Striving
Striving instead of Living
I always thought of striving as an active thing requiring movement and sweat. Like Adam in the garden after the fall. By the sweat of his brow, he strove to survive, to succeed and what came so easily before. Suddenly, simple things like obtaining food, held a promise just beyond arm’s reach. A way of working had revealed itself. A way that coughed up dust along with the harvest.
I can see him now—Adam. The moments after God had revealed the consequences of their actions. The new clothes God gave probably felt a little funny, maybe they itched after not having to wear anything at all. I imagine the idea of being exposed felt alien. However, I bet the fear of being naked overrode the desire to throw off the garments. Funny how fear can so quickly short circuit freedom. The idea of being vulnerable, visible, and violated. It holds so many back from the freedom found in Christ.
Imagine with me:
Adam itches his shoulder and begins his walk to the place where food had always been found. He’s hungry spiritually and it is manifesting naturally. His hunger increased and the desperation to find food came more often after that terrible day. The Day Listened to Another Voice. They were cautioned. God’s desire for their good so clear in the cautioning. “I want you always with me, Adam, like this, like now. But I want you to be with me willingly, not as something dead or without purpose. I want you to choose me, choose to love me and know I desire only good for you. I will care for you. There is no need to strive. See? I have given all to you but this one thing you must not do: You may not eat of this tree. If you do, you will see more than you need to see. In time, when you are ready, I will share with you. But for now, please, Adam. Stay away from that tree and believe.”
He should have listened. He should have stopped Eve. He wanted to see what she’d do. His curiosity got the best of him. And now it was done and now he was very hungry; hungry for what was, for the presence of God with nothing between them. To walk again and talk and laugh and enjoy His presence. But like the clothes he now wore, something separated him from that place that once was. With a sigh, he returned to his task and looked again at the place where fruit once hung within easy reach.
Now more plants were visible between him and the fruit than ever before. And these plants had sharp points and the edible food was on the other side. Pushing away the thorny plants he found they didn’t move that easily as they once did. These plants mounted their own defense. This was another change from The Day. Suddenly now everything seemed to prepare for the worst. Defenses were found more often than openness. Even between he and Eve, defenses had risen up as suspicion and the possibility of evil intent seemed now possible in everything. These plants simply illustrated the change. He couldn’t be mad at them or even irritated. Creation was simply doing what was natural for them in the state that His and Eve’s choice had now placed them. The consequences covered everything.
Pulling his hand quickly back he examined his palm. A bright red dot marks the location of contact. He rubbed it and looked again at the thorny bush, the fruit beyond, and remembered God’s words to him that terrible day:
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In [a]toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.[i]
Looking across the path to his left, he saw Eve. She looked at him sadly and adjusted her garment God had made for her. “She must be thinking of what had happened,” thought Adam. “Maybe she’s ashamed of me,” he thought. A new feeling touched his soul now able to see more than one side of a situation, the negative as well as the positive outcomes. His mind raced. “What if she doesn’t want to be with me anymore?” He thought as he watched as Eve. She looked down at her feet and suddenly startled leaping back and falling onto her backside, she picked up a large stick nearby and stabbed at the brush at her feet. Movement in the bush beside her told him what had happened. Again, God’s words came to Adam in remembrance as he rushed toward her and the threat:
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman, {speaking to the serpent]
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.
Their eyes met. He picked up a nearby branch and went to her side chasing the serpent back further into the trees. He was never again going to compromise his role as priest, king, guardian, and protector. Walking back to the thorny briars and Eve, they began to work together to find their way to toward their goal. He mentioned to her the thought he had just before he came to her rescue. “No,” she corrected. “Do not be afraid. I will always love you. Do not worry about such things with me. We are a part of one another. Who could understand me like you do?” Adam smiled in response, his heart lighter for having revealed the threat of the thought and chasing it away as he did the serpent, back to the bush...
This place of striving is an exhaustive effort to be sure all works out well. Making lists, checking them several times while helpful to a degree, can become obsessive and paralyzing as no project can be undertaken without The List. After all, without The List something could be missed, something vitally important and then what would one do? New problems are then created as the frantic mental moments of striving for equilibrium, commences. In this place, the striving place, righteousness, peace, and joy are set on the back burner to simmer as one actively pulls forth their own resources seeking something God already provided. Like Moses in the wilderness, beating a rock for water when God told him to simply speak to the rock for what was needed, finding provision by our own hands alone causes us to step into the place of God and denies what God said he would do. Not that we are not to be responsible and accountable. I don’t think God intended for Moses and the Israelites to sit in the desert and simply call forth water and food and destination without putting into practice what he called them to do. They had to walk, to follow the cloud and pillar of fire. When they saw the pillar of fire move, they moved. The work of their hands built the Tabernacle, but it was by God’s design, not their own. He used their creativity and minds, but the actual blueprint, the outcome, the fruit of the labor, the harvest was God’s doing.
Likewise, as believers, living life in the Kingdom of God we are required to do something. We are required to obey the leading of the Spirit. We do what we see the Father do, we say what the Father says to say, and so on. We use our creativity in the avenues of blessing that edifies and strengthens the body. But we do not strive to do God’s job for him. We are not to take the place of God and orchestrate the outcome or redesign the plan He has put into place, so we feel safe.
In the place of constant striving to assuage our fears and be sure everything goes according to OUR plan; God is no longer God. He is denied His rightful place in our hearts as Lord and King. Deep down in this thinking process, the real concern for me was that He (God) may miss something vitally important, and I will get hurt or someone else will get hurt due to my overlooking a component of “the plan.” Historically speaking, where is scripture did God “miss something vitally important failing to provide and save?”
Wars! One might say. FREE WILL I answer. PRAYER, LISTENING to the SPIRIT’s leading, I answer.
Consider the testimony of a woman in the Pentagon on 9/11[ii]. Linda Herbert, a retired army colonel, was in a dangerous place. Planes had already crashed into the Twin Towers, and at first, they thought it was a spoof of some sort. That couldn’t possibly happen in USA, could it? So, they did not hurry, but they were on high alert. She was headed back to her office when her superior stopped to talk to her. This positioned her behind a pillar that protected her when the plan did hit the pentagon –into her office! She felt fearful so she prayed, aloud in her prayer language and she prayed until she got an answer, and she did! “Get out now! Go!” was the command. Despite the danger and the fear, she felt she obeyed! She did not STRIVE for a LOGICAL ANSWER necessarily, she OBEYED! She got up immediately and ran to another corridor then she hears the voice of the Spirit of God say, “TURN LEFT!” and as soon as she did a fireball came through the corridor and incinerated all in its path. Had she not turned, it would have included her. In the interview, she reported that others testified that because they knew she was “preacher and Jesus freak” and so when they saw her leave and FOLLOWED and were saved! They followed a woman of FAITH who did not stop to listen to her own reasoning, ideas, strategy. She did not STRIVE for an answer because the Spirit of God is faithful to those who BELIEVE. They were saved from a terrible end.
[i] Genesis 3:17-19
[ii] https://www.facebook.com/TheVictoryChannel/videos/244265967477419 (MINUTE 42:30)
