Blood

So many times we imagine what doing something would be like. Driving a race car, being a rock star, making the touchdown in the big game. All are dreams.

But the murder of Abel was real. And the reality was brought home to me by the words James used to describe it:

As the rock connected with his head, I heard a deep crunch, somehow moist and solid at the same time.

I have a problem controlling my anger at times. With teenagers in the house, I think that's a normal part of life. I've been known to yell and spank and even cuss in anger, but I could never imagine murder.

When I was a child I remember my father coming into the house with a squirrel he'd just shot and killed. He'd skinned it and told me to take it and wash it in the sink. I refused, and in his anger he made me put the still-warm body of the squirrel in my hand and he held it there while the water ran over it. All I could think was that the squirrel had been alive only a few minutes before, and now I was holding that dead body in my hand.

If that memory etched itself into my brain from such a seemingly small incident, how much more would the murder of his brother have affected Cain? Did he think about it day and night? Did Abel's blood cry out to him? Did he dream of what he had done?

It must have been his own personal hell.

And yet, when we sin against God, we end up creating our very own hell of sorts. The guilt, the shame, the regret...all are part of the fires we build. It's all a part of our own death.

But "Sunday's comin'," as Tony Evans would say. God has His own miracle on the horizon.