Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Hmmm Interesting!*

 (photo by Expressive Praise)
Last night when I spent my alone time with God, I started thinking about how I should be 
more intimate with God. I tried thinking of people in the Bible I could research who had an intimate relationship with God and I could follow their example. You may think it sounds strange to ask about who has an intimate relationship with God because some people associate intimacy with their lover or sex. I am not talking about that kind of intimacy.  

In the Webster's New World Dictionary and Thesaurus, it defines intimacy as very close or familiar; deep and thorough; and private or personal.


When I say I want an intimate relationship with God, I mean that I want a very close and deep relationship with Him.  I want to know Him more. What does God like? What does He desire for me? When one has an intimate relationship with someone, he/she will try to learn all about that person. What do they like? What are their goals or aspirations?  What are their hobbies? What do they do outside of work? Are they a Christian or are they totally against God? What is their favorite color?  What do they like to do for fun? What is their favorite meal? How do they like to spend quality time with you?  One can not learn about the other if they do not communicate to each other. 



I sometimes imagine God sitting beside me and talking to me. I try to sit still and listen to His quiet voice and then, I communicate with Him. I will tell Him things that I like about Him (praising Him) or I may share a need that I have for me or others (interceding). Other times I may just talk excitedly in my thoughts or out loud and just tell Him all the great things that are happening in my life. I know this may sound crazy because He already knows everything. Yet it's in those times that when we stop and communicate with God, that they may be the most precious moments we have with Him.  But if we are doing all the talking then we are missing out on LISTENING to HIM about HIS desires, HIS love, and HIS will. HE desires a two-way communication.

Okay, so getting back to my little Bible study I did. I desire to have a strong, intimate relationship with God.  Because I want to be as close to God as I can, I tried to think of someone in the Bible who had an intimate relationship with God. While trying to think of people, I came to the conclusion that Enoch must have had an intimate relationship with God, so here it goes.


When I first started researching information about Enoch, I did not realize that there were two of them in the Bible.  I started studying one of them in Genesis 4 and realized I was researching the wrong one. The first Enoch you hear about is the one who is the son of Cain also known as the son of Adam and Eve. Cain was not a good person because he killed his brother Abel, so therefore, his parents, Adam and Eve, had to have another son, Seth, who would be a family link from Adam to Jesus' birth.


I want to talk to you about the second Enoch that is in the Bible; this "Enoch" is the son of Jared.  First, we read in the paragraph above that Seth is a son of Adam and Eve. In Genesis 5:6 Seth had a son named Enosh and then Enosh had Kenan; Kenan had Mahalalel; and Mahalalel had Jared. When Jared was a ripe age of 162 years old, he had Enoch. Enoch was the sixth person born in Adam's line from Adam to Jesus.  So now we know that Enoch's dad is Jared. We don't know much about him except after he had Enoch, he lived 800 more years and had sons and daughters.  I wonder if he was still having children while he was at the age of 789. What kind of father was Jared to Enoch and his siblings? Were Jared and his wife strong believers in God?  Did they teach their children to serve God? How was Enoch's mom in all of this? Actually how OLD was she at the time all of her children were born and how many were there? Were they changing diapers at this old age? 


It doesn't mention the age of Enoch's mother, let alone her name. I think anyone having a husband for over 800 years deserves to be named. You know, she could have died at an earlier age after all her kids were born. We will never know, until we get to Heaven. Okay so now Jared dies at an old age of 962 years. Wow, I wonder what they used for wrinkle cream back then. Did he have a lot of people at his funeral or did he outlive his friends and family? Sometimes I think that 40-50 years on earth is a long time; I couldn't imagine living 800 more years. Wow, that just seems so long!


In Genesis 5:18-21, Enoch lived only sixty-five years before he had Methuselah. I said "only" sixty-five years because it just seems so young compared to the age his father was when he had Enoch; Jared was 162 years of age. Sixty-five years sounds like a baby when you think about that Jared died at 962 years. Any way, after Enoch had Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years and had sons and daughters within that time frame.  The Bible doesn't mention that Enoch walked with God before Methuselah so I wonder what happened in Enoch's life to get him to that point of wanting to walk with God. Was Methuselah one of those miracle babies that was going to die and they needed lots of prayer to keep him alive or did something else happen around that time?  I was thinking that he might have had some kind of encounter with God or some kind of closeness or intimacy with God. Did Enoch's parents train him to live a godly life? Maybe at one time, Enoch was living for God, but when he became a teenager or young adult at the age of 65 (lol), maybe he started living the way his parents taught him to live. We can only speculate at this time because not much is said.


In Genesis 5:23-24 "Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years.  Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away."


Can you imagine that being in the news about you or I.  NEWS FLASH!!! "Susan lived 365 years. Susan walked with God; then she was no more, because God took her away."  I can just see the headlines now, making fun of this event or doing some kind of report on a mysterious missing person of some UFO sighting that must have abducted Susan. 


The Bible does not mention how he disappeared or how he was taken. It just says that Enoch walked with God and then God took him. Period. He's gone; The end... but why? Why did God take Enoch away?


Hebrews 11:5-6  "By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."


Can you imagine one day, your father or your husband had just disappeared? Did Enoch's wife or children get the warning ahead of time that he was leaving this earth? Did his wife look for him everywhere and were the police investigating what happened? Was there a search party for him? Was his wife or children not pleasing God like he did? Wow, he was walking with God and then poof, he's gone; because he pleased God.  Does God still take people off of this earth when they are walking with God?



What do we know about Enoch?  The only other thing I could find about Enoch was in Jude 14 where it says that Enoch prophesied. Okay, so we know that Enoch had children, a wife, and many siblings; plus he walked with God and he prophesied. That's about all we know. 


How do you think Enoch walked with God? When it says that he walked with God, I imagine him doing everything in his life he could, to please God. Are we pleasing God or are we pleasing our own earthly desires? Are we living on this earth just to fill space until it's our time to leave this earth, or are we living on this earth in doing God's will and pleasing Him.  Do we include God in our everyday life? or Are we just a Sunday Christian; do we pray and sing to God only on Sundays?



I challenge you (and myself) to walk with God. Be so close to God that you can listen to His heartbeat. When you are listening for a heartbeat on a person, you have to be still and be quiet so you can hear it beat. When is the last time we heard God's heartbeat? How can we please God, our creator? We are on this earth for a reason; there is a special reason why God chose us to be born? He did not have to include you when he created people and their souls. I mean, he knew you and I would be born ahead of time. I am pretty sure God could have said, "hmm,  I know the future and in 1994, Tanya will not please me so let's not even create her soul."  Thankfully He did not do that for probably none of us would be born and He doesn't want robots serving Him.  Do you like it when people do things for you because they love it or just because they have to? Now put those thoughts and ideas into serving and pleasing God. You will be amazed how enjoyable it becomes.

Oh, I forgot to mention: about the thing of how Enoch served and pleased God and then God took him. Yes, I believe that was a special case. I can't imagine God taking everyone away who pleased Him. It was something special that God did with Enoch at that time, and hopefully in the eternal future, we will see or understand why He did that. Be free to please God; He might just bless your socks off.



Note: If you would like to read information about the genealogy of how Adam, Seth, and Enoch are in the ancestry of Jesus, read 1 Chronicles chapter 1 (refer to verse 3) and also read Luke 3:38.


Note: all scripture in this post is from the (New International Version) NIV, 1984 edition.




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