I started reading Adrian’s book The Power of Choice this evening and it’s already been blowing my mind so much!
(Quelle surprise… Adrian says smart things. Laura’s brain explodes at learning new smart things.)
The insights he has shared, throughout the Introduction and first chapter alone, are really beginning to shift around the way I think about things and it was just too good not to share!
[SPOILER ALERT!!]
One line/point that especially struck me was when he was working through the beginning of Genesis and writing about the breath/life that God breathed into Adam and the Tree of Life that was planted in the Garden of Eden.
“For man to continue life and flourish, God placed him in a garden in the east, in Eden, which translated in Hebrew describes an enclosed, guarded place of pleasure. The Scriptures also describe two trees – the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In this text, the word ‘life’ is the same Hebrew root word as the ‘Life’ that was breathed into the nostril of man for him to become a living being. This demonstrates that God’s plan is for man to continue thriving on the same substance that initially gave him life. When Adam ate from the Tree of Life, it is symbolic of the relationship between him and God – a bonding relationship of Spirit to spirit.” (p. 13)
Lifespring, God set us up to succeed!!
Originally, way back at the very beginning, God created the heavens and the earth to be a sustainable place for humans to experience Life fully!!
So many times, I’ve gotten caught up in thinking the opposite… “But why would he put a bad tree right in there in the first place?!” This is a fallen perspective. We know about the fall and about what Adam and Eve choose. We know about sin and the absolutely horrific things that spill forth as a result, generation after generation, all the way into our current time now!
We look back at the Garden through our lens of the Knowledge of Good and Evil… unable to see the Life for what it was originally!
God didn’t create Adam and Eve and set them loose in some cruel science experiment, timing to see how long it would take them to fail; God set them up for success and gave them everything they could ever need to thrive and flourish! In fact, God didn’t even create them until the world they were being brought into was safe, pleasurable and altogether good for them both.
God set us up to thrive and flourish; to succeed.
I believe if we really let that reality begin to settle into our hearts and minds, something really powerful will begin to shift around within us.
What would happen if we truly allowed ourselves to believe that?
How does that change the way we consider God’s hand at work in our lives today? How has the Lord made the way clear for you to succeed and connect to the Spirit?
What would happen if we allowed this truth about the Life of God to actually shape our own? What does it mean to carry a church name like, Lifespring?
How do we reconcile knowing that we were created and set up to succeed when our world today reflects the complete opposite?
How would that change our responses to brothers and sisters not being set up for success?
Who are we, as the people of God, and how does that identity define the choices we get to make?
Psalm 124
A song of ascents. Of David.
1 If the Lord had not been on our side—
let Israel say—
2 if the Lord had not been on our side
when people attacked us,
3 they would have swallowed us alive
when their anger flared against us;
4 the flood would have engulfed us,
the torrent would have swept over us,
5 the raging waters
would have swept us away.
6 Praise be to the Lord,
who has not let us be torn by their teeth.
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the fowler’s snare;
the snare has been broken,
and we have escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.