Trees

I really appreciated our last Nooma during Lent called Trees. It talked about how we are living between Genesis and Revelation. I really hope several people go to the Bible book of faith seminar on May 1st. Heidi and I are unable to attend, but it's HUGELY important for Faith's passionate spirituality score. We are striving to get 25% of our confirmed members reading Scripture daily. We are also restarting our prayer chain via e-mail and looking for a few people to pray together on Fridays or Saturdays and pray with me (or the preacher if it's not me) on Sunday mornings before worship.

One detail I picked up on today was that Adam and Eve had free reign to eat from the tree of life, but went for the other one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I am brought back to my confirmation verse, Proverbs 1:7, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." What caused them to eat from that tree? They wanted to be like God. Wouldn't living forever be enough? I actually think Adam, this one made from dirt, wanted to be God. Most sin in this world comes from a power grab like this, wanting power over our own lives, power over others.

"You started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt." But what happens to dirt when God breathes into it? Life!

It's interesting that in Genesis 3 God makes this statement, "The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never—this cannot happen!"

We cannot live forever in this state of knowing evil and being forever tempted to "make a bad choice," as we say in our home. That would be a disaster. For the next 1,185 chapters in God's story (notice I didn't say humanity's story), our Creator is working things together for our good, for our redemption. One day, there will be a tree the leaves of which will heal the nations. We yearn for that day. In the meantime, let's fear and love God and do our job: care for his creation (remember, people are God's best creation).