This morning as I was reading my Bible I realized that Noah was the great great great great grandson of Cain. Yes, Cain. The first son of Adam and Eve. The son who gave God "fruits of the soil" for a sacrifice. The son that God did not look on with favor because of this sacrifice. The son who became angry because of this. The son who killed his brother because of his anger. The son who was cursed because of this murder and was driven from the land. Yes, this was the son that had a descendant that God chose because this descendant (Noah) was the only righteous man on earth who, the Bible says, "walked with God."

Wow, doesn't that give you hope that God can still use your existence even if you have messed up big time.

Now that is not the only thing I got from this story. The passage says:

Gen. 4: 4 The Lord looked with favor on Able and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

The one thing that kept popping into my head when I was reading this was "Joel Olsteen"! I know that sounds crazy, and I am not a Joel Olsteen groupie, but I just realized how important what he preaches is. (and I guess I have just promoted his new book, "Your best life now"). I realized how negative attitudes can lead to sin, and I can look back over my life and see how negative thoughts led to me behaving in wrong ways, which led to consequenses that have determined the direction of my life. Now that doesn't mean we should be fake and gooey happy all the time, but if we can take our thoughts off of what appers to be a crummy or horrible situation and focus on and continually think on what the Bible really says about us and our life and the world and God, we won't be meditating about our bad situation... and our attitude will automatically change... and then

"All things [can] work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to his purpose..." and God can take a messed up life and change the course of the world.