For Lamech, it's seventy-seven!

Genesis 4:24 I killed a man for wounding me, a young man who attacked me.
If Cain is avenged seven times, for Lamech it’s seventy-seven.

I puzzled quite a bit over this story of one of Cain’s descendants. Why is it here? What is it trying to tell us? And then it struck me; here we have an example of how people take God’s acts and intentions and distort them. God’s statement of avenging Cain seven times upon anyone that harmed him was a compassionate declaration of his love and protection for Cain. It was meant as a deterrent, so that Cain would come to no harm. But for Lamech, it becomes a competition, a measure of manhood, a method of self-aggrandizement. If God can do it sevenfold, he seems to be saying, I am that much greater than God I’ll multiply his by eleven! See how big I am? He puts himself in the place of God, rather than having the proper perspective of his weakness and vulnerability in the face of God’s power. He relies on his own physical strength, and probably a hair-trigger reactivity to other people’s treatment of him, tending to see an attack where there is none. When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So, too, when you are always ready to defend yourself, you are likely to see attacks everywhere.

How do I do this in my own life? How do I take God’s grace that has been poured out on me and use it to puff myself up, to think well of myself? When someone disagrees with me, do I see that as an attack? How often do I react to people’s words out of old patterns of defensiveness and fear, rather than trusting God in my heart and listening to understand what the other person is trying to tell me? I have noticed that as soon as I give myself a silent, “well done!” or become aware of things going well in my life, there is a persistent tendency to get sucked in by my ego-imagination, painting pictures of future triumph and renown. That is taking the blessings of God and distorting them, making them about me rather than about God’s eternal goodness. So, perhaps the question then is, how do I continue to recognize the blessings in my life as the result of God’s grace and compassion, and not my own efforts? Only in this way can I keep my will in alignment with the Eternal Will of Being.

Prayer: Dear God, It has been a week of blessing and hard work. Whenever I feel blessed or that I have accomplished something, help me remember that all I have and all I am is the product of Your Divine Favor. Remind me to bow in humility to your all-encompassing power, so that I approach my fellow human beings out of my human frailty, rather than some sense of false invulnerability. For I know my only strength and power lie in You. Amen.