Genesis 2

The Explanation

The whole world was finished. Sun, moon, stars, seas, birds, beetles, everything. And on the seventh day God stopped working. He rested. Not because He was tired, but because it was good. He blessed that day and made it special, a day set apart, different from all the others.

But go back for a moment, to when the ground was still bare. No grass. No thistles. No rain had ever fallen. Only a mist rising up out of the earth, wetting the whole surface, like the fog on a cold morning.

And then God bent down.

He took dust. Ordinary brown dust of the ground, the kind that sticks to your hands. And with that dust He formed a man. Head, shoulders, fingers, feet. But the man lay still. He was not alive yet.

Then God came close, very close, and breathed into his nose the breath of life. And the man breathed in. His chest went up. His eyes opened. He was alive.

Can you feel how close God came to make you? Not from far away. Nose to nose.

God planted a garden in the east, in a place called Eden, and He put the man there. Trees grew everywhere, beautiful to look at and full of fruit you could eat. Right in the middle stood two special trees: the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river ran out of Eden, and it split into four: the Pishon, the Gihon, the Hiddekel and the Euphrates. In one of those lands there was gold, good gold, and shining stones.

The man got work to do. He had to work the garden and keep it. And God gave him one rule. Just one. "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden," God said. Every tree! But not that one in the middle. "In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die."

Then God said something surprising. "It is not good for the man to be alone." Everything else was good, good, very good. But this was not good. So God formed animals out of the ground and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Lion. Owl. Donkey. Grasshopper. Whatever the man said, that became its name.

But when the last animal walked away, the man was still alone. Not one of them fit him.

So God made the man fall into a deep sleep. He took one of his ribs, closed the place up again, and out of that rib He built a woman. Then He brought her to the man, like a gift.

The man was wide awake now. "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh!" he said. Finally. Someone like him.

What Does This Mean?

You are not an accident. God made you with His own hands, out of dust, and He breathed His own breath into you. That is why every person is precious, even the ones nobody notices.

And notice what kind of God this is. He gives a whole garden and holds back one tree. He sees loneliness and does something about it. He rests, and He teaches us to rest too.

The Common Thread

There was a tree of life in the middle of that garden. Later people could not reach it anymore, because sin came in. But Jesus went to a tree too, a cross of dead wood, and He died there so that we could live forever with God. The first man was made from dust and got life breathed into him. Jesus gives life again, real life, that never ends.

For You

Take one moment today to rest, like God did. Sit still for two minutes and look at something God made, a leaf, a bird, your own hand. Say thank you out loud. And this week, watch for someone who is alone at school. Go stand next to them. God does not like alone.

Talk About It

If you had been the man, what name would you have given the elephant, and why?

God said it is not good to be alone. When do you feel alone, and who could you go to?

Praying Together

Lord God, thank You that You made me with Your own hands. Thank You that You breathed life into me. Help me to rest, and help me to see people who are alone. Amen.