The Genesis of Prayer
Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD. Genesis 4:26 (NIV)
Enosh was the grandson of Adam and Eve. His dad Seth gave him a unique name meaning “human being.” It seems an appropriate moniker for a baby born into a world two generations removed from a life in paradise; where his grandparents once had face to face communion with God and walked with Him in the garden.
The world outside of paradise was one in which the curse of the sin of Adam and Eve inflicted creation with pain from childbirth, laborious toil for a livelihood, relationship conflicts and inevitable death. The frailty and hardship of the sin-flawed human condition seems sufficient reason for Seth, a first generation exile, to name his child “human being” and for the inhabitants of earth at that time to begin “calling upon the name of the Lord.” Therefore it stands to reason that a creation willing to acknowledge its brokenness would naturally turn to the one who created it all. And so viola, prayer is introduced into the world for the first time!