“Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being,” Gen 2:7.
God took dust and made a man. We are the descendants of dust. Eternal souls housed in soil.
But the world sees something else. Easily wiped away, forgotten, replaced. Wiped away again next week. That is how some in the world see our human race. But we are more than these houses.
We begin and go on. No ending.
God has no beginning. Yet He became like us–of dust. Glory to dust to glory again–resurrected, perfected. He walked a dusty way. And on the cross, climbed, then stood atop the mass of all our wrong steps and falls.
We are dust to dust. Walking a dirt road with peaks to climb. Later, we travel a new one. But it is one of our choosing. Glory or empty darkness.
People sometimes want to believe we are more than dust yet less than eternal. God remembers how He made us.
“For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust,” Psalm 103:14.
Sometimes as I stumble on the path, I remember I am dust. I cry out as dust to the glorified One. This dust has fallen again.
Again.
The best part of life is realizing I am dust that glory forgives. And I am dust other dust forgives. They see my falls and hug me anyway.
I held too long my parents’ stumbles, blaming them for my own. Then I became a mother. I reached the age they were when I saw or felt their misstep.
I understood their confusion, impatience, exhaustion. How steep were the great mountains they traversed. My own dusty hill road showed me how hard theirs had been.
How easy it is to be irritable. To watch my patch of dirt and not be mindful of others’ undeveloped trail.
My children walk their own craggy hills. Do they blame me for a jutting rock or glaring crevice? I am dust who helped set their paths in place.
We cannot alter the path of the past. Dusty moments become cement the instant we step past them.
But love is dust forgiving dust. Our own paths in the world make us bitter or happy. Our path, our climb, lies before us. Like our ultimate destiny, every day is a choice.
Choose to love the dust you encounter every day.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
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Wise counsel–for yourself and for the rest of us.