what will we do with the time given us?

In this post I referred to the thought that nurturing and giving of ourselves brings order and taking for ourselves rather than receiving from the abundance of God brings chaos.

I spoke of it in a passing way as if it is a self evident truth and  I believe it is to anyone who has spent time thinking about it.  However, not everyone has spent time thinking about it and of those that have, some have not thought about it deeply.  So i want to share my thoughts in this regard.

In the garden of Eden, before the fall, all seems to be idyllic.  There is friendship with God, friendship with each other, shameless and sinless public nudity, fulfilling work, and in regard to physical needs everything was provided.  This was the way it was while our attention was on “the other.”

Our attention did not remain on the other.  No one knows how long the beauty of life in the garden lasted, it might have been lifetimes or just a few days, but there can be little question it was too short a time for those who walked there with God.

God gave us a choice early in our lives with Him, live with Him or die apart from Him.  Life with Him brought beauty, plenty, love, peace.  Life apart from him would bring ugliness, strife, famine, hate, war, and death.

One day The Pernicious One questioned the validity of the choice we had made.  He suggested a different choice and made two troubling claims:  God had lied to us (“It is not true that you will surely die…”), and God was holding back a part of Himself which if we had access to, would surely draw us closer to Him and each other. (God knows that on the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”)

We chose, we continue to choose, poorly.

The text indicates that it wasn’t long before the consequences of our choice confronted us.  No longer would Adam choose to nurture the soil, he would rather do everything to take from it for himself.

It would fight him with thorns.

Chaos.

No longer would Eve choose to invest herself in those around her, she would become obsessed with her husband. The addition of children to her family would be through tremendous pain.

It should have been different.

It should have brought order and beauty and peace and love.

Instead, the first human child murdered the second.

Taking for ourselves assumes lack.  The truth is there is abundance available to any and all who choose to live with Him.  When we choose friendship with God, we assume a posture of altruistic giving.  We expect no repayment, no return on our “investment”,  knowing that God is The One Who Repays!

“Be setting free, and you shall be set free.  Be constantly giving, and it shall be given you, a generous measure that has been pressed down hard and which has been shaken thoroughly and which is running over shall they give into the pouch of your outer garment, for with the measure by which you are accustomed to measure, it shall be measured to you again.”

On the contrary, taking, assuming lack, fighting to get for ourselves leads to chaos.  All we need do is look at the world around us, how many wars are there being fought on the planet right now?  How many starving?  How many dying of obesity?  How many addicted?  How many murdered?  How many aborted?  How many alone?  How many suicides? How many imprisoned? How many poor?  How many rich? How many abused, enslaved, raped, tortured???

These things do not come from the altruistic love of God!

They may, at times, come from religion.

They may even come from “Christian” religion.

They do not come from God’s heart or from his design for us.

“…it is necessary in the nature of the case for the Son of Man to be lifted up, in order that everyone who places his trust in Him may be having life eternal.  For in such a manner did God love the world, insomuch that His Son, the uniquely-begotten One, He gave, in order that everyone who places his trust in Him may not perish but may be having life eternal. For God did not send off His Son into the world in order that He might be judging the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”

The choice is still ours.

The choice is still the same, it has not changed,

live with Him

or die apart from Him.

Order

or

Chaos.

Every person who continues to choose well brings a bit of order to the chaos of this world.  When we become His, we work together in a synergistic way.  As more people choose it brings exponentially more order and love and plenty to the world.

I’m not talking about choosing to get up and go to church.

I’m talking about loving God and my neighbor with a divine and self-sacrificial love, just like Jesus loves me!