Standing Out in the Crowd

As a kid, one of the parts of the Bible I would always neglect reading was anything with a genealogy. What did a bunch of names and numbers have to do with me? It wasn’t until I understood that everything is written in the Bible for a reason, that I began to read through genealogies a little more carefully. My hope is that today you’d read Genesis 5 and see what God wants you to see.

Read Genesis 5

What immediately jumps out at you when you read this genealogy? The first is that it traces Adams line to Noah. Further more, its pretty easy to see that each person in the genealogy is introduced in the same structure. “When Person A was X years old he fathered Person B. Person A lived after he fathered Person B Y years and had other sons and days. Thus all the days of Person A were X+Y years, and he died.” It follows this formula from Adam to Seth to Enosh to Kenan to Mahalel to Jared to Methuselah to Lamech to Noah.

But sometimes its easy to get lost in the numbers, especially when they’re as huge as the ones found here in Genesis 5. Instead of just focusing on how each of the people follow the same formula, its as important, if not more important, to look at the one who stands out from the crowd. Enoch. Read Genesis 5:21-24. Enoch is different from all the rest. He stands out from the crowd by one simple sentence, that “he walked with God”. Now did that mean the rest didn’t walk with God? Probably not. It’s clear that Adam and Noah walked with God at some point. Both literally and as a metaphor for the righteous life that was honoring to God. But Enoch here receives special attention, because he also walked with God. This makes Enoch stick out from the rest of the crowd.

So what does this mean for us? I believe that many of us go about our daily lives, whether at school or home or work, and we blend right in. Its so easy for us to be chameleons and adjust accordingly so that we don’t draw attention to ourselves. I believe that God is calling us to stand out from the crowd. To be different and not blend in to what culture and society tells us to be. But it would be so easy to stand out for the wrong reason. Our desire ought to be to stand out from the crowd because we walk with God. Our lives should be a reflection of a close intimate relationship with the living God.

Take some time today to ask God to help you stand out from the crowd by walking with Him. We want the world to look and see not us but Jesus at work in us. Pray that your brothers and sisters in their own schools and homes would also stand out for Jesus.