Did God REALLY say?

I don't think what I am about to write will be "groundbreaking" but the thought behind this post occurred to me recently while watching a sermon about Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The premise was that when Eve and Adam ate of the tree, they were asserting their independence from God. In essence they were telling God, "We no longer will trust you to decide what good and evil is, WE will now decide on our own." This idea, which I think is very valid and makes more sense than the simple act of eating a piece of fruit ruining society for millenia, is what gave rise to the next thought...which is now the basis for this post.

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they did become like God in that they would now KNOW both good and evil. When I use the word KNOW, I would like to replace it with the words "personally experience". So, the thought would go, " When you eat of the fruit, you will become like God, personally experiencing both good and evil." God created all things "good", yet knew that Satan and his evil angels had rebelled. He had experienced sin already and a saddened heart caused by the heavenly rebellion. He did not want Adam and Eve to have to experience this knowledge of sin. Satan of course did, as he wants all of God's good creation to suffer and experience pain, sadness, loss, death, sickness, etc.

So, I think this passage has a double meaning. One being, that after Adam and Eve ate of the tree, they would become autonomous and rebellious against God's laws and would make their own as they saw fit...and the result of this rebellion would be that they would EXPERIENCE the evil results themselves, as would the rest of humanity. They would now know, from first hand experience, both good and evil.

This is where we are today folks. Making our own way as opposed to taking God's word and obeying it. Result : death, sickness, rape, murder, pride, vanity, lust, abortion, selfishness, hate, envy, cheating, stealing, ....all the while, we still see good...we still see love, friendship, caring, joy, honesty, commitment....we KNOW both good and evil. And we DO both good and evil. Jesus is the perfect picture of a human actually LIVING all good, all the time. Something I WISH I could do but fail at repeatedly and daily. What did Jesus experience? He was a man full of sorrows, well aquainted with grief. Why? Because all of humanity around him were not living as he was...and they also hated him for being God's obedient son. We are a rebellious people. Rebels get chaos. They think they are achieving freedom...but instead we become slaves.

Look at our world...we have all the choices of what we want available to us...and yet, our whole world is enslaved to so much pain. Every problem is so complex that not one nation has found an answer that works flawlessly. We are ENSLAVED to this world and the results of sin. God told us we would see death if we ate of that tree...and not only Adam and Eve have rebelled, but each of us has ever since....to our own pain and suffering....which God desired to spare us. He continues to want to spare us this pain....which is why he gave us Christ...to escape this slavery. He has a new Kingdom for us. He invites everyone, but some still want the fruit of the tree instead. Those who eat of it will surely die. God really DID say.

