Day 3: Favorite Food

Day 2: Favorite Animal

30 Day Drawing Challenge

Something fun and creative to do. Want to join me?

Day 1: Me

Object of Eve's Affection

In Genesis 3 we read about The Fall and how one wrong move affected the whole of mankind. I must have read or heard this read a thousand times. We're told that the Garden of Eden was a place where man walked with God and there was pure and perfect communion between God and man; it is a place that we have been separated from and an intimacy that we strive to have again. Yes, because of Adam and Eve's disobedience we all now wrestle with sin but look closely at what was taken from them at the moment of their judgement:

16 To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
17 And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." ESV

Look at the difference between what was taken from them; they both lost the easy life they had with God and inherited a life of pain and struggle but the arenas in which they would struggle were different.

With Eve, what sticks out to me most is when God says, "Your desire shall be for your husband..." This is one of her key consequences; that she would desire her husband. That struck me weird because wouldn't you consider that a good thing? Most married couples break up because one or the other no longer desires their spouse. So because this is a consequence, a part of her discipline, we can reason that her desires were elsewhere; more specifically, her desires were for God.
Think about how God has made women; we are naturally more affectionate, compassionate, tender-hearted and sensitive. Think about how all of that was once solely and completely directed at God and how, all at once, it was turned away from Him and turned to man. Imagine that all your passions are instinctively for Him. Now imagine Him saying to you, 'No longer will your desire and longing be for Me but it will be for your husband.' Can you imagine the devastation Eve must have felt?! We can't even begin to fathom the misery Eve was undergoing at that moment because her starting point is our finish line; what we spend our whole lives trying to acheive, in falling completely in love with God and having everything in our being adore Him without contest, she had and she is being told that she'll spend the rest of her life with her desires drawn back to her husband like a bad magnet.

So what does this say for us? Daughters of Eve, what does this say for us? I think for us it means that we were made to love God. I think it means that because everything, that comes natural to us, was once only for God that it is still meant for Him.

I encourage you to really meditate on Eve and on what she had, what she lost, and what she was left with.

Be Hyperactive

You remember that kid, growing up in elementary school, that could never sit still; maybe it was you? Well there's a little hyperactive spirit in each of us. We weren't made to sit still, doing nothing. We were made to be out there living, creating, doing, enjoying, inhabiting, and dwelling. Why do we put ourselves in our own time-outs where we sit and don't do, when inside there is something dying to move? It's dying to move and to do; let it sit too long and it will die...it's called "compromise."

Exotic vs Normal?

We all want to live an exotic life. We dream of traveling, seeing the world and having great adventures. Some say the grass will always be greener on the other side while others say that there's no place like home.
I have the great privilege of living what some would call an exotic life; I live in exotic countries, travel the world, have many adventures, and despite my young age I have seen more than most have seen in a lifetime. For me, this doesn't feel like an exotic life; for me it just feels like my life. For me, this is normal, mostly because it's the only one I've got.
What I consider exotic is what you consider normal. I think about moving to Georgia, to some small town, settling down and raising a family. I think about fishing on the weekends, having a career, a house, and a family. But then I remind myself that, as good as that is, it's not for me; it's not what God called me to...at least not right now.

I met a woman before I left for New Zealand who was in her late 60s; she told me that when she was 20 years old the Lord told her to go to India and she didn't, instead she got caught up in another kind of life. With tears in her eyes she told me that she has regretted not obeying God everyday of her life since. Over 40 years of regret!

Why live in regrets? Why not love the life the Lord's given you?

Waiting...

2Peter 3:9 -"The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you..."

Why should He wait- why not act at once? Because something in us hinders. We cannot enter into spiritual blessings till we are made capable of them by faith...God has the right time for help...He never gives the wrong medicine. His waiting is full of work to fit us to receive His grace. It is not a mere passive standing by, till the fit conditions are seen in us; but He is exalted while He waits. He Who prepares a place for us is preparing us for the place. He who has grace which He is ready to give us here, is making us ready for His grace. The measure of all God's work in us is to form a character fit to possess His highest gifts...the waiting desire to which He responds is directed to something better and greater than any gifts from Him, even to Himself, for it is they who wait for Him...who are blessed. The blessedness of such waiting, how it calms the heart, brings into constant touch with God, detaches from the fever and fret which kill, opens our eyes to mark the meanings of our life's history and makes the divine gifts infinitely more precious when they do come...
- Alexander Maclaren's sermon God's Waiting & Man's