Walking the path

In the Garden of Eden, God planted two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Both trees were his. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not the devil’s creation. Satan simply used it as a tool to draw Adam and Eve away from dependence on God.

God was not surprised when Adam chose the wrong tree. He had already made provision for that failure before the foundation of the world. The desire for independence, which we proudly call freedom, became a defining trait of humanity. I felt it surge through me when I became a teenager. In high school, it made me a rebel; later, in the workplace, it became an asset. But over the past few months, the Lord has put his finger on that trait in me and invited me to change.

It began in an unexpected way. I became ill, which brought most of my activity to a halt. In that stillness, the Lord asked me a question: “When Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, what did they understand his words to mean?”

From that question, a project grew and its scope expanded with each passing day. The crowds who heard Jesus were biblically literate, but their understanding varied by religious sect and local custom.

As a child, I thought the Bible was essentially a law book. Years of study have shown me otherwise. If a textbook on anatomy were written the way the Bible is, it would cover the major organs in detail while skipping many smaller ones and saying little about the connective tissue that holds everything together. Teachers and denominations are eager to explain how all the pieces fit, but even passages that sound like personal directives, such as “an eye for an eye,” were addressed to the nation and its legal system. They required a court, a majority of judges, and due process. The individual had no authority to judge or punish on his own.

This brought me to a question I had to ask the Lord directly: “How do I follow you based only on what I actually know, rather than on what I merely think I know?” As soon as I asked it, I recognized the irony; it was a Tree of Life question, but it came from a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil mind.

The Lord works through invitations. We don’t even come to him unless he first draws us. He seems to extend invitations to me nearly every day, and he consistently asks me to evaluate them based on what I know, not on what I assume. I know that God wants me to love him. I know he wants me to love my neighbor. The remaining question is always whether this particular thing is something he is asking me to do with him now. To answer that, I usually have to go to my room, close the door, and engage in the kind of living relationship with the Lord that no amount of theological knowledge can substitute for.

This entire project has drawn me closer to him. Without personal time in his presence, I don’t know how to follow him on the path of life. I need him now more than ever.