Forever ago, we left Cain and the Lord having a conversation.
“Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it'” (Gen. 4:6-7).
Remember that? What happened next?
“Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him” (Gen. 4:8).
Wow. Depending on the translation, Cain said to Abel his brother, “Let’s go to the field,” then he killed him. Or they were talking and went to a field, then he rose up and slew him. Or he told him (what the Lord had said?) and it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Basically, there is no way to slice this pie to make it any more palatable than it already isn’t.
Notice that God is there all along. “Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel your brother?'” (Gen. 4:9a). God is not an idea or a philosophy or a vain wish. He is a person. As such, He often initiates conversations with His children. Of course, sometimes when talking to children, we ask questions to which we already know the answers either to help lead them to the point or to get them to admit what they have done. As we will see, both may be the case in this scenario.
“And he said, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?'” How did you read that sentence “Am I my brother’s keeper”? Often, I have heard it read with the attitude of a sulky teenager. “Where is Abel?” “I dunno know…am I my brother’s keeper?” Shrug of the shoulders, slight roll of the eyes. But let’s explore the situation at a deeper level.
In this fallen world, animals have died. God provided garments of skin for Adam and Eve’s post-Eden wardrobe, and as we saw earlier in the chapter, animals were an acceptable sacrifice to God. But no humans had died yet. Imagine that. There had never been a human body without the breath of life in it. Far from an attitudinal teenager, Cain is a grown man whose younger brother has succeeded where he has failed. God warned Cain that sin was crouching at his door, that its desire was for him, but that he must master it. But alas, Cain did not.
Thus it was that in a fit of rage, Cain rises up against his brother Abel and kills him. Maybe he struck him repeatedly; maybe one blow was all it took. Abel went down, breathless, lifeless. Maybe Cain gently touched the body… “Abel?” No response. Maybe Cain shook Abel’s shoulder, or maybe he shrank away, “Abel!” Nothing.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know, Lord. I don’t know! Where is he? I was angry…I didn’t listen, Lord, I… I don’t know where he is. I don’t know what has happened. Am I my brother’s keeper? Am I responsible for this?”
And God said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.”
Cain’s world was shaken. The ground was his pride; the ground provided his offering (which, as you’ll remember, was unacceptable anyway). And now, just as his father Adam was cursed through the ground, Cain was cursed from the ground. See that change of direction? When Adam sinned, God cursed the ground because of him (see Gen. 3). When Cain sinned, God cursed Cain from the ground. Why? The ground had opened its mouth to receive Abel’s blood from Cain’s hand. Now, when Cain cultivated the ground, his pride and identity, it would no longer yield its strength to him.
I used to wonder why didn’t the Lord kill Cain? Why was he allowed to live? In Exodus 21:12-14, this is the law of the Lord, “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint you a place to which he may flee. If, however, a man acts presumptuously toward his neighbor, so as to kill him craftily, you are to take him even from My altar, that he may die.” Cain did not lie in wait and plot craftily to murder him. See here reason #1,754,928 why God is so much more merciful than I. God appoints entire cities where men can go who have a killed a man. Why did God let Abel fall into Cain’s hands? I don’t know. But He did. And Cain was allowed to be a wanderer on the earth. See also Deuteronomy 19:1-13 for the instructions the Lord gave the Israelites when they were to receive their own land.
“Cain said to the Lord, ‘My punishment is too great to bear! Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.'” Look at the order in which Cain makes his complaint: 1) You’ve driven me from the ground, then 2) oh, and also Your face, Lord, will be hidden from me, and lastly 3) I’ll be a wanderer and whoever finds me will kill me.
This is what sin, or specifically idols, do, people! They make themselves out to be these grand things that we cannot live without. We set them in our hearts above the Lord, and then (get this!) we actually ask–no, plead–for the Lord to give them to us! Woe to us on the day that we mourn not having our idols over mourning the day that the Lord hides His face from us! Oh children of God, may we turn our hearts back to Him! May we desire Him above all else and never set our affections on things (success, family, relationships, houses, possessions, jobs, self-sufficiency) that were never intended to satisfy us, that cannot satisfy that thirst in our souls for more, for something better and bigger than ourselves.
I can testify that God can change the desires of our hearts. Sin is crouching at our doors, and its desire is for us, but we serve the God Who can master it! Self-serving Christians use Psalm 37:4 (“Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart”) to mean that whatever I want (as long as I am delighting myself in the Lord while I’m desiring it), I will get. But the beginning of that Psalm is about not fretting when evildoers and wrongdoers seem to win. For they fade and quickly wither. But (verse 2) “Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.” What it does not say is, “Wallow in self-pity for what you do not have. God will give you what you want eventually” or “Believe it long enough and hard enough, and it will come true” (oh wait, was that in Finding Neverland?).
