This Spring, I decided I needed a project.

So I made a man-cave.

I took it upon myself to clean out our oversized garage, jam-packed with boxes and books and junk. Jan helped, too.

We made 5 trips to the recycling center, and 5 trips to Goodwill, and bought some new shelves, and suddenly there was room for a couple old couches for lounging, a heavy bag for punching, and some all-around “me space”.

Most evenings, I’ll pull the cars out of the garage and look out at the field and trees across the street from our house, and I’ll sit on my couch, and drink a Diet Pepsi, and I’ll grunt my approval.

It was on one of those recent evenings in my man-cave when I pondered what life would have been like for me if I had been a cave man.

Now technically, scientists would say that the actual cave men were Neanderthals, a group related to Homo Sapiens, but who went extinct as modern humans began to develop, but go with me on this:

If I was a cave man, I’d burn as many calories hunting my food as I would gain eating it.

If I was a cave man, I’d be more in touch with nature. Maybe I’d even learn to make fire!

If I was a cave man, I wouldn’t need to shave. Or brush my teeth. Or cut my hair. (Okay, I don’t cut my hair very often as it is)

If I was a cave man, I wouldn’t be worried about what was happening a mile away from me, let alone on the other side of the world.

It doesn’t sound too bad, really.

Except for the sabertooth tigers. And the disease. And the lawlessness.

And no Diet Pepsi.

Well…

I suppose modern people have some advantages over cave people, but here’s something amazing to think about:

You take away all the junk we own, all the conveniences and comforts we live with, and all the progress (and problems) that come with modern life, and jump back in time 20,000 years, and God doesn’t change.

The God that loved and cared for cave people is the same God who loves and cares for us!

Can you imagine that? Before we had language, or technology, or even a well-honed sense of morality, the earliest human beings (and close relatives) were still children of God.

I don’t know why, but the idea had never occurred to me before. But as I sit in my man-cave, writing this, it gives me some comfort, and thankfulness.

I’m thankful to be in this time and place, and to offer all I am and all I have to the God who made everything, including my great great great great (x1000) grandparents.

There’s always a place for God in my man-cave,

because anything less,

would be uncivilized.

Have a great week

Mitch (grunt)

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