Nougat 11

“You may … but not …” – ever heard those words directed at you? How did you react to that? Consider today’s Holy Nougat

“But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden – except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”” ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭2:16-17‬ ‭NLT‬‬

What a predicament!

Adam was given Full access to Paradise; except for one thing. He was NOT to touch a particular fruit. We who are agreed that God created every single thing may find this challenging. For it then boils down to the ‘why’ and ‘what’ questions?

Why

Knowing what God knew about the human God created,Why in earth did God say ‘eat this, not that’? (Special credit to the folks who have a program with that name). Yet, God did. I believe it suggests that God had faith in Adam to do and be the best selves he was called to be. Adam was created with the power of choice; and God was obliged to honor God’s decision of giving Adam the power to choose. Even if it meant Adam could opt against God.

Which leads to the second ‘Why’

Why in earth did God, Whose breath is Life and Spirit, Choose to breathe God’s likeness into Humanity over all the Creation? (See Genesis 2:7 ) Now that’s the eternal life question. For I believe that the authority to create and thus to make life and death choices came with the inhalation of God’s Spirit. There were angels, there was Jesus, God’s Spirit and the rest of Creation. Why choose humans for such privileges and responsibilities? Why offer Adam the ability to choose?

Perhaps God was bored. Maybe God wanted something else to experience the awesomeness of God’s Creativity and the joy of extending God’s grace to others. For, both Jesus and the Spirit of God were/are extensions of God’s self, and definitely similar enough to God to be or do differently.

The strange thing is, you and I have the same power, privileges and restrictions as Adam. We are God’s mini-me, in whom God’s Spirit abides. We each have to think about our Whats …

What

So knowing what we know from the nougat, What is our ‘Eat this not that’? ie What has God specifically restricted us from? As you chew, remember that Adam was alone; so I invite you think of your individual What, not everybody else’s. It is easy for us to watch our neighbor, not realizing that God’s speaking to us. As we reflect, Samson had a specific What, so did John the Baptist. I believe that we each have a different ’What’.

And that’s how we get to the other ‘what’: knowing what our What is; what shall we do about our What?

Before we respond, I invite us to bear in mind the fact that the Bible differentiates humanity from the rest of Creation through our likeness to God. Whereas the ‘Amen’ brought every other thing into being, in the power of God’s Spirit; we are created With God’s Spirit within us. We can choose to yield to God’s Spirit or do our thing, whatever that is.

What shall we choose?

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May all we seek be found in Christ