It becomes a priority for Enoch to travel to Adam’s place. A determination to become a friend to his oldest grandfather has driven his prayers for as long as he can remember.
After packing everything needed for a stay of several days he sets out. To build a relationship he will spend time with Adam. He brings gifts of specially crafted darts and plans to serve Adam in any way he can.
Adam had promised to teach Enoch what it is to be human. If anyone in the entire world, now grown to millions of people, knows about humanness, it is the first person—Adam.
Difficulty challenges both of them.
Great grandfather Adam hesitates to open himself to others. Memories of his failure continually weigh heavily on his shoulders. There have been few shoulders for him to lean on.
Adam does not trust himself and thinks often he will never trust others.
Nokh says to God.
‘I should have packed for many more days. How do I come close to someone who purposely avoids me? Will I ever be able to hold him as a friend?’
The carefully crafted and prepared gift is almost forgotten in his disappointment that the relationship is moving so slowly. He had shaped it from the choicest hardwood, dark in color with inlaid highlights of rarest blood-red wood. The red extends the length of the dart. A red crosspiece crosses the blade at the hilt.
The hilt is perfectly shaped for the human hand. Its balance is without equal.
Enoch says to God.
‘Just as practice using strength, balance, and timing is essential for success in throwing a dart, I am learning to approach Adam patiently.’
God responds.
‘Approach wisely! Who are you to demand an audience with this great man who has such deep wounds?’
Adam’s eyes reveal more than he wants people to know. He is an old man with a much younger body. Now more than eight hundred years old, his skin is smooth with no wrinkles. Beautifully shaped muscles define shoulders, hips, and thighs. There is an unsettled peace about his inner man. Adam is tired.
The creative delights of God’s color wheel thrill him, as they have since his first breath of life. He never tires of the deep purples and tints of blue that calm his inner being.
The reds surrounding oranges and yellows of fruit satisfy his hunger for activity and productive work.
Green is his favorite. Adam’s home is a natural green of the deep forest. Accents of multi-tinted lighter greens almost overshadowed with feather-like fern provide what he often calls,
‘The full spectrum of God’s favorite color.’
Enoch sits on a boulder to rest.
‘I will take my time and talk to God. Since the Lord is everywhere present, I can talk with him while I wait.’
He prays aloud.
‘Please God. I wish to know Adam as a friend. If it pleases you, would you help me in this quest?’
Enoch knows from experience in his relationship with God that prayers are not always answered immediately. He accepts this and trusts God’s timing.
This arrangement of stone where Enoch waits has been placed here by someone. Most rock, as far as he knows, lays hidden under the rich soil, buried under fragrant grasses—hardness, hidden by softness.
When Adam sinned, the curse began. Chaos followed. It came much slower than Adam imagined.
Some of the trees now eight hundred years old have shown little disease or blight. All people live with youthful strength for hundreds of years.
Human vitality becomes a major problem. People begin to think they are invincible. They imagine themselves to be God.
Because Adam’s family has to sweat until it pours off their faces for their wonderful food supply and to raise livestock, they have taken rocks from the ground and used them for markers, enclosures, and protection.
Even from a distance Adam’s property shows signs of laborious, loving care. God had told him,
‘Take care of the earth I have created.’
And then after Adam’s expulsion from the garden,
‘Do it by the sweat of your dying body.’
Adam works as if it is part of his redemption. He obeys God with little understanding that his salvation is a gift. His land stands as a testimony of obedience to the Lord, but something is missing.
Enoch concludes,
‘I guess the only thing I am learning from Adam about humanness is my need to wait patiently on the Lord, my Creator, and Redeemer.’