WE ARE GOD'S PRIORITY

Getting back to Genesis 2 (first part HERE). Another thing to notice about this God (that I find delightful) is how entirely focused God is on the human. He makes this huge beautiful garden with all the things that a person could want in it for food, well, except meat. And it’s all for the man. There are no other living beings – none that share the breath of life. God is the human’s only companion, and I suspect that the job of tilling and keeping the garden is not all that strenuous. So, the man has a lot of time on his hands. God notices! God says to Godsself, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner (NRSV, 2:18). God notices that the man is lonely. Not only is God focused on the man’s physical needs, not only has he given him the gift of life but he also takes care of his mental health needs. Mind, body, spirit. All are important to God and to us.

So what does God do about this problem? Well he decides to make the human “a helper as his partner.” In Hebrew, the adjective is fitting, a partner fit for him. The KVJ translated this as “meet for him.” Meet, meaning fitting. Now you know where “helpmate” came from. Where was I? A fitting helper. In what I find to be a hilarious image, God creates all the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky and brings them to the human to see what he would call them. My first question is, does he do this one by one? Or are they all lined up behind God so Adam has to sit there all day naming creations?

Here's my vision: Picture the man sitting on a rock or a log, just relaxing, or maybe he’s laying against tree. I picture him as Michelangelo did on the Sistine Chapel:

 He’s just kind of lazily reaching out to God. He seems to barely have energy to lift his hand. I know the feeling. Sitting on his logrock, hanging in the garden, maybe eating some carrots or whatever. And God comes up to him, all excited about his latest creation and waiting to show it to his other creation. I picture God walking up to Adam with a dog or a deer or a mammoth behind his back and then shoving it towards him. “What is it?” And the human looking at it and whatever he says, that’s what it is. What were Adam’s criteria here? Did he just make any sound he felt, or was there some sort of thought behind it. I don’t know why I find that image very funny.

I think the point I’d like to take away is that God is a God who is focused on his creation, his human. He cares about his physical needs as well as his mental health needs. Enough to create millions of other creatures trying to find a helper for him. Someone to alleviate his loneliness. By extension, God cares about all of us; our mental, spiritual and physical health.

And if God cares this much about all of us, maybe we should care about each other. I know I could make caring for others more of a priority in my own life. What about you?

B