Adam and Eve

So I'm currently on a Donald Miller binge. I finished his book Blue Like Jazz last week, and I'm now onto his book Searching for God Knows What. This book has a chapter titled "Naked," and it is Donald Miller's take on Adam and Eve. His view on the creation story is one that is more beautiful than I have ever heard.

He points out that too often we read through Genesis without looking deeply or thinking about it. We've heard the story over and over since childhood, so we don't think twice when we read it. He points out that if you truly read the story of Adam and Eve, you find a truly amazing love story (both between Adam and God, and Adam and Eve).

First of all, God's first order of business for Adam was to name every animal and creature on the earth. If you just read that and move on, you might think, "Oh, no big deal, he probably did that in a few hours while waiting for God to create Eve." Well, if you really think about it, how many species are there in the earth? Lots, likely many many millions of species. And Adam was put in charge of naming each and every species? This would probably take decades to do, because not only did he have to name the incredible amount of animals on the land, but he also needed to make a trip to the water to name all of the fish in the ocean as well. So after all this time, I had been under the impression that Adam only spent a few hours on earth alone, before Eve was made. In reality, he was the only person on earth for possibly up to 100 years (Just a rough estimate, he had his 3rd son, Seth when he was 130. There is no way to truly know how old Adam was when God created Eve.). Yes, it says man and woman were both made on the 6th day, but how long is a day when referring to God? I find it unlikely that Adam would be able to name every creature on earth in what we know as a day.

This means that Adam had the most intricate relationship with God that anyone has ever known. It was just him, the animals, and God. Could you imagine how deep someone could get to know God when it is just the two of you for that amount of time? It was likely that Adam knew more about God than any human being ever will (other than Jesus of course). That's pretty incredible to think about.

It also means that Adam was possibly the loneliest guy the world has ever known. Sure, he had God and the animals, but he still didn't have a suitable companion in life (See Gen 2:20). So, after all those years, after Adam names all the creatures of the earth, God blesses Adam with a woman. For Adam, this must have been incredible. After spending that amount of time without anyone else on earth, he must have thought she was the most beautiful creation he had ever seen! Adam is filled with so much love and emotion that he can describe Eve in just a couple of words: "Bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh." (Gen 2:23 NKJV) Donald Miller describes it in the most beautiful of ways:

"And then I thought how very beautiful it was that God made Adam work for so long because there is no way, after a hundred years of being alone, looking for somebody whom you could connect with in your soul, that you would take advantage of a woman once you met one. She would be the most precious creation in all the world, and you would probably wake up every morning and look at her and wonder at her beauty, or the gentle, silent way she sleeps."

And I often find myself, at age 24, getting worried because I haven't found that "special someone". Perhaps I should be feeling the exact opposite. Maybe God hasn't intended for me to meet my soul-mate yet because perhaps when I finally do find her, after so many years, she will mean that much more to me. I should be using this time not to find that special someone, because I'm convinced that God will introduce the two of us in time. But rather, I should be more focused on becoming that special someone to the woman God has in store for me. I should use this time to get to know my Creator, the way that Adam got to know his in his time alone on earth. Only then will I be ready to meet that special someone He has in mind.

I hope you were moved by this story as much as I was. This is just one interpretation of the creation story, don't be offended if you have a different view. This entire idea is based off of the possibility that one day for God could be equal to thousands of earth days, or vice versa. I'm still not entirely sure that I believe it, I just thought it was a unique take on it that I had never heard before. I, like Donald Miller, am not an expert on this, just someone interested in contributing to the discussion. Tell me what you think, thanks for reading!