THE SEARCH FOR SIGNIFICANCE #3

CONNECTED TO THE EARTH
In Genesis 1:24 we are told that God said, "Let the land produce living creatures...." and it was so.

The earth brought forth life when God commanded that it should. As it produced the animals, the earth has produced us too. We were made from the dust of the earth, and the same chemicals that make up other living things make up our bodies. We are connected to the earth. Our physical bodies are important. There was no curse on the dust of the earth at this point. It's not sinful to have been made from the earth, it's a good thing. We didn't arrive on a spaceship from some other dimension to be given dominion over the earth. We were given dominion over an earth from which we originated.

BORN OF GOD'S BREATH
We didn’t just come from the earth. God gathered together the dust of the earth, formed it into a human body, and then breathed on it. "Spirit" and "breath" are the same word in a number of languages, including Greek and Hebrew. God's breath is his Spirit.

Could it be that God’s spirit that makes us significant, that brings us love, can be found in the very air that we breathe?

God exhaled his breath, and the figure that he had formed inhaled it and became a living being. Human beings have not only an earthly origin but a divine origin. His image and his likeness, something that corresponds to God, has been given to us from the very beginning with thanks from the breath of God.

How did God form us? God rolled his big sleeves up, and he took the clay, formed it as he wanted, and then breathed on it. And the first thing that the man saw when he awakened was the face of God, near enough to be breathing on him.

Have you ever kissed a baby awake? (I mean a three- or four-month-old baby who is old enough to recognize your face.) Sometimes you spend forever trying to get them to sleep, rocking them until they fall asleep in your arms. Then you don't want to wake them up, so you sit together until nap time is over. Finally when the little one starts to move around, you bend down with a kiss. That little face looks up at yours and breaks into a smile. I think that's the best way to demonstrate what I am talking about here. God kissed Adam awake, and Adam's first vision was filled with God.

Yahweh made a garden for the ones he loved, a perfect place, Our race began in the most intimate of settings with God. And if we long to be ‘the intimate’ of someone, to be connected someplace, if our hearts cry out for a life to be shared with someone, or if we are even fools for love, it is because we were made to be loved. The first experience that a human had was to see the face of God when he awoke.

Romans 8 also tells us this: "For you did not receive a spirit [breath] that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."

So what has God done for us so we can feel significance in his sight, so we can feel love in his presence? I believe the God sized void for us to feel significant, for us to feel loved, is filled by the Holy Spirit received by the very breath of God.