21 DAYS - Day One

For the next 21 Days, we're on a journey as a church to devote ourselves to Jesus and to prayer. I invite you walk along with us by giving God the first part of our year, the first part of day.

Day One - January 5

Daily Reading: Gen 5:15-6:22; Mat 2:13-23

Memory Verse: Gen. 5:24 “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him”

Sometimes my wife and I will take walks together. It’s one of my favorite times—especially in the Spring. Sometimes we will comment on what we see around us: a wildflower poking up through the rocks, a squirrel scurrying up the tree, a budding dogwood. Other times, we walk and say nothing. But there is unspoken communication, an unspoken reality: “I’m not alone.”

Enoch walked with God. He didn’t just know about God. He didn’t just talk to God now and then. He saw life as a journey with God. The Bible doesn’t say much more about this man. But that’s a great testimony by itself. He lived 365 years—one year for every day of the year, a long, full life! Then from what we can see in this verse, Enoch simply disappeared. He walked so close with God that at some point God opened a doorway from this sphere into the eternal reality and Enoch just walked right in.

During these next 21 days, I challenge you to simply ‘walk with God.’ How would your prayers change if you saw yourself walking with God? Maybe try that now and then. Bundle up and take a walk, in the morning preferably. If not, try it on your lunch hour or in the evening. Talk to God about everything: what you’re looking at, your thanks, your worries, your fears. If not a literal walk, take a walk through the garden of your heart with Jesus and talk with Him about what you see: the weeds of unforgiveness, the rocks of gratitude, the briars of worry and care. Soon you’ll experience the truth: “I’m not alone. God is with me.”

Prayer: Father, thank you that You are the kind of God who does not remain at a distance. You want to walk with us. I want to desire that more and to experience You in the everyday rhythms of life. Help me to draw near to You through Your Son, Jesus and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

For further study: Did people really live this long and if so, why?

Answer: The Bible should be taken literally unless there is a good reason to believe it is figurative language. I believe they really lived this long during this era. After the flood, life spans decreased.

Why did God begin to shorten the lifespan? First, because of mercy. In Gen. 6:3, we read, “Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with^[b] humans forever, for they are mortal^[c]; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.” In mercy, God shortened the lifespans. How is that merciful you say? Some things don’t get better with age. Imagine a jar of honey that gets thicker and thicker until it is hard and eventually rancid. Get the idea? Imagine a cranky old man who continues to get crankier by the day. Let him live 600 years and what do you have? It’s not pretty!

Secondly, the lifespans seem linked to life before the flood. Whatever catastrophic events that may have been connected with the flood may have changed the earth’s atmosphere in such a way that life on earth was altered. It may have been a change in ultraviolet rays or something like that. The Bible doesn’t give us much in the way of scientific detail so we should be careful not to give in to fables and conjecture here. But something changed and it was God’s choice.