How are you going to spend your time and be remembered?

How many of you have ever heard the old saying well old so and so is as old as Methuselah?  Did you wonder where it came from and didn't know?  Well, God's Word!  Specifically in Genesis 5 we are told that Methuselah lived to be 969 years old.  Do you wonder how in the world he felt?  Did he ache?  Did his bones make noises when he stood up?  

Today, the thought that throughout the reading kept coming to mind was it's all about God's timing.  I've often heard people wonder why people don't live longer and we are told specifically in chapter 6 of Genesis that God decided that the normal life span will be no more than 120 years.  We are told why people don't live like Methuselah anymore too in the same chapter because The Lord's spirit will not put up with humans for they are only mortal flesh.  God is so patient with all of us when they lived to be 900 and now when we live to less than 120 and we still make similar decisions to Cain, Abel and Noah that were mentioned in the reading.  Some good choices and some bad choices, but yet God provides a way for each of us in spite of our choices.

The reading today was Genesis 4 -6 with a closer look at Cain and Abel, the account of men from Adam to Noah's children and then a closer look at Noah in chapter 6.  The phrase that totally grasp my attention today was lived in close relationship with God. The phrase is used with both Enoch and Noah.  Enoch in Chapter 5:22 and 24 and again in chapter 6:9, so I researched the words and found that in Hebrew the word is yithhallech, which means he set himself to walk, he was determined.  Both of these men made a choice to be in fellowship/relationship with God that they knew what God wanted from them and they decided to make these choices. We found in the story of Cain and Abel that Cain brought what he could get by with and Abel brought his best.  Do you think they had any idea what they were suppose to do?  Relationship is how we all know and the only way to know what God desires is to be in His Word.

I felt that Cain wasn't a bad person, he just did what he could to get by.  He didn't bring his "A" game, he made a choice to simply bring "some" of his crops not his best, but his brother brought his very best.  How often are we tired and rundown, so we glimpse over God's Word?  We don't listen for what He is trying to tell us, because we are tired and we think we know what He wants?

Well, the reading spoke to my heart today by saying know God by spending time with Him!  Isn't it amazing that these two men knew God and determined to walk with Him.  Also, that forever and ever they are remembered in His Word for exactly that?  How do you want to be remembered?  Do you want to be remembered for spending time with Him?  

On a side note, put yourself in Noah's shoes.  You know God, you spend time with Him and He instructs you that he intends to destroy the creatures and for you to build a boat with all the instructions.  Noah also knew his neighbors and spent time with them.  Who did He follow?  His neighbors that you know he cared about or God?  Sometimes, we must make difficult, hard choices and follow God.  

Sweet blessings,

Deb