose own heart possibly seeded the very ground from which God created man. It had been Satan’s domain; and he had left his mark. Thankfully, life did not come from the ground. The ground was simply the temporal tent that housed God’s breath … the only life there ever really was or will be.

Food for thought!

Forbidden

So many beginnings take root here in the first three chapters of Genesis. I find myself going back to the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The recognition that evil already existed. And it did. Satan had already established himself on the earth, scattering his own seed about.

God so desired to guard his beloved’s heart from knowledge (experience of) of that evil. But one must note that the tree was more than knowledge of evil, it was also knowledge of good. To participate in one is to see into the other. Talk about a paradox.

When Eve ate of that forbidden tree, she was choosing to participate, share in, spread iniquity. James delineates so beautifully that digression, that fall into death. Desire was never forbidden, only tasting the fruit of its vine when the desire diverged from God’s way, God’s directives.

Evil is first mention in Genesis 2, contained in the fruit of a tree. Had Eve any inkling of what would manifest as the worst contagion earth has ever known? Or did fulfilling her desire take precedence over any and all inklings she might have had.

We will never know, but when next evil is mentioned, it is outside of the Eden, and God lays bare the chilling consequences of that ‘foothold’ gained in a garden called Delight:

Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (6:5)

Then the LORD said in His heart, "I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth;" (8:21)

Nothing had changed. Everything had changed. Yet still, God allowed Adam to name his wife LIFE ... and this, after her choosing a way other than God’s … Grace! Grace! Grace!

Desire for Eve

Eve didn't need to go looking for Adam. Contextually, he appears to have been right there, with her .... yet he never engaged in conversation with the serpent.

Puts my mind to wondering again if the key isn't discovered in James: But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death.

Was the dialogue between Eve and the serpent an internal dialogue? Not audible to other ears? Did he notice her lingering gaze upon the tree and take advantage of a hidden thought he recognized there? I would be inclined that direction, personally. Because Adam apparently was there with her. For whatever reason, she did not turn to him for guidance, for counsel, for confirmation and direction. She simply acted, on her own, where her own desire took her.

Yet I can't help but ask if Adam did likewise, only his desire wasn't for the fruit ... possibly even being unaware of the temptation churning around in his beloved's head prior to her extending the already bitten fruit to his own mouth. I propose that Adam ate of it because it matched his own desire, a desire for her .... a desire that over-rode his desire for God. He ate because he chose her ... he'd rather join her than loose her, even if it meant turning his back on God.

That union between a man and a woman is a powerful force ... a melding of souls that carries with it such incredible responsibility ... blended into the joy and ecstasy of oneness. One more reminder that our actions are never solitary or isolated ... they always have an effect on others.

Maybe the biggest question here is why didn't Eve turn to Adam for direction and counsel ... even in this matter she may have considered so insignificant? Why don't we?

The more I delve into these opening chapters of Genesis, the more convinced I am that God's intent was never for independency, but always a cooperative dependence that finds its framework, its focus, on Almighty God and an unswerving understanding of His ways.

The Question of Eve

When God created man (Adam) [and all the other animals for that matter] He created as a potter creates ... molding, squeezing, fashioning this image of Himself from the dust of the earth. The Hebrew uses all the imagery of a potter working with clay.

But God’s creation portrays something very different in the Hebrew when it comes to Eve. The concept here is that of building, constructing, rebuilding. It’s interesting to bounce these observations around. God didn’t choose the flesh of Adam to build Eve ... God chose Adam’s rib ... his bone. Again the question, why?

I’ve no answers, only supposition. What significance is there to bone? And why a rib bone? My mind takes me along many paths when I ask this question, but one readily comes to mind. Jesus is the chief cornerstone of the God’s church ... a sure foundation. Bones make up the foundation, the structure, the framework of the body. Eve was built from the foundation already made when God made Adam.

As for the rib, not only does it guard the heart, it also protects the lungs of man, that chamber housing the very breath of God, making him a living being. Therefore, Eve was built to also hold the breath of God.

All this is just my mind wandering through all the countless possibilities. And here’s yet another thought.

Scripture tells us that the life is in the blood. Bones are a vital part of that process within man ... they hold and protect the marrow ... the blood manufacturing department of man ... the creator and sustainer of life, so to speak. I find it interesting that Eve, when she finally receives her name, is named “Life-Giver.”

I have no answers, merely observations that generate more questions, but I know God does nothing randomly. He always works from a perfect design ... a design conceived and put in operation to direct our eyes to Him. And so, we keep looking for those messages, digger deeper and deeper into His Word, seeking to discover the fullness of Truth.