22 Enoch walked with God[b] after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God, and he was not,[c] for God took him (Genesis 5:22-24)
My wife Trish had this insight this morning. In yesterday’s reading, she was struck by the phrase from Genesis 3:8– how Adam and Eve heard the sound of God walking in the cool of the day. It suggests that this was a pattern— that the Lord often walked in the garden at the end of the day. And that God invited the man and woman to walk alongside Him.
Can you imagine the privilege of being able to literally walk with God? To hear the sound of Him? Can you imagine how your heart would leap at the sound? How you would fly out the door, pulling your shoes on as you ran, so excited you were to take a walk with your best friend? The things you would talk about! The fellowship you would enjoy?
But on this day, the man and woman hid themselves. They had sinned. They were naked. They were ashamed. The tragedy of thinking you needed to hide from the one who loves you best. The folly of thinking you could.
We know that with the Fall came a distance from God that wasn’t there before. Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden. Fellowship was harder to come by East of Eden.
But beloved, that doesn’t mean it was impossible! We’ve been taught that God can’t be in the presence of sin. But look closely at today’s reading:
Enoch walked with God (Genesis 5:22,24).
Noah walked with God (Genesis 6:9).
Even outside the Garden, God still invites us to take a walk.
Our sins do separate us from God. That’s true. Our sins make it so much harder to hear the sound of God walking in the cool of the day (That’s another consequence of the Fall— the cool of the day isn’t as cool as it used to be— see Genesis 3:19).
But we can still find fellowship. We can still lace up our shoes. We can still run to catch up.
We just have to listen for His footfalls a little more carefully.
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