Walking With Christ

(Part 1 of 3)

Genesis 4:14–15  (14)Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden.  I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”  (15)Then the Lord said to him, “Not so!  If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.”  And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.(ESV)

Cain had just heard his punishment directly from God.  He would be driven from the ground.  He would become a fugitive and a wanderer.

Then Cain added something.  “Whoever finds me will kill me.”

God never said that.

Cain looked at what God had said, considered what his life would now look like, and predicted the ending.

It was a reasonable fear.  A wandering man would be vulnerable.  Cain had murdered Abel.  Others might seek vengeance.  Cain could see plenty of reasons why someone might eventually kill him.

There was only one problem.  God said:  “Not so.”

Cain’s fear had taken a real consequence and added a future God had never declared.

We do this too.

“This is going to destroy me.”

“I’ll never recover from this.”

“Nobody will ever trust me again.”

“My family will never get through this.”

“I’ll always be alone.”

Sometimes we say those things because the situation really is terrible.  Fear doesn’t always invent the danger.

It invents the ending.

There’s a difference between acknowledging what’s happening and declaring what will certainly happen next.

Cain knew what God had said.  Then fear finished God’s sentence for Him.

God immediately corrected him.  Not so.

That doesn’t mean everything became easy for Cain.  God didn’t remove the consequences of what Cain had done.

He simply refused to allow Cain’s fear to define consequences God hadn’t given.

There are things God has said.  There are things circumstances seem to suggest.

Then there are the endings we write ourselves.

We need to learn the difference.

Fear is very good at taking today’s pain and calling it tomorrow’s certainty.

But fear doesn’t know tomorrow.

Cain thought he did.

God said otherwise.