Time spent with fellow workers is a great comfort to Enoch. Nothing will replace precious moments with Orna, the companion of his youth. This is God’s plan for him. He willingly submits. He has learned to be thankful for all things.
Orna has been gone for more than two hundred years. His love will never grow cold.
Memories help. The development of the riverside property continues to bless his thinking. Orna had worked with him, they were a great team.
Since their world needed little protection from the sun or extremes of temperature, they built for family closeness and beauty. The form was much more important than function. Their work displayed that they had both been created in the image of God. God’s work is beautiful. God is a God of order.
Their children loved life. They did all the things that young ones love to do. They climbed, snuggled, ran and jumped, and played in the water.
Sharing happy meals and worshipping at the simple altars was always a joyful routine that helped each one grow in God’s grace. Families worked together with little thought that life could be any different than it was. They seldom disagreed on what to do or how to do it.
Nokh does not think about taking another wife. He knows it is normal for most men to remarry but God has given Enoch assurance that it is all right to stay single and work hard on other types of relationships.
As years pass Nokh discovers that relationship with God eclipses everything else in his life. It is still difficult to explain but he genuinely considers God to be his best friend.
One day two younger granddaughters asked grandfather a question several weeks before he left the city. They were carelessly enjoying the refreshing waters of the river.
‘Tell us what you mean that God is a friend!’
‘It is hard to describe. You must experience it. That explains it best. A person does not jump into an intimate relationship with anyone quickly. Intimacy grows over time.’
He tells the girls that all spiritual growth depends on a person’s desire and submission to the Lord. God faithfully does his part. We need to be faithful to do all that he asks of us.
‘I appreciate everything God does for me, but I am more thankful for all things—even the bad things we see in our world.’
Enoch then, as always, is very careful to explain the core truth of his relationship with God.
‘When we obey by offering blood for forgiveness at the altar, we trust God’s mercy and go from there to trust and obey.’
By faith, the faithful offer sacrifices. God requires the blood of the lamb.
‘Our families share the succulent roasted flesh of the sacrifice. We enjoy it with friends too. The forgiven celebrate in fellowship with God and one another. That is the way with God—he shares all good things with those who walk with him.’
The young women face him with eager anticipation as he continues.
‘Many times I experience the touch of God. His presence is real. This becomes one of the best parts of my walk with God.’
How does a person describe something like that? It is best to begin with a belief that works out through obedience, finally being fulfilled in personal experience. True rest follows continual reaffirmation of trust in God alone. It is definitely not a climactic decision.
Enoch finally rests alone on his journey. He enjoys remembering the way his granddaughters had responded. He prays right now for them to grow in God’s grace and truth.
Time alone heightens a person’s sense of the presence of God. People and social interaction are essential for a godly life, but too many distractions rob the faithful of special times with the Lord.
Suddenly he asks himself.
‘Why did I send the two young men to the city asking them to split up and go in different directions?’
Why did the men accept his words so quickly? God must have led them.
‘Danger surrounds you!’
They are being followed. Gangs of wicked ones patrol this region, moving closer and closer to the source of the waters of life.
Enoch’s special love for Mattawn lifts his inner being even though he still senses danger. His youngest child has never wavered in his faith in God. He too walked. . .
This entire community has become God’s kind of people. Nokh often reports that Ebele and Mattawn’s village is the happiest place on earth.
Now, each step Enoch takes raises the hair on the back of his neck. He treads lightly in daylight. Travels mostly at night, by the light of the moon.
Gangs pass him. Traveling toward the city. They are celebrating with drunken abandon. He overhears,
‘That should teach those rebels! They will no longer bring disaster to our world. Our children are safe.’
Running forward, on the final day of his journey, Nokh falls with exhaustion as he sees destruction in Mattawan’s town.
‘Oh my God! Where is my son? Did any escape? My family! My loved ones! The people of God! My god! My God! He cries out.’
The shock is too much for him to bear alone. He crawls into a tangled bower of bushes and twisted vines obscured by towering trees and weeps until he collapses in a heap that comes only from extreme sorrow.
Awakening, only God knows when seeing the silence of death, Enoch stumbles to his place near the gates of Eden.
He does not know why.
‘Will this place help me?’
Is this too much for one man to bear?