Welcome to the Seeking in the Chaos Podcast. My name is Barney and I am a sculptor by profession. There are many out there in the world seeking for truth, seeking for God. The path to finding God seems chaotic and everyone has ideas or rituals. This podcast was created to help those who are seeking for God in this chaotic world. We hope to share to you our faith, our ideas about God and we hope to ease your burden in this search.
In the last episode we talked about how all of us struggle with judgement. All religious systems believe in an afterlife. We would all love to have a better afterlife than this life here on earth. But before that afterlife begins, there is a time of Judgement. That is hard to face! Why is there a Judgement? How did we end up in this situation?
Let’s imagine a scenario:
You, the listener, see me struggling with life. I have no place to stay. You feel compassion for me and say, “Hey Barney, why don’t you come over to my place and stay for a while? When your situation gets better, you can rent your own place one day!”. Let’s say that I took up your offer and moved into your house. I clean the place. I don’t make a mess. I go to work everyday. I even cook food for the both of us! Somehow, 3 years pass by. Then one day, I tell you that we need to talk.
What if I said: “It’s nice of you to let me stay over here. I like this place. I’ve maintained this house. I am now going to take over this place. I know a guy who gave me these papers that can prove that I am the owner now. It’s mine now. I don’t want you around. Please leave! I’d like some independence and some privacy!”
What would your reaction be? You could:
- Beat me up and throw me out of the house,
- You could call the police and get me kicked out,
- You could take me to court, or try many other ways to deal with this situation.
Would you be wrong in taking any of these steps? Why would I betray you and do this? Is there something in my nature that can be the source of this behaviour?
Many know the story of the Fall of Mankind! Adan and Eve were there & we are their descendants! Just to be sure that we are all on the same page, we will go through the genesis story.
The Genesis Story:
Once upon a time, God created the earth and everything in it. He also created 2 humans and put them in a garden to work it and take care of all living things and creatures! This garden was on a mountain in a place, or country, called Eden, which in Hebrew means “Delight, Pleasure or Living Voluptuously”.
In this garden, there were two trees:
- The Tree of Life and
- The Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.
Adam and Eve were allowed to eat of all the trees in the garden except for the second tree! A spiritual being, represented by a snake, talked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. Later that evening, God came and dealt out punishments or curses on Adam, Eve and the Serpent.
Wait a minute!! If I had a son and told him not to eat the chocolate in the fridge, he would definitely be tempted, right? Should I kick him out of the family when he eventually gives in to the temptation? That’s pretty harsh, right?
Let’s have another look at the Genesis Story:
This story is found in the book of Genesis in the Bible. It was written in a way that would make things easier for the ancient day’s reader to memorize easily. Scrolls were expensive in those days. The story was written using metaphors in forms of poetry or prose.
The trees in this story are metaphors; they represented a choice presented to the early human couple:
- The Tree of Life – God, who gives life and all wisdom,
- The Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil – is as the name suggests. But this was not the wisdom that God gave! It symbolized Autonomy!
They were asked to trust in God (the tree of life) on a daily basis and learn how to live, work, take care of things in their world, etc. They learnt from God every evening. Maybe it was a Q&A type of learning. Was this easy?
Breaking Edenic Assumptions:
We normally assume many things of this idealistic life in the garden of Eden. Let’s poke it with a few questions!
- How do you think their life in the Garden of Eden was? Was it perfect? Maybe.
- Did they have to work? Yes.
- Did they sweat? Yes.
- Was work a pleasure? Yes.
- Did they know all things regarding their work, health, animals,etc? Maybe not.
- Did they have a memory foam mattress to sleep on? No.
- If one of them had gotten a cut, what options did they have to treat it? There was no doctor or hospital then! They couldn’t have been smarter than us!
- So, how did they handle this? They would have had to ask God.
- Would God have healed them miraculously every time? He probably would have had to use the injury as an object lesson on how to take care of their bodies! He would also have taught them how to make their own herbal medicines and how to apply them!
This is how they would have learned many things… in the school of life, with God as their teacher or guru, learning in the cool of the day, i.e., probably in the evening.
All’s not well in Paradise:
I am sure that as their wisdom grew, they would have been told that some things were forbidden. I assume that the complete answer may not have been given to them every single time. Don’t think that could have happened? Let’s try a practical example:
If a child asked you, “Why is the sky blue?”, what would your answer be? I am sure that you would NOT have given a scientific answer that dealt with light refraction, wavelength, photons, electrons, planetary motion and other stuff! You would have answered according to the CHILD’s level of knowledge. Some would even say, “Because the sky is so high!” Your answer would vary over time and the child would notice that the whole answer wasn’t given!
There would have been a sense of frustration; some things forbidden, or some things that will be allowed only later, and some answers not being that helpful!
Enter the Serpent!
If you eat of that fruit…you get to become like gods or gods like us! You will get all wisdom! You get to choose what’s right and what’s wrong! You can redefine things as you wish! You can get all of the autonomy now! Let’s see what the bible says!
Gen 3:4-6
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
In doing so they decided to live free of God or refusing to depend on God and be their own bosses or gods! In other words…
“Thank you, but we don’t want you around anymore. We are going to take your garden for ourselves.We are gods now! We can figure things out!”
Now…From the first example of the housing situation with me… what would you, the listener do to me? Kick me out? Call the police? Your options seem fairly limited compared to God!
You see….God owns the garden! God owns the country called Eden! God owns the planet that Eden is on! God owns all planets, stars, and all of the empty space between them! Where should he kick them off to?
What should God do? Should he kill them or uncreate them? Should he then uncreate the Angel or Serpent who rebelled against God? He left them alive!
If you would have chosen to both kick me out and file a case against me, our relationship would just be an antagonistic one! After the verdict, we would go our separate ways and hope to never see each other again!
Now, God had created Humans with a purpose in mind! I think that God, full of grace, threw them ONLY out of the garden & not out of the planet! Now, they don’t get all that free food! They still have work to do…but without much knowledge of how to do it! They have medical problems now with no idea how to heal themselves! What about protecting themselves from the elements! It must have been a tough life. These days, a tough life is one without WIFI!!
When Jesus came to this world, he opened the way back to God! Back to the Tree of Life! He paid the price for everyone’s sins, including Adam and Eve! He didn’t put up that forgiveness for sale! It is for those who will trust in Him! Just like Adam and Eve, we have a choice to eat from that Tree of Life, i.e., depending on God! And we hope that you will trust in Jesus, realizing that we all are sinners who need Jesus to repair this lost relationship! This is the way back to God, in the garden!
John 14:6 – “I am the WAY and the TRUTH and the LIFE. No one comes to the Father (God) except through me.”
Jesus is the WAY – He is the way to God.
Jesus is the TRUTH – unlike the lying serpent who pushed all to death!
Jesus is the LIFE – He gives eternal life to those who trust in Him.
Those who believe in Jesus have no fear of any condemnation in Judgement at the end of this life as we saw in the last episode. We hope that you will be able to put your trust in Him in time. Time that we don’t have too much of! We’ll explore that in the next episode!
NEXT Episode 4: An Honest Evaluation
Got Questions?
If you have any questions, please do send an email to us. Our email is at the bottom of the page. We will get back to you with answers. If we are unable to figure that out, we will reach out to Bible scholars and get back to you with the answers. Have a great week and may God bless you!
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