Breathing In Breathing Out: A Daily Devotional

By Dr. Linda Youngberg Ballard

Breathing In, Breathing Out is a devotional book written by a physician for her patients and friends. An ordered set of daily devotionals designed to create a coherent biblical understanding of who we are, who God is, and what God wants from us. It is a prescription for living our best life in the middle of a difficult and demanding world. It was inspired by the written word of God and from the experiences of a life lived in the world as it is. It is designed for anyone who is seeking to know more about God and for those who already know him well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798888519646

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Reading Keys

Section 1 Identification—Who Am I?

Section 2 To Know Him—Who Is God?

Section 3 Kingdom Living—Where Should We Live?

Section 4 Hard Truths—Our Nature and the Opposition

Section 5 Expansion—Growing in the Grace of God

Section 6 Remembering Me­—Promises to Live By

Section 7 Psalms—Approaching God

Section 8 Behavior—How Then Should We Live?

Final Thoughts

About the Author

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Breathing In Breathing Out

A Daily Devotional

Dr. Linda Youngberg Ballard

ISBN 979-8-88851-963-9 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88851-964-6 (Digital)

Copyright © 2024 Dr. Linda Youngberg Ballard

All rights reserved

First Edition

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version NIV Copyright C 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version" are trademarks registered the United State Patent and Trademark Offices by Biblica, Inc.

Scriptures marked KJV are taken from the King James Version (KJV): King James Version, public domain.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

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Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Acknowledgements

I have received a great deal of help and inspiration from many people as this project came together.

Dr. Susie Willard, my oldest and best friend who inspired this project in the first place; my mom and dad who were my first spiritual instructors who are both in heaven now; my brothers and sisters, all eight of them, who were the tumbler that helped me grow up and continue to inspire me to become the best version of myself.

My Life Group, the group of ladies that gathers at my house nearly every week to learn about Jesus and share our lives with each other; they helped with the editing and critiqued most of the writing in this book. They held me to account. I am grateful for each one of them.

My family many years ago when we were still all together

My Life Group who is still all here; from left to right: Crystal, Jodi, Audrey, Julie, Melissa, Kristi, Theresa, Linda; not pictured are Mary, Misty, Sandi, Angela, Kathy, and Tara

Introduction

Breathing In, Breathing Out

This series of devotions came about as a result of a need to help make sense of the daily struggles of some of the patients that came across our path. I was an emergency medicine specialist then and am retired now. When we started this project, I was working in the Emergency Department of a trauma center and helping my best friend part time with her family practice. The concept was her idea. It started as a weekly devotional for our patients in the office designed to give them a different perspective on life, specifically during the trying times that brought them to the office or the emergency room. It was designed as a weekly email that anyone who wanted to sign up for could receive.

The original study started with the book of Psalms and Proverbs in the Old Testament. It was our intention to offer spiritual insight that might help our patients better understand the deeper meaning of what was going on in their lives.

During the first six weeks of the Psalms and Proverbs project, I lost my husband in a sudden accident which changed the course of my life. I was faced with a great test of my own faith. It was during this time that I discovered great comfort in the opportunity to write out my own thoughts as a sort of prayer for healing. That was what initially started me on this journey of writing. I continued to write in the years that followed and to share these writings via email to anyone that wanted to continue to receive them. It is now nine years later, and it seems appropriate to share some of these writings with others who might benefit from them.

As an emergency physician, I was trained to evaluate the seriousness of any patient's condition by using their vital signs to give me information. As an easy way to remember them, most physicians use the ABC method—airway, breathing, circulation. Each one is vitally important but the order they are evaluated in is most important in life-threatening conditions. If the airway is blocked, no breathing can occur. If no breathing occurs, no oxygen can get to the blood, so even if the blood can circulate, it will become useless without oxygen in a very short time. So vital signs tell us everything we need to initiate our treatment and help us to decide what must be done first.

Our faith in God is much the same. The things that are of first importance will be what help us to live well. It is easy to get distracted by many conflicting ideas and theologies. These devotionals are written not as theology but are instead a way of looking at us as human beings relating to a God that we cannot see. The God who is the very breath of our life. Breathing in and breathing out is the first vital sign and without a real connection to the one who made us we may think we are alive, but we are not.

Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and the way, the truth, and the life. My own experience testifies to the truth of what he said. We are dead and have no hope until we trust in him. That trust brings us hope for life, peace, and an eternal future. I hope you are blessed by these daily readings, and that they encourage your faith. We are not alone in this world. God is all around us if we will just look. My prayer is that the pages to come will give you eyes to see.

Reading Keys

The devotions are ordered and designed to be read from January 1 through December 31. If you start reading this book in the middle of the year, it would make more sense if you started from the first devotional and ignored the ordering by day of the year. Once you get through from the beginning, you can go anywhere, and it will still make sense.

The devotions are divided into eight sections which look at different topics.

Section 1 is called Identification and works to help us understand who we really are in relation to God. It starts with our creation and God's original plan for man.

Section 2 is called To Know Him and helps explain who God is and how we can learn to relate to him.

Section 3 is called Kingdom Living, which describes the kingdom we enter when we trust in Jesus—our forever home.

Section 4 is called Hard Truths, and it looks at our nature and the evil opposition that seeks to thwart God's purpose in our life.

Section 5 is called Expansion, which is a description of how we can grow in the grace of God.

Section 6 is called Remembering Me, which describes many of the promises of God that will help us when we don't know what to do or understand what is happening to us.

Section 7 is called Psalms, which are a description of how we can approach God.

Section 8 is called Behavior, and it helps answer the question about the best way we can live knowing that we are created by God.

Section 1

Identification—Who Am I?

January 1

Identification—Who Am I?

And he said to the human race, The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.

—Job 28:28 (NIV)

It seems appropriate to start this year with this verse of scripture. We all try to make sense of our existence. Who are we exactly? What is our purpose? What is our end? Is there a God? Does he make demands on our life? Does it matter what we do or how we live?

We are born without our consent into a family we did not choose in a country we are told to be loyal to. Some people are luckier than others or so it seems. Born into wealth or poverty, who is to know which state is better in the long run? We only know hunger and the need for connection as we enter the world completely defenseless. We must rely on older versions of ourselves in order to survive. What is our actual beginning? Are we just the biological product of our parents' lust for each other? Or do we have a divine origin?

We don't concern ourselves with these questions in the beginning. We are content to be fed and cared for, and if we aren't happy with how that is done, we cry in frustration and anger. Our life is simple to start with if we are lucky enough to have parents who care about and for us. Even in the beginning of our short time on earth, we know hunger and thirst and dependence on others to meet our needs. Those needs will continue until we die. What we do between our birth and our death constitutes our life as a human being. What exactly are we supposed to be doing beyond trying to get our needs met? And does it matter in any significant way?

The scriptures have a lot to say about who we are and what we should be doing. The scriptures speak to the larger questions we have about ourselves. Where exactly can we find true answers for our most existential questions? My own journey on earth has led me to just one conclusion. I belong to someone else. The Creator of everything who has a name. I call him the Lord God Almighty. I begin with that premise—there is purpose for my life because my life originates in my Creator who made me and loves me. I am no accident. To fear or respect him is wisdom and to shun evil is understanding. Above all else, I want the wisdom it takes to live the life I have been given. It is that simple. That is who I am. Who are you?

Prayer

Father, help me to understand who I am meant to be. Amen.

January 2

Identification—Who Am I?

God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I am has sent me to you.

—Exodus 3:14 (NIV)

Who is the Creator I believe made me? I can know myself to some degree by asking other people who they think that I am. I can look in the mirror and see my own image. I can look at my behavior and try to ascertain what kind of person I am. I can look at other people and gain knowledge about what it is to be a human being. I know quickly that I am not a dog or a cat but rather a human being. What does it mean to be human? How is God different than me? And how should I relate to him?

Our scripture for today tells us who God says he is. He says to tell others that his name is I am. Not I was or I will be but I am. What we can infer from his name is that he exists in the eternal present. All we can experience as human beings occurs in the present. We remember the past and imagine the future, but our real experience occurs only in the present, that moment in time where we control what will become our past and influence what will become our future. God is different than we are in that respect. He exists eternally in the present, which means where we can meet him is in our present.

In the present, we can look back and forward but can control neither the past nor the future. God is eternally present, which means he can influence everything. What does that mean to us? God is present in our life whether we know it or not. Mostly, we don't know that he is there, except in hindsight. Occasionally, we seem to be able to feel his presence, but mostly, we are groping in the dark to find him. I suppose that begs the question of why. If we are important to God as his creation, why doesn't he show himself to us more clearly? It would be a lot easier to trust him if he would.