So I am currently reading, actually, have finished reading, "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller. It's definitely thought provoking and had pretty much been the straw on the camel's back in regards to my life being boring. Not meaningless mind you...but boring...a lifeless life. Not because it couldn't BE more exciting...but because I am a big fat chicken, oh..and lazy. I was thinking last night about how much I say "no" to something because it will inconvenience me in some small way. Example: A few years back , we were visiting my in-laws in Missouri. It was a beautiful chilly evening with about a gazillion stars in the sky. My husband took mattresses from the bunk beds and layed them out on the back patio to sleep outside. I declined. "Too cold," I said. The next morning, all the people who slept outside had this great little bonding moment, how they all shared a night under the stars. I missed out. That is MY story. I miss out. Not because there haven't been opportunities to jump into something, but because I choose to.Isn't that sad?What am I usually doing instead?Television. Ugh... It recently dawned on me that most of my life, and the majority of Americans aren't really LIVING life. Instead, we are watching fake shows that enlist actors to live fake lives...or "reality" shows of people who, for good or bad, are actually DOING something. (Whether or not it's worth filming ...that's debatable.) This realization has really got me stir crazy...and of course, this revelation has to come and hit me in the dead of winter. YAY! I find myself daydreaming about running full speed down a beach into the waves of the ocean or prancing through a stunning field of wild flowers with the sunshine on my face and no one around for miles. (Think Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music") Pretty much wanting to act like a kid again who just ENJOYS their life and every moment of bliss that comes their way. In this book Don talks about how our lives change...we start out wanting to change the world..get married..have kids...make a career...and then somewhere along the middle of life...we get stuck in our story and can't see the beginning or the end. We are just sitting in the middle with no wind or waves. It can get depressing.I have this fantasy, I suppose, of running through one of the above mentioned places and the action of it literally fills me with such joy that I think that while I am running, I might explode from within...as if light would shine out from the tips of my toes and fingers, eyes and mouth. Just bright beams of shining light so that all the joy can come out without destroying me or being cooped up inside my skin. Sometimes I feel like that...like all of me is just cooped up inside and my body is literally a type of prison. I understand, to a point, artists. They have found a way to somehow get what is them on the inside, to the outside of themselves. Unfortunately, many artists are filled to the brim with junk and immorality, so that is what oozes out. Have you ever hugged and kissed your child or a spouse and felt like there was this wall between you and them...as if you couldn't get close enough to them? What I mean is that, only if the two of you were somehow joined together as one being, could you share the full measure of your love with them and also receive that love back from them. Your body holds you back and so does theirs...you can't literally kiss their spirit...only their cheeks. You can't hug their heart...so it feels like you are exploding from the inside...you are too small to have all this feeling within you. That is how I feel. I wonder if that is how God feels? There is a lot of talk in the Bible about being "one" with God, being "In Christ", how Christ is in God and we are in God through Christ...Wow...we are the BODY of Christ. He is the head...we are one being, absorbed back into God from whom we came, yet still known as we are known here on earth. What a true mystery. I remember being pregnant with my babies. I would lie there, feeling them moving around, knowing this little person was inside my body. I was torn because I loved them so much already, that I wished they were born, so I could hold them and kiss them...all the things I could not do while they were still inside. Now, though, I can hold and kiss them, yet I have lost that intimate feeling of knowing they are literally within me, using me for their very life and growth.Maybe that is the picture we are supposed to have of God. In the garden, we were in the womb of God. Fully relying on him, so close to him. When we rebelled, we were birthed out into the reality of the world of sin...and ever since, God has been calling us back to being His children, back to the womb. Back to that place of safety and protection where we are "in" Him and rely on him for everything with complete trust. I don't think my babies wondered if I was going to protect them or feed them when they were in my womb...it wasn't until they were outside that they cried for their food and showed fear that perhaps I might not come to them.And just like my baby crying for me...humanity has been crying out in fear, in all different ways, calling for God to come to them...and He did. He sent Jesus. Our bread of life, our living water. Telling us we will never thirst and never hunger again. He is that umbilical cord that connects us to the life giving Father. Connecting us back to the place that we were birthed from. Without him...we are lost. Stillbirths in a sense.Whoa. This blog took a much more serious turn than I had planned...but what a picture! God is so good...just look to his creation to see who He is! That makes me want to really run on the beach now! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Miss Understood

It has come to my attention that some people out there do not understand me or where I am coming from. Imagine that! It is hard for me sometimes because I live so much in my mind and I am constantly thinking about whatever strikes my fancy that it seems that only tidbits of that ever makes it out into the world, leaving people with a very fragmented view of how I see things. I have been told that I can come across as holier than thou (which I can see and understand...I deal with pride and self-righteousness just like everyone else). I also can come across as silly and goofy...which strikes a strong contrast to the holier than thou personality. I think it confuses people that one minute I can be talking hell and brimstone and in the next I can be singing Broadway show tunes or dancing in my kitchen. I am a real person. Just in case you didn't know. I have feelings, I cry..I laugh and make mistakes. I also happen to love God immensely and all at the same time, not immensely enough. This contradiction of personality leaves me fearful at times of even sharing my faith...because I know how bad I mess up and how could anyone look at me and find Jesus in there? Yet...I know he is...when I actually listen properly and then OBEY.
I just wanted to put this out there so you can read my posts with a brief understanding that I struggle too. I struggle to be a godly woman in an ungodly tent of flesh and bone that likes it's sin and yet hates it too. I get what Paul was saying when he said in Romans 7, "^14-16I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.

^17-20But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

^21-23It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

²⁴I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

²⁵The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.."

Thank God for his grace in Christ. I still have a hard time with grace...there is a part of me that LOVES the law..and then I hate myself for not being able to fulfill it...but in the end...I rest in the faith that Jesus knows this and paid for all the times I will inevitably fall short of the goal...which I was already doing before my faith in him...just NOW I am aware and actually CARE that I am not meeting the goal. I am thankful that Christ met it for me and in his love, gives me the credit...how cool is that? I am so confused and frustrated at myself sometimes...I am such a contradiction...I am sure others see it as well. That is why I am Miss Understood...but at least there is one with whom I am fully known...and he loves me in spite of it all!

Just Getting Started...

Well, so here I am...starting a long lost blog. This all started way back on Myspace...but when the masses switched to Facebook, my blogging lost it's way and so here I am. Back in the saddle again. I can't think of anything of real importance to talk about today...it's hot in my house and the kids are restless. Typical. Too much laundry to be done, the mind boggles. I guess I just want to use this as an avenue to express my thoughts on God...and life in general. Be aware, I have no formal "God" training...and I am not a genius. A simple girl am I. I enjoy responses to my writings if anyone actually ever reads this. So, with that said...Let the games begin.