Genesis 2

Today's chapter is another one that I have read several times.  Usually the focus is on God creating Eve as a helpmate for Adam.  I have been through that and looked at the idea of marriage as a part of this chapter many times, so I decided to try to see something else in this chapter instead.  I again found two verses that struck me.  One of them is just kind of fun, and one was a bit eye opening for me.  I'll start with the eye opener.

Verse #1:  Genesis 2:2  "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work." 
This year the school I was working at-before I went on maternity leave-was reading a book about rest, taking a true sabbath, and understanding that rest in God is good and okay and actually something that God calls us to do.  This can be a tough one for me.  I don't know how often I ever TRULY rest.  I can sit on the couch watching mindless television, but I don't know how restful that actually is.  I can browse the Internet, but again, not really truly restful.  I also think that part of my lack of rest in God comes from the fact that I think I need to be busy.  I feel like in today's world there is so much pressure to constantly be busy or to be the one doing things...sometimes I feel like there is this idea that if you aren't so busy that you have no time to yourself then you don't really have much worth.  You must be a slacker or something like that.  I guess some of this ties back into yesterday's verse, where I need to know that I have worth because I am created in the image of God, and LOOK!  Even God rested on the seventh day.  He rested.  I think that I need to find that place of rest more often.  It is okay to stop thinking about the dishes that need to be done, or the laundry that is sitting in the basket.  It is okay to ignore the Cheerios crunching beneath my feet.  It is okay to rest.  I don't think that for me rest is necessarily sleeping or sitting doing nothing.  It can be something as simple as reading a book that I like, going to the park with Rusty and watching him play, meeting up with a friend for coffee, or working on the sewing project that brings me joy.  Rest is also a time when I can calm my mind enough to remember what God is doing in my life and to think about Him.  I need to work on this rest thing a bit more.

Verse #2:  Genesis 2:20  "So the man gave names to all of the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field." 
This verse struck me not because of any particular deep meaning or anything, but rather simply because it made me smile.  Can you imagine?  I mean really, think about it.  God comes to you and says, "Hey Stacy, see all of these creatures that I made??  Yeah?  Well, now you need to name them!"  Wow.  How do you come up with these names?  How do you decide that a dog is a dog, and an elephant is an elephant?  What a task that must have been, tough, but also fun I think.  I wonder what I would have called a dog?  What would YOU have called a dog?  Probably not dog, but now we can't imagine it as anything else!