I have found that trying to sort through all the events included in the creation story from Genesis can give you a headache.  It would be interesting to have a list of questions put together from everyone that has read through the story.  I personally have many more questions than answers.  What did God and man talk about during the day?  Weather certainly wasn’t the topic.  The environment was perfect.  No cold fronts to talk about or slight chance of thunderstorms.  How old did God create Adam and Eve?  Were they teenagers or older or perhaps younger?  Belly buttons or no belly buttons?  Genesis 2:15 tells us, “God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it”.  What work did the garden need?  There were no weeds or thistles.  What about this snake?  What does it mean, Genesis 3:1- ”the serpent was ”more crafty” than any of the wild animals”?  Was it a walking snake?  Did all the animals talk?  The subject of the snake alone has resulted in commentary after commentary being written with all kinds of different perspectives.  Some say that the snake was an entirely different creature before the curse turned it into the snakes we know about today.  Some say that satan just made his voice come out of the snake  while others say satan entered into the snake.     How much time passed from the time God told them to stay away from the tree until they ate from the tree?  Genesis 3:16 says the curse on the woman would involve the pain in childbirth greatly increasing.  How would Eve know if the pain was “greatly increased”?  I wonder how the the perspective of Adam and Eve changed towards the snake after they were banished from the garden.  Did they hunt it down and stomp it to pieces? 

There are certainly more questions than answers when I read through the creation story.  There is a very serious and very real danger involving “questions without answers” for many people.  People are wired differently in how they think and reason.  Some people can read the creation story and think about some of the questions and simply shake their head and move on knowing there isn’t a documented explanation or answer.  Other people will read the story and think about the questions and will not be able to move on at all.  They will come to a stop and not be able to continue until someone or something helps them to understand or to “make sense” of what they are questioning.  It is a sad situation because God doesn’t want any of His creation, for any reason, to stop in their walk with Him. I know the standard encouragement given to people struggling with questions is to wait until they get to heaven and then they can ask God.  That never worked for me.  I took a different route and today I am very thankful that I don’t have anymore questions.  I took the route that kept me walking on the journey with God.   That doesn’t mean I don’t have all sorts of thoughts, ideas and proposals about all kinds of diffent things I read from God’s word.  It just means I no longer get “hung up” on the things that I think about which I know do not have any defined answers that I can find.  No more headaches.  

And as for the waiting until I get to heaven to ask God?  Thanks, but no thanks.  I don’t like waiting lines.  Besides all that, I can’t imagine having anything at all to ask once I am in that amazing place. 

Greg Smith