Gotta Have Faith

Sometimes you wonder what you could possibly learn from passages like Genesis 5. It's basically a genealogy of Adam and his descendants. What's so amazing about this, however, is that having this part of scripture can be quite helpful. It seems that our faith is strengthened when we recall what God has done.

I think of Abraham, for example. God had promised him a son. Years and years passed, and God's promised was unfulfilled ... YET. Abraham and Sarah were old - I can only imagine how hard it would be to believe that God would give them an heir at their ages. However, they had a gift - a gift of looking back to what God had done years earlier, for in the genealogy of Adam recounted in Genesis 5, we read that children were conceived when their fathers were older (sometimes quite older!):

• Adam had Seth when he was 130
• Seth had Enosh when he was 105
• Enosh had Kenan when he was 90
• Kenan had Mahalalel when he was 70
• Mahalalel had Jared when he was 65
• Jared had Enoch when he was 162
• Enoch had Methuselah when he was 65
• Methuselah had Lamech when he was 187
• Lamech had Noah when he was 182
• Noah had his sons when he was 500!!!

One of the points here must be the importance of recounting the faithfulness of God. He had provided then, and He would provide again. What a great reminder for us as we head into another year. We, too, can look back at the past and see God's hand of faithfulness at work. And may that encourage us to continue to trust in Him for all things.