Daily Lesson for January 8, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 2 verses 4b through 7:

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Before the earth was even tilled or watered from above, it was already preparing itself for life. The stream would rise by the force of the wind or moon and wet the ground, readying the dust of the earth to be shaped and to be formed into a human being. 

The old theologians would call this Prevenient Grace — the grace that goes before us to prepare our way.

God is already at work in the earth now, preparing what is necessary for our journey ahead. God is already making provision for what and who we are to be. The earth is being watered now that who we are to be might be made possible.

Paul Tillich called God “the ground upon which all beings exist”.  This “ground of being” is the power of life within all being.  It is the power animating history to some end — life and life everlasting. 

The forces of non-being are strong and mighty and have the power to destroy us as persons and as a planet. To think on this without hope is to despair — literally to be “without breath”.  But we do not live without hope. The ground of being dwells preveniently in us and in the world, and God has breathed the breath of life into our dust.

So there is always reason to hope. For there is always life. And there is always within us then the will to live. 

And though we are dust and to dust we shall return, the ground of our being reaches out to grab and take of breath and life and shall not let it go. 

This is what it means to “choose life” — to chose to find a way to go on living today no matter if the rains never fall and the earth is never tilled.