“Trust in the Lord.” Know that He is righteous and sovereign and absolutely wonderful. Cling to Him in your sadness, in your hopefulness, in your tiredness, in your whatever. Trust Him.
“And do good.” Live a life of service. Encourage others. Ladies, we’ve mentioned before, but it’s worth noting again, part of our good is maintaining our homes. I can attest (and poor Andrew can, too) to the fact that our home maintenance may falter horribly during times of stress and grief. Our little apartment looked a mess from June 10 until just a week or two ago. But I was given a wonderful word of advice, shortly after losing our little one: “Don’t let this define you. Have your time of mourning. Grieve that baby–that was your child. But don’t let it define you.” There is an appropriate amount of time (and an appropriate way) to grieve, but then there is a time to trust the Lord and do good. There is a time to live an orderly life again to testify to the fact that God brings order out of chaos, beauty from despair, the spirit of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Doing good is a way to reflect God’s character, even in troubled times.
“Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.” Keep living life. Though there are those evildoers and wrongdoers mentioned in verse 1, live your life and cultivate faithfulness. Isn’t that such a beautiful phrase? Faithfulness doesn’t just happen. We cultivate it when we turn our hearts, minds, and souls to the Lord and His work no matter what He sends our way. This week, I was listening to a lady who wrote the book The God of All Comfort. She was discussing Job 1 when Satan comes before the Lord. When God mentions His servant Job, Satan retorts, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face.” Satan’s premise is that no one serves God for who He is but rather for what He can give. And how sad it is that so oftentimes people leave the Lord because of what He didn’t give them! Or how often is it that we take matters into our own hands because God just wasn’t working on our schedule or according to our plan. Lord have mercy.
“Trust in the LORD and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.” When you do all those first four things, then delight yourself in the Lord. He will give your heart its desires–not what your heart wants He gives, but rather He takes a desire and puts it in your heart. He literally gives to your heart what it is to desire.
Whew! We seem to have strayed far from the story of Cain, but in reality I was weaving a very long path back to it. Because this blog is a Bible study for women, let’s consider for a moment what was going through Eve’s mind (and heart) during the course of all these events. Eve, the mother of all the living, is now the mother of all the living and one who is dead. Cain is exiled to be a wanderer, and the Lord has appointed a sign for him, so that no one would kill him. Not only is she mourning the death of her son Abel, but she also has to learn to reconcile that it was her other son who killed him and he, Cain, is also lost to her now. Cain and his wife (who was also Adam and Eve’s child) left and settled in Nod, out of the presence of the Lord.
How that would tear a mother’s heart! Do you think she yearned for yesterday, when her son was still alive? that she thought “if only this hadn’t happened; if only I had seen it coming; if only I could change it”? Sisters, that is a dangerous place to camp out for long. Might-have-been’s, could-be’s, and should-have-been’s have no place in the Christian life. We don’t serve a God of possibilities but a God of reality. He is I AM. Deal with what is.
I was thinking about Eve imagining life differently when I realized today I would be 16 weeks pregnant. I looked up where the baby would have been developmentally, where she will never be. It hit me, that some rituals help us remember. I’d like to visit the National Memorial for the Unborn where she will have her little brick paver around when her birthday would have been or a year from when we lost her. But some rituals are unhealthy and obsessive. I am not 16 weeks along, and she is not starting to be able to lift her head and move from a curled-up position. She didn’t make it that far. And that’s ok. Where she is today she can run and dance and sing and praise. Another wonderful encouragement someone else gave me that has proven true is that losing this baby has made heaven so much more real to me. It’s not an idea. God’s there. And now she’s there. And we’ll see them before we know it. Literally.
After her perfect beginning, Eve experienced so much pain in her life. The temptation, I’m sure, was great to imagine or compare or live in a fantasy world. Life is hard. Embrace that. Live with it. Deal with it. It’s the truth. But don’t get stuck there. Don’t stay in that sad place.
God is good and merciful and just and wonderful. Embrace that. Live with it. Deal with it. It’s the truth. It’s the best place to be. That’s why the Psalmist sang in Psalm 42, “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.”
Read Psalm 42, in the context of whatever you’re going through but also considering how Eve may have read it, if she had had it after Abel’s death and Cain’s exile. Meditate on the words, and pray that God opens your eyes to areas in your heart that are downcast or in despair and not hoping and praising the lifter of your head.
I had to ask myself today, Why are you downcast, O my soul? Put your hope in God. I will yet praise Him, my Saviour and my God.
ishsha 