Warning day4

 Take a deep breath.

Do you believe there will be enough oxygen for you to take another one in a few seconds?

Why?

Where will that oxygen come from?

What or who ultimately provides it?

Sure, there are trees and all sorts of plants that take in our poisonous gasses and provide oxygen in return. But who or what made the trees?

And how did things get set up so perfectly?

Remember your answer to these questions. You will need them at the end of today’s reading.

God’s desire is that people live in harmony with Him, with one another and with all of creation. That is precisely how Adam and Eve lived until they gave in to the notion that they could do a better job deciding where the boundaries were than God could.

Their lives had been characterised by meaningful work and a shame-free relationship. They experienced beauty and creativity.

When the consequences of sin began to spread relentlessly further and deeper, they experienced pain and frustration, chaos and alienation. Sin promised greater freedom, but it led to bondage.

And all of that came about because two people failed to do two simple things, trust and obey.

Of the two, we tend to focus most on obedience. That’s what parents stress with their children. We discipline our kids when they disobey. Society has an entire legal system with paid law enforcement officers to punish and restrain disobedient lawbreakers. What we often fail to notice, however, is that disobedience is usually the result of a lack of trust.

If we trusted God to be both great and good — if we believed Him to be as competent as He is portrayed in the Bible — we would be more likely to obey what He says.

As we think about how our behaviour is to be shaped by our story this week, it might be easy for us to present Adam and Eve’s fruit eating as a cautionary tale about what happens when we fail to obey God’s clear commands. But we’d rather encourage you to focus less on obedience to God and more on cultivating trust in Him.

Every command given in the Bible comes from a God who has our best interests at heart. He does not tell us to abstain from sex outside of marriage because He wants to spoil our fun, He tells us because He knows that such behaviour will ultimately lead us away from the intimacy we truly crave. He tells us to give money away not because He wants us to be impoverished, but because He knows that true freedom is found in a generous spirit.

Obedience that is not based in trust is short-lived at best and tends to produce resentment. That’s not what God wants; it’s not what any father wants with his children. Instead, with trust as the foundation of a healthy relationship, obedience comes naturally.

So how do you begin to cultivate that kind of trust in a God you can’t see? How do you learn just how trustworthy God is?

Easy: Take a deep breath again.

 

Prayer

 

God, I ask for a clearer vision of the blessings of obedience and the pain of disobedience so that I will fear You, hope in You and depend on You. Most of all, I want to grow in trust so that I will take the risks of obedience that run contrary to the world system with its temporal values. May I develop a clearer upward perspective so that I realise in my thinking and practice that only the transcendent can give ultimate meaning to life on earth. Without You I am wretched and hopeless, but when I abide in Your loving presence I enjoy the fruit of love, joy and peace. Grant me wisdom from the Word and the desire to renew my mind in Your timeless truth. Then I will walk in the way of life-giving trust and dependence, and then I will learn the blessings of obedience to what You proclaim for my good.

In Jesus’s name, Amen