How can we trust in our Creator without being able to see him? The same way we trust our parents to take care of us when we are small. Our needs are met in a way that sustains our life. We don't deserve it and can't live without it. There is evidence all around us if we just open our eyes to it. We experience God like we experience the wind. We can feel the effects, even if we can't see the source. We live because God breathes his life into us. Experiencing God is as simple as breathing in and breathing out.

Prayer

Father, help me to understand and feel your presence in my life. Amen.

January 3

Identification—Who Am I?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty; darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

—Genesis 1:1–2 (NIV)

Where did we come from and why are we in this place at this time? How we answer those questions will influence how we live. To answer them, we must start at the beginning.

Before there was anything else, God existed in the eternal present. Before we were even thought of, God was busy creating the reality that we can see now. We take for granted the creation that surrounds us. Some of us are very concerned about what we humans are doing to it. Early in our existence as humans, we were very closely involved with it as the source of our food and shelter. We mostly take that for granted now. Food is found in the grocery store, and we can see reproductions of the earth on our phone or television. We don't even have to be out in it if we don't want to be.

None of that takes away from the fact that the heavens and earth were not always here. God existed before any of it was here. He created all of it before any of us were made. The creation, which includes us, is his idea. It doesn't take much thought to just live and forget that we are part of something that is greater than ourselves. Our geological history, which we assume is correct in our limited human understanding, indeed tells us that creation was a process that started well before we came on the scene.

There are lots of scientific theories about how we came to be and where our planet came from, but none can explain it as simply as the verse above. Despite all our scientific knowledge, we cannot come up with the answer to how we came to be. There is always left at the end of the argument or explanation the question of what or who came before the beginning. We can discuss the evolution of life, but that alone is not a satisfactory or complete answer about how it all started.

Creation by an eternal being known as I am makes more sense than anything we have come up with as human beings. Maybe the big bang makes sense if we can learn to trust the idea that something or someone existed before that. Scripture tells us that he spoke creation into existence which does tell us a lot about who he is. What we can know for sure is that we exist in a place that is greater than we are. We had nothing to do with it and one must wonder if we even have the capacity to understand it. Why are we here on earth? God made it for us to live on and enjoy as part of his greater plan for us.

Prayer

Father, thank you for the wonder of creation. It is so much greater than we are. Amen.

January 4

Identification—Who Am I?

Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so they may rule over the fish in the sea and birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

—Genesis 1:26 (NIV)

This verse is probably the most significant thing that we can know about both God and us. We are made in his image. That fact requires a lot of explanation, most of which we can only guess at. What is an image? The dictionary definition is that an image is the exact likeness of something else. What part of us is the exact likeness of God? I'm sure that takes a theological explanation above my paygrade. I can guess that we don't look like God physically because he is spirit, and we have a body and a spirit. It is only later in our history that we see God in our likeness in the life and body of Jesus. Until then, we could only imagine what he might look like.

Being made in his image probably speaks more to the spiritual and intellectual side of who we are. We think; so does God. We have emotions and can express them; so does God. Another thing we have is free will, which means we can choose one thing over another. God also has free will. This might be the one defining characteristic that explains why we are tasked and capable of ruling over all of creation as our verse for today explains. We have a special purpose in all of creation that only we can fulfill. At least that was God's original purpose for us.

To be made in his image is a high honor which we should not take lightly. We reflect on who he is and sense that our actions can bring him joy or sorrow depending on what we do with our free will. We are amazed at the depth of our capacity to love and to hate. Why we choose one thing over the other is the enigma of what it means to be human. It wasn't always that way. Another force entered the world God had made for man.

Our original design was perfect in every way as a reflection of God's person and character. There are no humans on earth today that are not warped in some way by the choices our free will has produced. What happened to us? Is that part of the reason we have such a hard time understanding who God is? God's good creation of the earth and of us has been spoiled by us. Is there any hope that it can be redeemed?

Prayer

Father, thank you for making me in your image and giving me the right to choose for myself. Help me to choose wisely. Amen.

January 5

Identification—Who Am I?

