When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. He named him Noah and said, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed." — Genesis 5:28-29
We look for comfort in strange places. My first response when I read this is to say, "Asking a child to bring comfort to the parents is a laying a heavy burden on a child. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?"
It appears that Lamech is saying, "God has cursed the ground. That hurts us. That puts God against us. So we cannot go to God for comfort because God is only interested in our discomfort. We cannot find comfort in ourselves. So the only thing we have left is our children."
Us vs. God. The classic lie. God won’t help us so we need to look elsewhere.
I don’t know. Maybe Lamech’s thoughts were more lofty than I give him credit for. But look at what God did with Lamech’s words. Noah did bring comfort, though in a far different way than Lamech must have imagined. Noah brought the human race to the other side of the flood, to a place where violence no longer covered the earth.
There, on the other side of the flood, Noah built an altar to the LORD, replacing murder with worship. And God responded by bringing the comfort that could only come from God. In Genesis 8:21, "The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in His heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.’"
Even when we look elsewhere for our comfort, in the end it will come from God.
Be encouraged!
Dwight
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Visit DwightClough.com for more information. Dwight and his wife Kim are active members of Lake City Church in Madison.