The Short Journey

Both our origin and our destiny connect us to the dirt.  In the second creation account, the Word of God says, "then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground." (Genesis 2:7)  And after the human episode in the Garden that broke the heart of God, we hear a Voice filled with great sorrow and regret saying, "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken: you are dust and to dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:19)  More than any generation of our kind, we have lost our sense of being connected to the dirt. It is a sign that we have lost our way.

 

Our feet are no longer dirty.  Our hands no longer hold the dirt and feel it slipping through fingers.  We no longer walk on its rough uneven surface.  Leaving concourses of concrete and asphalt is taboo.  And so for many, the dirt from which we came no longer exists.  Since we no longer are connected to the dirt, we seek to connect our lives to other things.  No longer do we kneel in that which reminds us of our coming and going, but on other things which speak to us of human life that is dependent on the things we have created with our own hands. These things seem to have such permanence which lulls us into living as if we do as well.

 

But, at best humanity is such a fragile part of the creation.  Our human life is but a small speck in the eternity God holds in His hands.  Having lost our connection to our origin and our destiny, we end up living unmindful of our Creator God.  Only too late do we realize that we have lost our way. Our way is not toward what we have made, but toward what God has made for us.  What He has made for us is our home which awaits us at the end of our short journey on planet earth.