So, God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

—Genesis 1:27–28 (NIV)

God, in the beginning, gave mankind a charge to be fruitful and increase in number, to fill the earth and to subdue it. That was his perfect plan for man. He made mankind male and female to help facilitate the process of increasing in number. Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, were given the job of being fruitful and reproducing mankind. God created the first man and woman and gave them the enormous job of subduing the earth.

There would have been, by necessity, an agreement between the man and the woman to follow God's command to them. One couldn't do it without the other, and neither could do it without their connection to God. God had provided them with everything that they needed to fulfill his command to them. They were given dominion over all the earth, and all that they would need to survive was found in the place that God had made for them.

We find ourselves today still trying to subdue the earth. It comes at a great cost to us. We can find food to eat and work to occupy our time, but it is not what it was intended to be. There is no joy attached to what most of us do. We work to earn our daily bread, but we feel subdued by others much more than we find ourselves subduing the earth. What in the world happened to us? God's perfect creation with the directive to reproduce and subdue the earth.

Why do we find our work so meaningless and our relationships so hard to manage? If we are lucky enough to find someone to love and who loves us, it is still a battle of wills to find a joint direction for what God so clearly had in mind for us to be doing. Is there any hope that we can regain what we have so clearly lost?

Prayer

Father, thank you for your original plan for each of us and for making a way for it to still be possible. Amen.

January 6

Identification—Who Am I?

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

—Genesis 2:7 (NIV)

The creation of man is described in a very specific way. There is no record of any other living thing that was made in the same way. Apparently, the earth and the rest of creation was already finished when man was created. He was specifically formed from the dust of the earth, and God himself breathed into that body of dust the breath of life. It was only with the breath of God that man became alive.

Breathing in and breathing out is a continuation of our intimate relationship with our Creator. We are literally sustained as living creatures by the air we breathe. Without it, our physical bodies will quickly die and show no signs of life. Those same bodies will eventually return to the dust that they came from. There is no doubt that the very breath we breathe is what sustains our life.

I have been, as a result of my work as an emergency physician, at the bedside of many human beings who passed from life to death. Death is identifiable by the lack of breathing and the cessation of the heartbeat. There is a clear-cut moment in time when the spirit of life leaves the body of dust. There is a similar time at birth when the baby is born and either breathes or does not. The first expression of our humanity and life on earth is that first breath we breathe. It will sustain us all the days we will live until in the end it will cease, and our body will die.

The breath of life came from our Creator, and it continues with his permission. It is easy to forget how very fragile we are. Life is not a given but is given to us. What we do with it is up to us. How long it lasts is up to him. Where does that spirit of life go when it stops empowering that body of dust? No one knows for sure, for a dead man tells no tales. There is only one perfect human being who ever came back from the dead, and what He has to tell us is the truth that will set us free to live in the here and now.

Prayer

Father, thank you for breathing life into me. Help me to make it count. Amen.

January 7

Identification—Who Am I?

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

—Genesis 2:8 (NIV)

Adam was the name of the original man that God created from the dust. He was alone and alive. God put him in a beautiful place called the garden of Eden, to work it and take care of it. He didn't have any other instructions or rules except for one. He could eat of any tree in the garden except for one. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God warned him that if he ate from it, he would certainly die. It is at this point in his creation that man could for the first time exercise his free will.

There was a lot for Adam to do but God recognized that it wasn't good for him to be alone without help. God brought before Adam the wild animals and the birds to see what he would name them. Adam did this job, and we humans continue to name the creation to this day. Every new species is named when it is discovered.

Through this process, it became clear to God that none of them could be a true helper to Adam. So God put Adam to sleep and took one of his ribs and made a woman to be his helper. She was his own flesh and blood, and she would bring them together as a unit to rule and reign over the earth. They were both connected to God and were to care for the rest of creation as they followed God's command to be fruitful and multiply.

Adam and Eve had a face-to-face relationship with God and were naked and felt no shame. God walked with them in the garden, and they were without fear. This was God's original plan for mankind, humans walking with him without fear or shame. They were innocent. They only had one rule to follow which was set in place to protect them. What happened next was the defining moment that changed our up close and personal relationship with our Creator into one of fear and shame, which is where we find ourselves now.

Prayer

Father, we are created in a marvelous way with a truly special purpose. Help me to know what my purpose is. Amen.

