Answers Without Questions

So, this season in my life has been... different.

I've always been able to pursue God about specific things and get relatively clear answers. Whether it be a simple peace to act in this way, or an excitement to go that way, or a definite confidence in what needs to be done.

But the past several months, maybe close to a year, every time I've pursued Him for answers, I've found Him... but... not what I would have called my answers. I couldn't go before Him in prayer and/or in the Bible without finding amazing truths about His character and love... yet none of it seemed to pertain to my various struggles (i.e. whether or not to move to CO, to take this job or that, to go to Africa). Don't get me wrong I think our free will is absolutely the most beautiful and powerful gift God gave us, and I think His design is for us to make decisions for ourselves.

But the Bible also says that He hears our cry and saves us. I think there is a lot of guidance available to make the best decisions and to then get the most out of those decisions.

So here I am... thinking I'm bringing a specific petition before Him, and as I enter His presence I found out that... Adam was one tough dude and a hopeless romantic.

Eh?

Yep. God shows me part of His passion and love for mankind is our tenacity and optimism.

Have you ever thought about how Christians who have tasted even the smallest part of God's essence, are willing to sacrifice their entire lives in pursuit of more of Him? And if anything were to separate them from Him... they are pretty sure they'd just lie down and die? It's a common attitude we have.

But... have a look at Adam and Eve. They had "the perfect" relationship with God: constant communion with Him, physical interaction with Him, clothed in His very glory. Pretty much everything we would pursue and might dream of having with Him...

... and it was ripped out from under them. They had it and completely lost it.

You know, we're barely 3 chapters into the Bible here (what's that, like day ten-ish?), not a bad place to just scratch the whole creation thing/experiment, maybe start over.

But God didn't, He let us live.

And Adam and Eve could have given up and just curled up and died there.

But they didn't. They lived.

Now here's the part I love: When all this dirt is out in the open and God's obviously sad and angry and He's making very clear what all of the curses are that go along with a life submitted to sin... Adam has the most fascinating reaction to it all:

God says first to the serpent, "Because you did this you are cursed more than any other animal. You will crawl on your belly, and man will step on you... and you will bruise man's heal. (I've always thought that was a humorous illustration)

And then God says to woman, "Your pain will increase during pregnancy and in pain you will give birth, and you will struggle for power with your husband."

And to man he said, "The ground is now cursed, you will struggle all your life to get a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you... by the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made..."

And how does Adam react to all of this? Remember, death and pain were completely unknown to them before all of this. This is a huge awful thing to swallow, not only is God mad, you just found out life is going to be really hard and painful, and you're just going to die at the end of it, and you don't really have a relationship with God anymore...

But what does Adam do in the very next verse?

"Then Adam turned to his wife and named her Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live." Gen 3:20

What?!

Didn't he hear a word God said? I picture Eve taking this all pretty hard and feeling responsible and ashamed. She's sitting there with her face buried in her hands, weeping. And Adam lifts her chin up, takes her hands in his and says, "Did you hear that? ...We're gonna have kids!"

Hopeless romantic.

And as long as mankind could survive long enough for God to make a way to redeem us... we would be saved.

Tenacious.

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So, how do I apply any of that to the things I'm trying to figure out? Beats me (guess I'll just have to rest in Matt 6:33).

But I do know that God is one fascinating, fantastic... God. Gotta love Him.