Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground...-Genesis 2:7
And He has been doing it ever since...digging in the dirt to form a man...to form us. The most simple and humble of building materials. One of His finest works...all from dirt. Surprisingly, this God of the heavens does His best work on the ground...in graves, in pits, and on dusty roads. He is the Divine who knows how to take the dismal and transform it into the dynamic. That moment He created Adam would lead to many more moments in the dirt...
They throw him into the cistern nearby...a pit for water, but there is no water in it. Just dirt. The favored son has reached a new low. Thrown away and then sold away by the brothers who couldn't accept that daddy didn't love them best. Little could any of them known, that this cistern was just a "pit stop" on the way to a palace. One day the thrown-away brother would rule over the ones that hated him because he had a God who knew what dirt can do for a man. Humble him. Refine him. Ready him for service to a Pharaoh. Make him a prince. {Genesis 37-50}
He bent down and started writing on the ground. Why? What was He writing? Maybe a list of their sins. The sins of the self-righteous men that surround him and a woman caught in adultery. They keep pleading for punishment for the sinful woman. He keeps writing and then pops up and challenges them. "Go ahead, you without sin throw the first stone." He bends down and continues His literary work in the dirt. By the time His writing is done, they are gone. There are no arguments. No more pleas for punishment. No more questions. Maybe they were all answered in the writing on the ground. Regardless, His writing in the soil and His challenge to the self-righteous saves a woman from stoning. {John 8:1-11}
He's a "dead" man walking who joins them on the dusty road. These men that love Him and yet don't recognize who He really is. How could they? The last time they heard any news He was in a grave, and those in graves don't take up residence with the living. No one comes back from the grave to tell their story. The shock of their lives? This dead man has pulled off His own resurrection! And yet, He feels their disappointment that their Messiah didn't come through for them. So along the dirt road He tells the story of their Savior. A story He knows well because He wrote it. Because He lived it. He hands them hope to get them past the dirt road. {Luke 24:13-35}
And He is still doing it...working in the dirt...
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and the mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. Psalm 40:2
He will do what He did for Joseph, the woman, and the men on the road to Emmaus. He will meet us in the "dirt" of our lives to form us into what we should be. He will honor us. He will forgive us. He will hand out hope. We must always remember...He is all about digging in the dirt because He is all about us.
A good word!
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