It's funny how you can read over the same pages so many times, and then something new will jump out that you've never noticed before! I'm always a little sad that the creatures around us are a so skitterish - preferring to stay at a safe distance, or hidden away altogether! I love all these amazing created things and I'm looking forward to heaven when our relationship with them will be something very different.
I'd started again in Genesis and was moving my way through, and I came to these verses. It was at the end of the flood, when Noah and all those creatures he had with him in the ark, stepped out into the world to begin again! (Genesis 9:1-3 NIV) "Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.'"
God knew that the plants he had given to nourish our lives were not available immediately after the flood. So he put the animals on the list as well. A great cost involved in restarting! The animals were no longer just for our companionship and joy of sharing life with - they were now to be at our mercy. A food source for us. But God couldn't leave these beloved creatures as trusting targets - he had to give them a chance to survive!! So he gave them a spirit of fear towards us. So they too could live life and multiply and fill this "new" earth.
A very valid reason for their timidity. Can't believe I'd never noticed this stark mention of why! Just thought they'd learnt, through our behaviour over time, not to trust us. But God provided them with a safety net! So for now I get to watch from a distance, and enjoy little glimpses. But heaven and the new world! - that will be another story!!
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