This is the written account of the descendants of Adam. When God created human beings, he made them to be like himself. He created them male and female, and he blessed them and called them “human.” (Genesis 5:1-2)
I am a person who really needs hope. When I find myself in a season of life where hope seems to have disappeared, I become really blue, almost like I am depressed. So hope is vitally important to me.
As I think about hope, I realize that there are many different kinds of hope, and I need them all so I can be a whole person that faces the challenges of life with a sure and certain confidence, not in myself, but in the source of my hope: God.
Genesis 5:1-2 gives me hope because it proclaims God’s faithfulness. After the Fall, when all of God’s good creation was broken, and after the first murder, and act that represents the worst of humanity’s corruption and self-destructive bent, God could have washed His hands of the entire exercise, blown it up and started over. But He didn’t. He remained faithful to His creation and re-affirmed the core commitment He gave to human beings when He first made it and all things were very good.
Even in our broken state, even with all our faults and failures, even in the face of over-whelming guilt, soul-crushing shame, and life-draining disease and death, you and I are still hand-crafted, artisan-designed, beloved creations of the Great Artist, Who made us in His image. He intentionally created us in the diversity of male and female beings, each a unique design, but all equal in value and being loved. God has blessed us and keeps blessing us, and calls us “human”—distinct from God and below Him, and yet God has honored us by putting us in charge of all that He has made. More than higher order animals, we are God’s representatives who have been given the awesome privilege of reflecting His life-giving and healing love and hope-filled care into the world.
In our darkest moments, there is still hope because God is faithful.
Dear Father, thank You for Your faithful love. Please help me to look to You for the hope I need. As I live in that hope, please work in me to overflow Your hope into the lives of others. Amen.
Farewell to Shadowlands 