Heading West.

In Sunday School, we've been talking about the big stories of the Bible. We started with Creation, and I began to notice a phrase that popped up in the first family.

It started with this, Adam and Eve screwed up and did something they weren't supposed to, and God said, "Guys, seriously? I have to kick you out now. Here are some animal skin clothes. They work a WHOLE lot better than the fig leaves you found." [I'm paraphrasing.]God puts them "East of Eden."

So Adam and Eve have a couple of kids, and when the two kids are big and grown up (Have you ever thought about how difficult it must have been to be the FIRST parent ever?), and they get into a fight. Your typical jealousy thing. God is more pleased with Abel's offering than with Cain's, for some unstated reason.

Cain gets angry, and took Abel out into a field, and commits the first crime in all of history. [I would be willing to bet that Adam and Eve had a daughter *since girls were unimportant* who saw the whole thing, went back to Eve, and said "Mooooommmm! Cain just killed Abel!" To which Eve would say, "Huh? Kill? Whaaa?"]

God tells Cain that his brother's blood cries out to Him, which speaks absolute volumes about God's heart, and Cain is banished to go further "East of Eden." Cain is upset, because he's afraid he'll get killed out there, and God, even though Cain screwed up BIG time, protects Cain by "marking" him.

Cain is sent East of Eden.

Further from God's presence.

Further from the love that has sustained him his entire life.


I have been traveling East of Eden. Away from God's presence. Away from the love that once made me burn inside. That made me feel like I could leap out of my skin and fly around the room. That sustained me. That made me believe that it was all going to be okay.

I want to go head West again. I want to be heading back to that presence. To that glory. To everything that once upon a time, made me feel like I was alive.

I'm heading West.

Join me?