Just Us

We are going to have a couple of different devotionals based on Eve. I think there is so much to her story, that its really important that we take some time and just let her come to the surface of our minds, so we can start seeing her with our minds' eye. 

The more I look into her story, the more I realize how similar we all are to her. Adam names her Eve before they leave the garden because it means "mother of all the living". In a strange, prehistoric way, she is a little bit like our mother. (I feel like I just went Star Wars on us, but you know what I mean)

We have a lot to learn from her, and a lot to gain from her life. 

One of the first things I debunked when I went to study Eve's life was the myth that she was some perfect, chiseled, insanely attractive woman. 

I cannot articulate how much I appreciate the fact that Eve’s physical description is left out of the Bible. When I was studying for her, I ran across a John MacArthur book called "Twelve Extraordinary Women" and he had at least three paragraphs talking about how beautiful she must have been. Its probably not ironic that the guy who wrote it was a guy. The assumption that Eve was beautiful and without flaw serves as a stark reminder to all of us of what we could be, or ought to be, or should be- and it kinda makes me want to vomit. We don’t know what Eve looked like. 

Perhaps before the fall, pretty and ugly weren’t things. Maybe they weren’t factors, because we lived in intimacy with each other and with God so closely that the physical and the spiritual and the body and the soul didn’t have the same weight of differentiation. Perhaps Eve was ugly. It’s probably a result of my own sin nature that somehow that makes me feel better. Eve wasn’t vain though. Either way. Not at first. And I like her for it. And I love God for not including in her description in Genesis her waist size, shoe size, ring size, bust size, nose size, hair length, color, eye color…etc. She just was created by God. That is all that is significant here. Oh that we could lay hold of that truth. 

In fact, when we really look at Eve's story its impossible to miss the fact that she was actually the first of any of us to be uglied by sin. Sometimes I wish we could see each other in the spiritual. Man, some of us would have a rude wake-up call. The people we spend idolizing might not have quite as much to offer then. And the people we pass by, or pity, might be the very ones who stand out. 

But I know we all can relate to Eve in that moment when she and Adam were naked, and they were ashamed. That's what sin does to it. It strips us of our worth. There is this really interesting verse in Psalm 82 that for years I've been stumped over, but it seems to fit what we're talking about here: 

"You are all "gods", you are sons of the Most High. But you will die like mere mortals, you will fall like every other ruler." 

That verse kind of sounds like something out of the Odyssey. But its the Bible. We were made to rule over the earth, to subdue it, to not be mastered by any animal, and to not be mastered by any sinful inclination. Sin makes us ugly. It empties us of our godliness- and of our eternal worth until redemption comes and wipes away our offenses like the morning mist. 

I know I have it backwards so much of the time. I think maybe every girl deals with this. We want so badly to be godly, but we want to be the kind of godly that has it all together. Who looks good, talks good, sings good, thinks good, etc. 

You know, Genesis never once mentions what Eve did well. We don't find her singing animals and birds into submission, we don't find her combing her long hair by a reflective pond while fish jump out just for a glimpse of her, she's not journaling intensely beautiful words under some massive tree. All we know is that she was created. In fact, it's not until Cain kills Abel that people start becoming known by what they do- what they offer to creation. (Genesis 5) 

Today I'm making it my goal to just take pride in the fact that God chose to create me. He didn't have to. He could have picked the next egg, (gross) but He chose me. He chose you. You're significant, wonderfully poignant and completely unlike any other created thing. He carried us on His mind before the worlds were made- Psalm 139 tells us. 

I don't want to see y'all by what you do either. Or by what you wear. Or by what you sound like or look like. I just want to enjoy you for who you are, and for the fact that God decided our lives should coincide. And that we should exchange hope on who God is, and grow from each other and with each other. That's kind of a beautiful thing, to strip down our friendships to the essential, pulsating rhythm of heartbeat to heartbeat. Yours and mine, beating before God in tandem. 

Let's take a moment and revel in the gift of existing before Him today.