January 8

Identification—Who Am I?

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord had made.

—Genesis 3:1 (NIV)

The serpent has many names throughout the Bible, but he is clearly different and apart from God. We know him better as Satan or the devil, and he remains our tempter to this day. His entire purpose is to foil God's plan for mankind and, in the end, to destroy men and women by keeping them from the true knowledge of God. He is a deceiver and shades the truth just enough to make us question God's authority in our life.

We find later in scripture that Satan was once the highest of angels, who are another order of created beings that preceded our creation. God made them first and tasked them to help take care of us. The good and obedient ones do just that. The ones like Satan or the serpent have an entirely different agenda. They seek to destroy us and separate us from the life of God which lives in us.

Satan fell from heaven when he thought he could be equal with God, his Creator. He was more beautiful and brilliant than any other angel and somehow thought he could usurp God's place as supreme over all of God's creation. He was defeated in a great heavenly battle between the angel followers of God and the angels that joined Satan in the rebellion. He was cast down from heaven and became part of our world with the sole purpose of trying to destroy us completely in a way that would break God's heart and ruin God's plan for humanity.

The good and ordered life God wanted for men on earth would only continue if man's free will could withstand the temptation of the serpent. Could they resist the lying serpent and obey the single command of God not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

The fallen angel of the highest order is very crafty and always lies to get his way. There is no good in him, and he seeks to destroy us. Except for the mercy of our Creator and his foresight in planning for our disobedience, Satan would have won that war in the very beginning.

Prayer

Father, thank you for going before me and standing behind me with your protection from the enemy. Amen.

January 9

Identification—Who Am I?

The serpent said to the woman, Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?' The woman said to the serpent, We may eat from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'

—Genesis 3:1–3 (NIV)

Eve was created from Adam and after God had given Adam the command not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She apparently learned about this command from Adam and knew that she was not supposed to eat the fruit but took it a little further in her conversation with the serpent and added to the command that she couldn't touch it either.

We humans are like that. We gain our knowledge from other human beings, and what was clear to the first person (Adam) became less clear to the one (Eve) who heard it from him. Our truth about everything is based on what other human beings have told us unless we go directly to God as the true source of all truth. Each human being adds their own interpretation to what they have been told.

Human knowledge about God can only come directly from him. He spoke to Adam with clear instructions. Adam relayed them to Eve who added to it and by doing that became susceptible to deception. The further from a direct relationship with God we are, the more likely that Satan can deceive us. Not because we want to be disobedient to God but because Satan persuades us that God didn't really mean what he said.

The serpent lied to Eve as is his practice with all of us. He told her that she wouldn't die and that God was holding a good thing back from her. He told her that if she ate from the tree, she would be like God, knowing good and evil. She looked at the fruit of the tree and took some and ate it and gave some to Adam who was with her and apparently didn't try to stop her.

They didn't die right then, but their innocence was lost forever, and they would know both good and evil from that day forward. They disobeyed God's single command at the urging of Satan the deceiver and the pristine and open relationship Adam and Eve had with God was gone forever. They suddenly realized they were naked and vulnerable, so they hid from God. Up to that point in time, they had had a face-to-face relationship with God, but now they knew that was over, and they became afraid for the first time.

Prayer

Father, give me discernment to be able to see the truth from deception. Amen.

January 10

Identification—Who Am I?

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, Where are you? He answered, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked; so, I hid.

—Genesis 3:8–9 (NIV)

Man was made to be connected to God, and when disobedience entered the world, our first inclination was to hide. Instead of connection to the Creator, we began to fear the consequences of our sinful nakedness. That is the state of mankind today. We are still naked and afraid. We are alone in a way that was never God's intention for us.

Our life is lived out in a world that is hostile, and we are vulnerable on many different levels. We are afraid that we won't be strong enough to defend ourselves against evil. We are afraid that we aren't smart enough to manage our own survival. We stare at our image in the mirror and wonder who we really are. In a word, we are lost. Lost from God and lost from each other. This disconnect puts us at real risk. Survival seems best achieved by attaining power over those who threaten our weakness. Anger, fighting, and war are the result of that human desire.

