Drawing Near to Godნიმუში

Day 3: When All Else Fails

Read: Genesis 4:26-5:21-24

“At that time, men began to call on the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26).

This is the first mention of Prayer in the Bible. What is the significance of “at that time”? Look at all that leads up to “that time.” In four brief chapters, we read that God created the Heavens and Earth and pronounced them “good.” Then he made a Man and a Woman, the Crown of his Creation, in his own Image and declared all that he had made “very good.”

But like a shattered mirror, God’s Image is broken when the first humans disobey him. You can still see the likeness, but it is terribly distorted.

Later Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel, but Cain kills Abel. The first offspring of God’s Crowning Creation is a murderer! It gets worse before it gets better. Cain has kids and they are a lot like their old man. Soon we hear of a certain Lamech who intends to outdo Cain in malice: “If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times” (Gen. 4:24). Lamech will make Cain’s days seem like the good old days.

Death and violence increase exponentially. “The power of sin is centrifugal…. It tends to push everything out toward the periphery. Bits and pieces go flying off until only the core is left…. In the end, nothing at all is left" (from Frederick Buechner's Wishful Thinking).

“Nevertheless” is a great Grace word. So nevertheless, God acts graciously and gives Adam and Eve another child to replace Abel. His name almost is Grace; they call him Seth, which probably means “granted.” That’s the time when people began to call on the Name of the Lord.

There is a saying, “When all else fails, read the directions.” The impulse to pray is a little like that. So far, taking matters into their own hands has gotten everybody in trouble. We are more apt to see the need to pray when we see how great our needs are; when we run up against the hard edge of our limitations. There’s not much we can do in our own name, but “the name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe” (Prov. 18:10).

There is hope. Centuries later, but only a few verses in the Bible, there comes along a man of Prayer named Enoch, “who walked with God” (Gen. 5:21-24). Echoes of what was originally intended for all Humankind reverberate in those few words (Gen. 3:8). In the fullness of time there will come another Child of Grace, and communion with God will again be what it was supposed to be (Gal.4:4-5; Heb. 4:14-18).

PRAYER: Lord, your Name is a strong tower, a refuge for the weary, and a pleasure for your children. Forgive my prayerlessness. Remind me often of my need for the delight to pray.