If You Do Well...

Genesis 4:7 has a very poignant phrase spoken by God to Cain, "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." The visualization of "sin crouching at the door" is striking to me. I see (if you ever watched "Dead Like Me") Gravelings huddled up at the door waiting to instill their mischievousness on me. We need to "rule over" this sin. The only way to do this is to keep our focus on God and the things He wants for us.

The story of Cain and Abel is tale which features jealousy and murder. Cain represents humanity when we get jealous of our peers who seem to have it all together. Their offerings are accepted while ours are not. It doesn't mean our offerings are not worthy to be offered, but that perhaps our motive of the offering was not worthy. Cain became angry when his offering was not regarded. Notice that there was never a command from God to provide these offerings, the brothers just did it. And Abel's was accepted (of course, this is also a foreshadowing of further OT doctrine of blood sacrifice, but I will not go into that here).

Another point of the story, at least from my reading perspective, is when God questions Cain. We know God to be omniscient (all-knowing). Why did He question Cain as to the location of Abel? (Verse 9). My take is that God always provides us an opportunity to admit our sins. Sadly, Cain takes the wrong path and fails to accept culpability. He denied knowledge of Abel's fate. And, just like Cain, we can not lie to God. God will punish us for our deceit.
Goal Update:

Reading chronologically through the ESV.
Today's Reading Genesis 4-7:
Cain and Abel
Adam's Descendants to Noah
Increasing Corruption of Earth
Noah and the Flood

2,013 in 2013 for Hope House
No major complaints or body aches from yesterday's run. Sure, I admit, it was a less than stellar performance, but I figure I did better than everyone who stayed on the couch. I know I have a long way to go to reach this goal (even the 1,000 miles running) and am looking forward to the point when my Garmin GPS acknowledges that my totals so far are even registering a percentage of total completion. Pretty depressing knowing that I made the effort and it still reads 0% complete.

I REALLY hope to get either a temporary assignment or full-time transfer back to Artesia. The standard Wal-Mart loop run was always a good run (and I miss running with the group). Being able to sign up for the training group for Marathon training will put a good dent in the total mileage needed to succeed in this endeavor. If not, I will have to muster A LOT of self-discipline to make it happen on my own (with the prodding/snarky comments of someone who has decided to do this as well--the 1,000 mile challenge--pushing me forward and getting me out the door, for which I am thankful).