Our fleeting life, almost like a vapor, comes and goes quickly and ends in death, just as God told Adam and Eve it would. We have an occasional glimpse of happiness, but the bad far outweighs the good in most people's lives. Is that all there is? Are we destined to be forever separated from our Creator and every good thing God intended for us to have? What was God's plan after the great deception and the first act of disobedience? He must have known we would mess things up. He knows everything in the eternal now.

Hiding from God is not the answer. Seeking him is our heart's effort to reconnect. There really is no peace apart from him. Even after they discovered their nakedness and hid from God, he searched for them. He searches for us too.

Prayer

Father, thank you for always being here for me as I seek you to guide my path in this life. Amen.

January 11

Identification—Who Am I?

And God said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?

—Genesis 3:11 (NIV)

God found Adam and Eve and questioned them about how they knew they were naked. He asked them directly if they had disobeyed his command not to eat from the tree. Then the blame game started. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent. God held everyone accountable.

We cannot blame anyone else for what we have chosen to do. There are no excuses for our sin. There was plenty of blame to go around in the beginning as each person involved would be held accountable for their own choice. This speaks directly to each of us today. We cannot escape our responsibility for our choices. We may be naked and afraid and think that excuses our behavior, but God didn't in the beginning and doesn't now. Each one of us is individually accountable to God. The acts of others do not excuse or exempt us from blame. Every human born since the fall is born separated from God. Every action we take is a direct result of that separation. The result of that separation, if not resolved, is death and destruction.

There are consequences for our choices. The serpent, Adam, and Eve each received a judgment from God that continues to impact all of us today. There is also within God's judgments evidence of God's plan of redemption for mankind. God's nature does not allow him to tolerate sin, so judgment had to occur. God's nature also includes an overwhelming desire to redeem what was lost. He wants us back more than we can imagine. The rest of our story revolves around that plan.

Prayer

Father, thank you for being there to pick me up with your love and forgiveness, even when I mess up. Amen.

January 12

Identification—Who Am I?

So, the Lord God said to the servant, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

—Genesis 3:14–15 (NIV)

The serpent is cursed to crawl in the dust of the earth having fallen from the position of great beauty and honor he once held before God. Satan inhabits our earth as his home now. He is still around, causing trouble for all of us. There would be a special enmity or hatred between Satan and the woman and between his offspring and hers. The child of the woman would ultimately crush the head of Satan, but only after Satan struck his heel. This was God's curse on Satan, but it also affects mankind. It is the reason we can hope that this battle between good and evil will ultimately be won by God. The power of God through his Son Jesus would inflict a fatal blow to Satan's power as Jesus's death and resurrection crushed his head.

We have suffered since our initial sin in the garden because we are disconnected from our Creator and because we are opposed by Satan whose entire purpose is to destroy us completely. He roams the earth, looking for all who are made in God's image with the unholy goal of total annihilation. That is how much Satan hates God and, by default, hates all of mankind. He is a defeated foe but is still able to kill and destroy as his lying deception continues to confuse the people of the earth. He is formidable but defeated and one day will be put away for good.

Prayer

Father, thank you for protecting us from the lies of Satan as we grow daily in our walk with you. Amen.

January 13

Identification—Who Am I?

To the woman he said, I will make your pains in childbearing very severe, with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.

—Genesis 3:16 (NIV)

The curse on Eve and all subsequent women was regarding her role in the fulfillment of the initial command by God to multiply. Her part would be to bear the children. This process would involve painful labor. The woman would desire her husband despite this process, and he would rule over her.

As a woman, it is easy to see how this has played out over time since the fall. Men have dominated women by their superior strength, and women have put up with it because they needed something from the man. What that something was differed at different times. Men could dominate and rule them because they needed protection and help to survive. Men were necessary to allow women to bear children, which for most women was what constituted the little satisfaction they could receive from their life. Their identity was defined by having children. Those who did not or could not were looked down upon.

Today we see a completely different dynamic, where women have many more rights but have given up the things that matter most to them. Women for the most part remain in a position of lesser power in society, although some have managed to rise in the ranks of men. Those who do most often give up any hope of a normal relationship with a man, and their desire for what should be their husband turns into a meaningless pursuit of gratuitous pleasure apart from any desire to bear children. When one is accidentally conceived, it is just easier to get rid of it through abortion than to see it as an act of creation.

