Contentment Lost
The story of the fall is one we learn as small children. It is a fundamental story which explains why we have suffering and pain in this life. It also shows us why we need Jesus and why we could never reach righteousness without him. A lot of times though, when I re-read a story I have heard a million times, something new stands out and completely changes the way I think about it. On top of working full time and being a single mother, I write these devotions daily and lead the women’s Bible study at my church. As if that were not enough, I am also determined to accomplish 4 years of college in just a year and a half. I am very blessed; however, that I am able to get my teaching degree at an online Christian university. One of the blessings of this is that part of the required classes are Bible based. They are, by far, my favorite classes. One of things I have greatly enjoyed is how they force me to look back on scriptures I thought I knew rather well and see them from a different perspective. Today’s verse is one of those passages that my college class has expanded in my mind.
Right now, I am taking a class on our Christian worldview. It is currently examining the fall and how it has impacted humanity and the natural world. As I was reading my textbook, I came across a quote which really struck me. It said, "Dissatisfied with their humanness, the couple reached for godhood. In lusting after a throne that was not theirs, they lost the privileges they already had. They degraded themselves by trying to become what they could never be" (Goldsworthy, 1991, p. 105). How often do I fight dissatisfaction? I had always been told that we should never be satisfied with where we are but rather, that we should constantly strive for greater. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized that moto was a lingering whisper of the fall. My textbook also shared a beautiful insight which found its way to the margins of my Bible so I will not forget it. It said, “The irony of this whole scene is that the purpose of eating the fruit was to be like God and to know good and evil, but both Adam and Eve were already made in the likeness and image of God, and they already knew and experienced goodness because the original creation was good” (The Beginning of Wisdom, 2022).
Contentment has long been a goal of mine, but it often illudes those who claim to desire it the most. For some reason, perhaps because my generation was taught to shatter the glass ceiling trying to limit who and what we could be, enough never feels like enough. Can I be satisfied with a life that doesn’t check all the boxes? Is it okay if someone else can claim those things that are not meant to be mine? These are questions I have struggled with in one form or another for my entire life. No matter what blessings surround me, someone, somewhere, has more. The story of Adam and Eve’s fall from what was good and righteous stands as a warning and not simply as an explanation for why our world is broken.
Ephesians 1:3-6 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.” Who I am is not a mistake. Before He spoke the world into being, God saw who I would become. When I aspire to be something I am not meant to be, I reject what God created. Like Adam and Eve, I begin to believe the lie that God was wrong.
I will never look at the creation and fall the same way again, but I pray I never look at my life the same way either. I don’t want to aspire to be and do what belongs to someone else. I know God made me for a reason. I know that every part of who I am belongs in His hands. Instead of pressing against that glass ceiling, I want to dance in the place God set me. It may not be paradise. I may have struggles. In fact, God promises that I will struggle, but I know I will never be alone when I walk beside my Savior and my God. I have often been warned not to miss the forest for the tree, but what if I was meant to only study the branches? Instead, I am going to reflect on the lives of Martha and Mary. Though one struggled and worked hard doing something good, it was the one who abandoned what the world dictated she should do as a woman in the days of Christ whom Jesus blessed. Jesus said of her, “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42). To steal another clique, I will bloom where God has planted me. I will be who and what He designed me to be. Discontentment leads to a striving only satisfied with what God has not placed in my life. If He has not given it, I don’t want it.
(Written by Keegan Harkins.)
References:
Diffey, D. & Holland, R. (eds), 2022. The Beginning of Wisdom: An Introduction to Christian Thought and Life. Grand Canyon University.
Goldsworthy, G. (1991). According to plan: The unfolding revelation of God in the Bible. InterVarsity Press.
コメント