Why did God allow the serpent ( Genesis 3 ) in His Garden? Could not He have kept that dirty, low-down, lying bastard from even talking to Eve? Wouldn't it have made sense not to create that damn snake in the first place, instead of allowing it ( him? ) to ruin Adam's day? For that matter, why put a certain deadly tree in the midst of all the other trees ( of the Garden ), knowing full well that man would knowingly partake of it? There are many questions surrounding the Genesis account of the Fall of Adam, questions to which there can be no pat or easy answers!
In the Beginning, the Creator of Heaven & Earth visited His Creation in order to stir things up a bit! He introduced the Element of Danger into His Creation & at the same time, began to reveal His Covenant. The Danger was that if man, a mere Child at the Time, got impatient & tried to do it his way & in his own time, he would reap what he sowed! The Child did what most normal children will do & opted to live dangerously, disobeying his Father's healthy instruction & henceforth bearing the consequences of his own willfulness!
This Element of Danger included, but was not limited to the serpent that we meet in the Story that we read in Genesis 3. Without this Element of Danger, there would have been no need for an Antidote for the Poison engendered by it! The Creator introduced this Element of Danger that His Child might realize his precarious situation, receive the Antidote & enjoy the Blessings of the Covenant & Communion with Him!
We have the immutable & immeasureable privilege of living in the midst of this gloriously wonderful & intensely dangerous Creation! Danger is & always will be with us! There will always be trees to climb, bridges to jump off of & high mountains to scale! Any time that Children see a hot stove, not to mention any one of the above, it must needs be explored; that's just the curious nature of Children!
Danger is a funny thing; it can spell Disaster or it can mean Ultimate Blessing, it can be a Curse, or it can bring Joy! Much or most of what determines how the Danger presents itself is how we face the Danger! With maturity, a tall tree, inviting bridge or towering mountain peak may simply represent Joy; to scale the highest mountain, ford the widest sea or climb the tallest tree may afford us the greatest yet simplest joy we have ever known! However, without the maturity that comes with knowledge & experience ( neither alone will suffice ), Danger is just that, something to be avoided, almost at all costs! When presented with Danger, we will either succumb to it & Fall ( to our destruction ) or we will flee from it & miss out on the Blessing that rests there!
Embrace the Danger; be careful & learn from it, treat it with a healthy dose of respect, but do not fear it, for fear chokes, fear disables! If we do not give it the respect it deserves, it can kill, true, but if we face it with the resolve that only comes from maturity, we may reap untold blessing from it! Because we Fear the Danger, too often we fail to face it & so miss the Blessing that it represents; as one wiseman so famously put it; 'Aslan is not a tame Lion!'
When the Fulness of Time had come, the Creator of Heaven & Earth invested Himself in His Creation, Revealing the Antidote to the Poison that His Children had ingested due to their fear of the Danger! Those that accepted that Antidote received a full dose; they would still reap what they sowed, in a temporal & physical ( biological ) sense, but because of their immunization, the Children were no longer susceptible to the Eternal Consequence of the Poison! For all intents & purposes, as far as those Matured Children were concerned, the Poison had lost its Power, the snake its fangs!
The Danger was still present & gloriously so! Our Heavenly Father, the Creator of Heaven & Earth, built that dangerous aspect into His Creation! Without a certain level of Danger, there would be no Challenge to Life! If no Challenge to overcome, Life would not be worth living! If there were no mountains to conquer, bridges to jump, or trees to climb, Life would be boring indeed; as another wiser Man once put it,
' if the salt has lost its savor, it good for nothing but to be thrown out and trample underfoot'!
Charles Haddon Shank
No comments:
Post a Comment