Men still dominate women by their superior strength, and women still desire men, even when it is costly to them. All women lived under this curse until Jesus came to free us from it. It was through a woman that lived under this curse that God himself entered the world to redeem all who would trust in him. The woman, cursed as she was, would provide the human component to the birth of the Savior of the world.

Prayer

Father, thank you that we are redeemed from the curse if we are trusting in Jesus. Amen.

January 14

Identification—Who Am I?

To Adam he said, Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,' Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

—Genesis 3:17–19 (NIV)

The final one cursed was Adam. He had listened to Eve and disobeyed God's only direct command to him. Instead of living in the garden, what he would need to meet his needs would come from working the ground that God cursed at the same time. Instead of bearing good fruit, it would produce thorns and thistles that would make it hard to grow real food. It would take real sweat and effort to produce the food to sustain his life, and that life would end with his body's return to the dust it was taken from. Man's life would be a struggle to survive and would end in death and decay. The earth would also be cursed, and it also would groan for redemption.

The struggle of man to survive began here with the curse. A man would have to work his whole life just to have enough food to live. Then he would die. He would be responsible for himself and his wife who would bear his children. The struggle to subdue the earth would be much harder as it was cursed as well.

Despite all the advancements of men, this is still what defines most men's life. They are born, work hard to survive, and ultimately return to the earth. Most of them hope that someone will remember what they have done to somehow make their life mean something. Almost all of them will descend into death without making any mark on the world at all. That is the curse of men. They can only hope that their children will carry on where they left off, but most do not.

Eternity is in the heart of every man because the breath we breathe comes from the Creator. We long for meaning and purpose, but when we are separated from God, all that we do is only meaningless work that keeps us alive for one more day. That was not God's original plan. It still isn't. Through the woman, God would send a redeemer to break the chains of our sin and restore us to God's original purpose for us. That's the rest of the story.

Prayer

Father, thank your that your presence in my life overcomes the curse and allows me to rest in you. Amen.

January 15

Identification—Who Am I?

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. So, the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

—Genesis 3:21–23 (NIV)

What happens next in our story shows us just how merciful God was, even in the face of the curses he had placed on Adam and Eve. He could have ended us right then and there, but instead, he sacrificed another part of his creation to provide garments to cover their nakedness and took steps to prevent the further sin of eating from the tree of life which would have guaranteed that mankind would live forever separated from God.

He banished Adam and Eve from their original home in the idyllic Garden of Eden to live out their existence apart from his direct presence. Their life would be hard, but it would continue at least for a while. He provided them with clothing to protect them and the means to survive. The good and easy and joyful life of being in his presence would be no more. Their life would be a struggle to survive until they died and went back to the dust.

They left God's visible presence, but he never abandoned them. Adam and Eve had known what it was like to be in God's presence. I don't think they could ever forget that. In truth, he started that very moment to implement the means for their redemption from sin. He allowed them to live their lives freely as He allows everyone born after them. Free to choose what path they would take but always with the sad sense that what they had lost could never be replaced.

We never had the chance to live in Eden but part of us longs for a return to that place. We look around at the world we have inherited, and the deepest part of us knows it could be different if we somehow could make things right. Justice and liberty for all would surely make the world a better place. No more hunger or sickness or death would be the world we would choose if we could. We really would like to live in the kingdom of God in the garden where we could experience him directly like Adam and Eve did. Is it possible for paradise to be regained?

We haven't managed it ourselves, no matter how civilized we have become. Only a magnificent sacrifice on the part of God could make it possible. That's exactly what he did because of his great love for those creatures made in his image who had fallen so quickly. The story of us begins with the fall but can end with our redemption if we choose it. God has made a way.

Prayer

Father, thank you for creating us and having a plan that overcomes our sin and allows us to have direct fellowship with you. Amen.

January 16

Identification—Who Am I?

Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man. Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.

—Genesis 4:2–3 (NIV)

Cast out of the garden to work the land and to populate the earth, as part of their original mission, Adam and Eve joined with each other to produce Cain, the first person on earth to be born like we are, the first to be produced after the sinful fall of his parents. Eve clearly recognized God's part in the process. Later she gave birth to his brother, Abel.

How would they turn out as the descendants of Adam and Eve? The first humans not to have experienced face-to-face contact with God, what choices would they make? How would their parents sin affect their actions? Two brothers born from the same mother and father had two very different experiences.

Cain, the firstborn, worked the ground, and Abel was