Posts Tagged: Genesis 2:24
“Keeping a Friendlier Distance”
The rains are over for now, and it is still warm (72o in Cincinnati right now). My wife and I turned off the endless coronavirus reports, and went for a walk. However, this pandemic and the fear it engenders are not so easy to turn off.
There were other folks outside as well, but my wife and I kept our distance. No, not from one another, but from other people. If either my wife or I are infected (as we may well be), we are going to cling to one another, as Genesis 2:24 says we should. But we do try to protect ourselves from others, as well as protecting others from us.
However, we had some nice conversations with a few of our neighbors—from a respectful distance. I sensed that we suddenly needed one another more. Or perhaps we simply realized how much we have needed one another all along.
One couple who were out walking approached the intersection of the streets at the same time we did. They hesitated and we crossed the street. “We’re sorry,” the lady said. “We’re just trying to be careful.”
“We are too,” I replied.
“No offense meant,” said the lady.
“None taken,” said I.
We need other people. We also need our distance, right now and always. It used to be said that we need to allow everyone three feet of personal space. I suspect that this rule of thumb is now obsolete. Six feet is now the new normal.
Perhaps we need to think through how much we need people, as well as how much we need space. Perhaps space will help us to appreciate people more. Perhaps we are beginning to come to grips with the fact that a pandemic does not really care about who you are, or who you think you are. This virus appears to attack anyone it can. While the wealthy have more access to health care—as they always have—even they are not immune.
Genesis (the first book of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, not the musical group) indicates that the human race came from one man and one woman. (Profoundly interesting is the fact that the word “adam” can be a proper name [“Adam”], but it is also the common Hebrew word for humankind.) Even if you don’t believe that Genesis 2-3 is literally true, it suggests a huge Truth: We are all in this thing called life together. “America first,” “my race first,” “my family first,” “me first”—these slogans won’t cut it. We live together; we die together. If we need to keep our distance from others, it needs to be a friendly distance we keep.
“Pursuing God”
“Today, by God’s grace, I am pursuing God with my body, mind, spirit, and soul. I keep pursuing God until God catches me, which he has already done.”
“My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.” (Psalm 63:8, English Standard Version)
The psalmist says that, with his very soul, his very essence, he clings to God. The Hebrew word for “to cling” (davaq) is used for the first time in Genesis 2:24 for the attachment of a man to his lady. It is a rather intense word, to say the least! As Kidner points out, “In the present verse it is strenuous: lit. ‘clings after thee’, as if in hot pursuit. The old translation [i.e., the KJV] remains the best: ‘my soul followeth hard after thee.’”
And yet, the psalmist knows that it isn’t just about his clinging to God. No. In the same breath, he acknowledges that God’s right hand is upholding him. Again, Kidner wisely observes the following: “But it is God himself who makes this possible, and the firmness of his upholding grasp is implied in the allusion to the right hand, the stronger of the two; cf. Isaiah 41:10. There is the same divine-human interplay in Philippians 3:8–14.”[1]
So, is the psalmist in hot pursuit of God, or is God holding the psalmist? The answer is emphatically “Yes!” We are most definitely responsible to pursue God. But we also most definitely need to be aware that God is holding us.
I am reminded of what someone said about human courtship and dating. (I think that I might have heard it first from my mom.) It went something like this: “He chased her and chased her, until finally, she caught him.”
We need to chase God and chase God until God finally catches us. And when God does catch us? What then? Then, we realize that God was holding us all along.
Pursue diligently!
Relax extravagantly! God’s got this. God’s got you and me, too.
[1]Derek Kidner, Psalms 1–72: An Introduction and Commentary, TOTC 15; IVP/Accordance electronic ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 244.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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