January 27, 2010

I sometimes get asked, “If God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat the apple, why did He make it so easy to get?”

The question revolves around the idea that God could have just as easily put the tree on top of a mountain, or made it impossible to reach in some way.

The problem is the question misses the entire point of what God really wanted.  What God wants.

God built mankind with the express intent of giving them freewill.  The ability to choose.  It’s one of the things that separates us from everything else in the universe.  Angels know God exists.  And have no choice but to worship Him.  The animals, the earth, even the very rocks would call out in praise of Him if no man or woman did.  (Jesus briefly touches on that fact in Luke 19)

But God wanted something more.  He wanted man to be able to make a choice.  To believe Him.  Or not.  To worship Him.  Or not.

We all know to a degree why He’d want something like that.  If someone does something nice for you because they have to, or because they have no choice but to, it doesn’t mean anywhere near as much as when someone does something nice because they want to, they choose to.  Does it?

Angels cry out in worship every moment to God.  But a single moment of Man’s worship moves Him far more.

God wanted to build a creature that would choose to believe Him.  Believe in Him.  Worship Him.  The one downside to that is, God would have to build a creature that could choose not to believe Him.  Or believe in Him.  Or worship Him.

And so the very first choice came with a fruit.  Mankind was told not to eat it, or else there would be dire consequences.  A serpent said to eat it, and that there would not be any such dire consequences.

Now I have to ask you, my reader, if the fruit had been impossible to get would it really have been a choice?

Let me ask this way.  Imagine you enter a restaurant.  You are greeted warmly by your server and they ask what you would like to drink.  You naturally inquire as to the choices.  Imagine the server told you, “We have water.  And we have soda.  But the only way to get the soda is to travel to Mount Everest, ascend it, and claim it yourself.”

Is soda really a choice in that situation?  No, no it is not.

For something to be an actual choice, one option must be as relatively as easy to choose as the other.

If God had made the fruit impossible to obtain, He would have chosen for Mankind.  Instead of allowing Mankind the choice.

May I address something else here?  Choice also involves consequence.  And taking responsibility for our choices.  This is the very second mistake Mankind made.
First Mankind chose to believe the serpent over God.  Then Mankind chose not to take responsibility for that choice.

Eve blamed the serpent, saying “The serpent deceived me and I ate it.”

Adam blamed both Even AND God!  He said, “The woman YOU put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” (emphasis mine)

Notice first he points out that Eve gave him the fruit, then he points out that God was the one who made Eve in the first place.  Therefore it’s “His fault.”

That’s a pretty big mistake to make.  Because let’s face it.  Eve chose to believe the serpent.  Adam chose to believe Eve.  They were told by God there would be dire consequences.  And they chose to believe otherwise.

And do you know something else?  The very question this topic asks makes the same mistake.  It tries to put the blame on God.  “Well if God had put the fruit out of reach, then Adam and Eve couldn’t have eaten it.”

But the problem isn’t what God could have done.  The problem is what mankind should have done.

Do you know something else?  This very topic also proves just how much God loves mankind.  He could have made it impossible to choose to eat the fruit.  But He would rather be able to lose us, not have our worship, have the outcome of us choosing something other than Him… than force us to stay in His presence, and worship Him.

That’s one of the things that seem to distinguish God from so many stories of gods and goddesses.  Often those gods and goddess demand worship.  God really could.  But all He does is ask and hope and extend His arms waiting.

But God is a parent, in so many ways.  We let our children choose.  But when they choose unwisely, such as misbehaving, we also hold them accountable for those decisions.

So that’s what it boils down to.  Yes.  God didn’t want Adam and Eve to choose to eat the fruit.  But what He wanted more was for Adam and Eve to be able to choose at all.

Without free will we are no different than cows.  Existing without any real choice.  Unable to grow, to succeed, to triumph.  But with free will we can do all that and more.  At the small cost that we also can and will fail.

Thankfully, God also created forgiveness.  Second chances.  And growth.  Our failures don’t define us.  But they do refine us.  And that’s important too.

January 10, 2010

Today’s subject is hard.  One I have been thinking about on and off for sometime now.  It involves admitting.  Being honest with myself.  About whom I am.  Where I am.  And that’s just never easy, is it?

Have you ever wished you were more?  Accomplished more?  Have you ever seen what you should be and what you are and found the latter to be lacking compared to the former?
There are two men in the bible that had an encounter with God.

The first man encountered God, realized it was in fact God, and immediately tried to hide his face because he was afraid to look at God.

The second man needed to go somewhere.  But before he would he go, he insisted on seeing God first. He could not, would not, act without the presence of God.  The second man encountered God because he NEEDED to encounter God to live.

Sometimes it’s so easy to be that first man.  For so many various reasons.  Because we know what we are.  What we’ve done.  The choices we made.  Sometimes it’s not even the choices we’ve made, but the choices we have to make.  And there’s that tugging in the heart that tells us what we should do.  But we don’t want to.

I’ve been that first man most my life.  I’ve known who God is.  Believed in Him with all of who I am.  Without a single doubt.  But acknowledging He is real and bending to His will are two entirely different things.

I’m a willful man who likes it MY way.  And deep down I know that’s wrong.  I wish I were more like that second man.  The one who wouldn’t act, move forward, take another step… unless that step was WITH God.

And do you know it’s ok that I’m not more like that second man this instant?

The wonderful thing about God is that He will take us as we are.  And mold us, shape us, help us grow with time.  You see what I have not said yet are the names of the men in these two stories.

The first man is Moses. (You’ll find this story in Exodus 3:5-5)

The second man is also Moses. (And you’ll find this story in Exodus 33:18-23)

That’s amazing isn’t it?  The quality and caliber of a single man changed so much with time that he went from fearing seeing God to being unwilling to do anything without first seeing God.

It’s so easy to get lost up in past failures.  In misses and losses and could’ves and would’ves.  It’s so easy to look at yourself and think you could be so much more than you are today.  And convince yourself you never will be.

But that is NOT true.

You see so long as you allow God to He will shape you, mold you, guide you, and build you up.  And yes, there will be mistakes.  Moses made mistakes.  But he continued to grow.  Moses was not perfect.  Neither are you.  Neither am I.

The point is God is perfect.  And in our real lives with our real problems and our real needs we have a real God to get us through it.  To help us overcome what we were and become what we can be.

People make mistakes.  People sometimes don’t live up to their full potential.  I often feel like I couldn’t count all the times I’ve failed to be everything I could be.  But God doesn’t see the failure.

How could He?  He is a parent.

And a parent cheers when their son or daughter makes the game-winning basket.

But the parent doesn’t consider their son or daughter a failure for missing it.

Like any parent God sees the child who merely needs guidance to become the man or woman they really can be.  Everyday I come closer to it.  And every day it’s because God is there showing me how.

And maybe, the first true step is to stop fearing seeing God and being reminded of all the things in which we are lacking.  And instead insisting on having God truly present in our life so that He can strengthen us in all those places.

Because when you get down to it if the question ‘Was Moses a great leader?’ was asked, the answer would be no.  God was.