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Exchanged Glory IV: A Time for Every Purpose
<page 121>God has a time and a way for everything – an appointment for every purpose under heaven.
As I tried to work with my emotions, I found them hard to understand. Why did I so often feel anger, frustration, and disappointment when I wanted to feel love, peace, and joy? One day I sensed the Holy Spirit giving me help from an unexpected place – from the names of Adam’s and Eve’s children in Genesis 4.[84] The first son mentioned was Cain.
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, "I have acquired a man from the LORD.”
The name ‘Cain’ comes from the Hebrew word ‘qayin,’ which means ‘to acquire.’ When Cain was born, life was a new experience for Eve. His name expressed her excitement over the possibilities before her, and especially her anticipations as a new mother. Her child was a wonderful gift from God. She saw him as a symbol of all she could acquire.
Many of us move out into life with this same simple wonder. We see what the earth has to offer, and we want to seize as much good as we can. We are inspired by the opportunities God has made available, and we seek to enjoy them to the fullest.
I believe that this hope is a gift from our Creator. We may abuse it by turning it toward selfish pursuits, but He is the One who put the hope within us. He has given us a set of what I call “acquiring emotions,” feelings like love, curiosity, excitement, enjoyment, and satisfaction that motivate us to go out and explore both the natural and the spiritual parts of life.
There are times and seasons for our acquiring emotions, and when we miss those times and seasons we get into trouble. For example, we may try to pile up treasures according to our plan rather than God’s, bringing pain as we attempt to reshape the world according to our desires. It doesn’t have to be this way, however. We can submit our desires to Him, and He will use them to benefit the world.
Then she had another baby, Abel. …
(Genesis 4:2, The Message)
<page 122> ‘Abel’ is from the Hebrew word ‘hebel,’ which means “vanity, emptiness, or unsatisfactory.” I believe that by the time Abel was born, Eve had realized that her life was not going to be what she had hoped. A reality called “sin and death”[85] had invaded the earth, and it brought intense disappointment with it.
She had, no doubt, spent countless hours in the grime and sweat of hard work as she toiled with Adam to make the ground produce food (Genesis 3:17-19). She had also chased after selfish little Cain as he pursued his own acquiring agenda. This child who had inspired so much hope was not turning out to be the uninterrupted joy she had expected. He was much more concerned with getting his own way than with making mommy happy.
The strain of it all was taking its toll on her marriage, and the resulting conflicts brought pain to her heart. She and Adam were two sinners trying to get by in a cursed world, and Eve was starting to realize how much that could hurt.
She wasn’t nearly as excited about Abel as she had been about Cain. She gave him a name that expressed her dissatisfaction …and Abel’s whole life on earth was an example of the meaning of that name. He walked righteously with God and yet was killed by someone who should have cared for him:
… Cain came at Abel his brother and killed him.
(Genesis 4:8, The Message)
In worldly terms, all of Abel’s acquiring emotions came to very little. He left no heir, no enduring monument to his accomplishments – just a little story about his pointless death. It’s true that in the final judgment he will do well (Hebrews 11:4), but that wasn’t the way it looked on earth. His efforts had been frustrated and brought to an end.
When those around him saw the injustice, they were no doubt distraught, fearful, and grieved. They felt what Solomon in Ecclesiastes described using the same word Eve used for Abel’s name, ‘hebel’ – which is translated ‘vanity.’ It refers to the universal human experience of having sin and death come into our lives to eat away at our dreams. They drain the joy that our acquiring emotions at one time seemed to promise.
This book has contained several examples of this sort of battle in my life. In Chapter Two, “Family Blessings,” a sickness threatened the happiness I hoped to give my daughter. Later, my encounter with prodigals disrupted what I had tried to acquire for my family. Then my mother’s cancer brought a confrontation with the reality of death. Finally, prostatitis came against my desire for a happy, healthy life with my wife.
All of these experiences threatened the love, peace, and joy I hoped would fill my life. They were examples of the fact that if I wanted to find fulfillment on the earth, my acquiring emotions would not be enough. I needed to find an answer for the hebel (abel) of life.[86] That answer is hinted at in the third child mentioned in Genesis 4, Seth.
<page 123>And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, "For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed."
After grieving the loss of Abel, Eve found that our disappointments can be God’s appointments (the name Seth comes from the Hebrew word ‘shiyth,’ ‘to appoint’). God has a way of stepping into the middle of situations stained by sin and death so that He can bring His purposes. He works all things together for good for those who love Him (Romans 8:28).
Seth is the man who God appointed to produce a godly family lineage. The entire family tree that came through Adam and Eve’s other children was destroyed in the flood of Genesis 6. Only Seth’s descendants, Noah and his children, survived to preserve the human race. It was sad that Abel died, but that tragedy didn’t end God’s goodness in the earth.
This book has shared several examples of God’s appointments in my life. In the Chapter Two, “Life on the Ground – Family Blessings,” when my daughter was sick, the Spirit of God touched her through worship songs to draw her closer to Jesus.[87] When I had to deal with family troubles, God taught me how to work with my emotions.[88] Through my mother’s cancer, He opened my eyes to better understand the issues of my life.[89] Through prostatitis, He helped me to overcome a sexual plague that had threatened me for over thirty years.[90]
God has a time and a way for everything – an appointment for every purpose under heaven.
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