So far, so good

Well, we're in it now kids. The New Year is feeling less shiny and more like the quotidian life I know so well. I know I said I was trying not to make any big resolutions, and while I didn't do that officially I definitely did that in my head. I vowed to go to bed earlier, keep my house cleaner and start recycling. Well, it's day six and a lot of that has already fallen by the wayside. True confessions: I've been to Taco Bell three times and I've thrown all my paper goods away in the dumpster (well, I plan to take the trash out tonight...).

The one official goal I set for myself this year was to keep up with the Engage Scripture Bible Reading Plan and so far, so good. Part of the reading for today was Genesis 5, which is mostly a genealogy of the line between Adam and Noah. I must confess that I usually find these sections of the bible boring. More often than not I succumb to the temptation to skim and skim fast. I breeze right through the all the begottens. The section in Genesis 5, though, happens to be my favorite such list and I rarely skim it. In fact, often I find myself savoring it and reading it over and over, because hidden smack dab in the middle is a hidden treasure.

Genesis 5:214-24 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

Enoch must have had such a special and remarkable relationship with God to have it noted here. I mean, the man didn't even die; God came and took him. And generations later the story teller still knew that Enoch had walked with God and found it important enough to write down for us to know thousands of years later.

This verse reminds me of Genesis 3:8 when the author talks about God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Whenever I hear people talk about intimacy with God this is what I picture. I find myself walking arm in arm with my God, surrounded by the majesty of his creation and conversing as easily as I do with the friend's of my youth; no pretense, no rush. Just me and God, sometimes talking, sometimes walking in silence because there are no words, but always we are together.