Communion Meditation From Genesis 2

Gen 2:7-15... One of the things that was always a delight for my wife and I when our girls were

young was watching them in every new circumstance. We loved to see their expressions of delight

or surprise as they saw something new for the first time, or to enter into their joy and delight in

some new experience. Our oldest was always fascinated by animals and her first question

inevitably was does it bite. Our youngest was always more guarded in new situations, but there was

a particular grin that crept across her face that told us when it was a success.

Since God made us and imprinted His image on us, I suspect He took delight in watching Adam

as he explored his new world. What an experience it must have been as Adam saw, smelled,

heard, tasted and touched everything for the first time. Talk about a kid in a candy shop! When

God breathed life into him, he made Adam the most intelligent, the most handsome and the most

industrious man in the world. And though God created him with a mature intellect, he also gave him

an uninhibited curiosity and innocence in order to take in the new creation. I would love to have

seen his face and watched his reactions as he explored that unblemished world that God called

good. God designed into the new world a maturity that provided an immediate food source for

Adam. Fruit trees speckled with fruits of all colors, bushes loaded with various berries, plants lush

with vegetables, all for Adam to enjoy. He might have marveled at the gushing water source that

supplied the four rivers mentioned in vs 11-14. Curiosity may have moved him to collect some of

the gorgeous gems and gold nuggets that adorned the ground. I was curious about bdellium. It

would seem that it was a pungent and aromatic resin that came from a tree where it would bead

up as it seeped out through the bark and would harden looking like amber pearls. What a sight that

must have been. The garden was most likely a botanists dream, full of fragrant flowers in a myriad

of colors. There were no weeds, no mosquitos, nothing to blemish that perfect paradise. Every day

was perfect. The climate was always temperate. The garden was watered by a morning dew. Every

night was warm and clear and the stars and moon were his night light. As Adam walked through

that environment every nerve in his body must have vibrated with excitement and wonder and

anticipation, for you see it was all brand new...every sight every smell everything that touched his

senses. If you had asked Adam to remember yesterday, he would not have been able to, for

yesterday he did not exist. But today, he was alive. He might well have said "I am". Yesterday I was

not, but today I am. I feel, I think, I reason, I see, I hear, I have purpose... I AM ALIVE and God has

made me so. And He is my friend, my nurturer, my guardian, the source of my life. And I shall live

forever enjoying all that God has made. I like being.

Vs 16,17... I can only imagine Adams dialogue with God on this subject. I would die? What is

death? Is death like yesterday when I did not feel or think or reason or see? Is death like when I was

not?

No Adam. That is not death. Death is to have tasted the joy of life, and to have that joy moved out

of your reach. Death is to have experienced the hope of eternal pleasure, and then to know forever

that you forfeited it. Death is to lose the feeling of every nerve vibrating with excitement and instead

feel every nerve throb with pain. Death is to know My love as your provider, guardian, protector and

friend and then to be separated from My love forever..... with every memory keenly intact.

Adam may have thought, death sounds formidable. But in such a paradise as this I cannot

imagine that death could be real. And besides God loves me, He wouldn’t really allow me to die for

eating a piece of fruit, and yet...

Vs 19-20a... Now remember sin had not entered the world. When Adam gave the Lion its name,

the lamb could well have been grazing beside it, for God had created the animals to eat plants.

There was no animal that was foreign to him. There was none of which he was afraid. They were,

temporarily at least, his minions, his playmates, his companions. When we read in vs 20 that he

gave names to all cattle etc. I couldn’t help but wonder if he not only named the species, but gave