Today's passage from the Book of Genesis relates Cain's murder of his brother Abel and the subsequent "curse" imposed on him: "Therefore, you shall be banned from the soil that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. If you till the soil, it shall no longer give you its produce. You shall become a restless wanderer on the earth." (Gen 4: 11-12) What worse punishment for a farmer?
On our spiritual journey, there are times when we feel that our prayer is yielding nothing, as the barren soil under Cain's plow, or that our minds wander endlessly and all we see is the whiteness of a heavy snowfall, a "spiritual white out." We feel like we've inherited Cain's Curse, which he found "too great to bear." (Gen 4:13). But God did not intend to kill Cain nor allow others to do so. So too, in our dryness, in our blank, bland, apparently fruitless prayer, God stands by, with us, not allowing us to wither, but inviting us to call out to him in humility for a sense of direction, for help to accept our helplessness. It becomes the occasion to remember God's faithfulness, to trust that even this "white out" has its purpose. It's a time to focus not on ourselves nor our feelings, nor on our being "cursed", but on God.
Bro. Rene
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