Trying To Color Outside The Lines

Todays reading is from Genesis 2 and Psalm 2 and I think these two chapters go very well together.  In Genesis we read the story of the creation of Adam and Eve and how Adam was shown every animal that God had created but a suitable helper could not be found.  So God created Eve from Adam and she was a perfect match.  Genesis 1 tells us how God made all the plants and animals with their seed in them so they would produce after their own kind.  Eve was no different.  God created Eve to be similar to the animal/plant world in that she could reproduce but only with the help of Adam.

Eve was a perfect helper for Adam.  Remember we're talking about a perfect place where everything was exactly the way God wanted it, no sin had yet entered their reality.  Which means that the relationships we often see between men and women today do not accurately reflect the relationship that Adam and Eve had in the Garden.  There, Eve was a perfect helper, designed to be a perfect match for Adam emotionally, physically, mentally and sexually.  Perfect.

Psalm 2 starts out this way, "why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing?  The kings of the earth take their stand the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, "Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us"  (NASB).  The writer of this Psalm recognized that the people of the earth were tired of doing things God's way and they wanted freedom.  They wanted to throw off the control that God had over them and do their own thing, be their own boss.

This has been happening ever since Adam and Eve blew it in the Garden.  Mankind has desired to be free from God.  So we've devised our own rules and orders.  We've exchanged the desires of God (for our own good and benefit) for our own desires which are all too often selfish and damaging - oh, we don't always see it that way we see it is freedom and "choice" we even will go so far as to say that certain things were how we were "created."  But the reality is we have begun to color outside the lines and make our own path.

The writer of Psalm 2 recognizes the place of God though.  If God is God then the plans and devices and desires of mere men have little impact on Him.  So verse four says that, "He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them."

From the fall to this very minute mankind, me and you, have struggled with a desire to go our own way and do our own thing.  We try to convince ourselves that we're right, that it is okay and that God surely understands or even approves of the sin in our lives we try to justify.

Psalm 2 ends this way, "Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.  Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way (the way of your sin presumably), for His wrath may soon be kindled.  How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!"

I am grateful for passages like Romans 8:1, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (NIV).  Today, recognize what ways you may be attempting to throw off the fetters or cast off the cords of God's rule in your life.  Even if you are a believer there may still be areas of Scripture (The Bible) that you simply chose to ignore because you don't like them, think their outdated or because you simply do not want to obey.  A believer in Jesus should be seeking to always look more like Jesus who ALWAYS did what He Father asked, even to the point of giving His own life.

What are you NOT willing to give up for the One who sits on the throne?  A vice?  A choice?  A whim?  A thought process?  A plan?  I'm reminded right now of another passage from the Bible, Psalm 37:4-6,
Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
    your vindication like the noonday sun.