Tuesday, April 12, 2011

God, Not Enough!

     The creation story has proven to be a fun one to read.  God seems to be having a good time sitting back at the end of each day, admiring what He has made.  "It was good" seems to be the theme of His thoughts.  To top it off, He cranks creation up a notch and creates man after His own image.  Let's make man different than all the rest of creation so we can have a special relationship with him.  We will give him charge over all that has been created.   For man's pleasure, he made the animals then gave him the task of naming them. What an awesome job.  God said, "Whatever man calls them, that's their name."  I'm an animal lover and think that must have been a blast.  Its cool God pulled man into the unfinished task, relative to the animals.
     What happens next is huge.  It introduces us to some insight about God.  Remember, this leg of the journey we are discussing what we believe about God.  I believe a spot light is placed on the heart of God.  We are able to see something here that will prove to be a pattern that God will repeat over and over throughout history.  It is something you will find Him doing in your life as well, time and time again. 
     If you don't have your Bible in front of you, you're probably saying, "...alright, already.  What did He do next?"  He looked around and determined that man needed a companion, a helper so He created woman.  I don't want to focus on "woman" at this point.  I don't understand them very well and am sure that if I say too much, I will get myself in trouble. 
     What I want to focus on is the thought process that God had.  He looked around and saw that man needed a helper.  How many times in our lives has God looked at us and said, "He needs some help with skin on it."  God seems to always be attentive to those times when we need someone else.  I could go down a long list of people God has placed in my life, most significantly my family (thank God for Marcia), but many others at desperate times.  We need  helpers.  It may be in the form of someone who offers a word of advice or a word of encouragement.  It may be a friend that is honest with us about something we might not see about ourselves.  It may be a partner in a risky adventure God has given.  It may be a comforter after a tragedy or a celebrator after a triumph.  He puts people in our lives when we need them.  This is the first time God saw that man had a need.  He had created everything, pretty much gave it to man, thought it was great, and it was.  However, it was not enough.
     I going to say something here that may sound heretical.  I already want to say bad things about myself for saying what I am about to say.  Rob Bell may have some company after this (except only 20 people will read this instead of 20,000+).   Here goes (gulp!)  God is not enough.  He never intended to be!  In His genius design, He created man with the need for companionship beyond just Him.   We need each other.  As soon as God recognized the need for man to have a helper,  He wasted no time in creating one.  Whenever we think we can travel this journey alone, we will be sadly mistaken and highly disappointed.  From the very beginning of creation man needed someone else, in addition to God.  Let's recognize that too, and travel this challenging road together.  I need you and you need me.  Together we have God right there with us always attentive to what we need.  There is nothing too risky, too dangerous, too difficult, too big  for us when we travel together with Him.  So strap in, hang on and JOIN THE JOURNEY!

2 comments:

  1. solid keith.... a great measure of interdepency is the Trinity itself! Guy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Guy, God could be enough if He wanted to be, but as you point out with the Trinity, God designed everything to be relational which is after His own image, via the Trinity. Good stuff!

    ReplyDelete