These days I am working from home and not going out for anything...just staying in and taking care of my Dad. What about you? In light of these days of Covid-19, I find comfort in this isolation, but the isolation also messes with my mind a bit. My sleep is restless and my dreams are full of anxiety and sometimes even terror. Lives are ending at an increasing rate. I hear interviews with Christians on television who say, "Oh, I have prayed and God will take care of me." True. But you may get the virus. And you may die.
I'm sure many are wondering whether God is seeing any value in human life during this time as so many are affected either directly by the illness or by the loss of income. I don't know about you, but I need reassurance that God does know the value of His children and continues to show His love in numerous ways.
John Indeemark's quote from his book, Genesis of Grace: A Lenten Book of Days, gives me just what I need today...remembrance that God values and loves each human life. It also reminds me from whence I came...dust. Thank you, Father, for your love and for the reminder to be humble before you.
"Genesis 2:7 says, 'The Lord God formed man from the dust of the
ground.' It all begins in dust. The creativity of an Amadeus Mozart, the
compassion of a Mother Teresa, the faith of a young Nazarene woman
named Mary— all begotten of dust.
Dust even gave humanity its
first name. In Hebrew, the word for ground or earth is ‘adamah.’ Thus,
in a subtle but revealing play on words, God formed ‘adam’ (Adam) from
the dust of the ‘adamah.’ In the earthy imagery of Genesis, dust not
only describes ‘what’ we are— it actually christens ‘who’ we are. ‘Adam.
Scientists hypothesize that some trace elements in our bodies come from
the dust of stars born of creation’s first explosive light. For
decades, scientists have said that humans are made from stardust; and a
new survey of 150,000 stars shows just how true the old cliché is:
Humans and their galaxy have about 97 percent of the same kind of atoms.
The idea of such an origin surprises some. It shouldn’t. Genesis sees
the same hand that flung galaxies into motion and lit novas to blazing,
as shaping humankind out of dust. Out of dust. The idea sounds so, well,
ordinary. Might not God have been better served by forming the blessed
image-creature with something a bit more noble, a bit more valuable? To
start from a flock of gold would have been nice, or a dollop of crude
oil. Perhaps then we might have valued one another more highly, if for
no other reason than to protect our inherent market value.
But
what is the value of dust? “The Lord God breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life.” It seems that the value of dust, our value, derives
from the breathing of God’s breath— into dust, into us. God would have
had a hard time finding anything more ordinary than dust. Yet, into the
ordinary, God breathes life.
And that becomes one of the very
first clues in Genesis that grace defines the manner of this God towards
creation. What of dust merited the gift of God’s breath moistening its
soiled bits into life? What of dust held the promise of birthing an
infant’s cry or harboring a parent’s love? Such potential would be hard
to discern, even if you put a speck of earth under the penetrating gaze
of an electron microscope. But somehow, the breath of God fashioned
ordinary dust into the living image of God.
We are formed of
dust— which suggests, among other things, not only our humble
beginnings; but our startling potential. For if God can breathe life
into soil, what does that say about the latent potential in our lives?
Who can tell what God’s breath might make of us yet— of will and mind,
of imagination and compassion— opened to the One whose breath is life?
You are formed of dust; a child of God’s creation. Think of the
particular ways in which God graces your existence: with relationships,
with faith, with love, with community. Add to that list those things
(and persons) that trigger your gratitude. In each of those life-gracing
gifts, God breathes life into you. Yet, even those gifts do not exhaust
your life’s possibilities. Relationships can grow; faith can deepen;
love can broaden; community can expand. The potential is there. God has
breathed it into you.
You and I find our origins in the dust, but
Genesis does not leave us there. God’s grace enacted in creation
invokes the promise of those formed from dust— the promise you carry
within you— your potential to be the very image of God. Wow."
~ John Indeemark, Genesis of Grace: A Lenten Book of Days
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