Knowledge of Weighty Matters
by Nik Nilsson
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The Bible tells us God’s authority is divine, and that he created this planet in a matter of days. He populated it with critters of untold variety, then dropped mankind in the middle of it and said “have at it.” To this day he watches over us, provides guidance and answers our questions (in my case, usually with other questions). His love is complete and eternal, and he knows each of us separately and intimately. He also knows our place in the grand scheme, in his plans for this beautiful planet, this little blue jewel which hovers three spots out from the sun. His authority is divine. If he wants things a certain way, that’s the way things are gonna be.
So why is the world such a cesspool? And why isn’t God doing anything about it?
Well, first of all, it ain’t the world that needs fixing. With all the chemicals we’re dumping in our landfills and waterways, with all the CO2 we’re spewing into the sky, we often talk about the poor planet, about poor Mother Earth and her suffering.
Mother Earth isn’t going anywhere. How egocentric we are to think that this little blue ball of ours is in jeopardy when our real concern is for our own hides. The little blue ball is going to be just fine; I mean, look who created it.
God made this planet as a beautiful place for his creation to romp around in, communing with him, lounging by cool mountain streams, and playing Frisbee with the critters of our choosing. He gave us mountains, water, trees, and animals. He gave us each other. He gave us love and hope and ingenuity, and he gave us these bodies which come in so many awesome shapes and colours.
Then he gave us our humanity, the freedom to screw it all up. He gave us the freedom to turn love into pornography, hope into fear, ingenuity into environmental catastrophe. He gave us the freedom to take the beauty of diversity and turn it into hatred for those who are different.
He gave us the freedom to doubt him because he let it all happen, because he refused to intervene and make it all right again. He gave us the freedom to ask, “Is all this suffering what God really wants?”
Well, what God wanted was Adam and Eve, living with him in Paradise. It’s one of the first things we learn about him. The next thing we learn is that God gave us choice. He couldn’t have his free creation spending the days relaxing in lounge chairs, sipping tall, cool glasses of purest spring water and basking in the light of heaven as it breaks over yonder mountain. That’s what we call, in scientific circles, a “no-brainer”. God needed us to choose him over something; hence the tree, the snake, and that apple which provided knowledge of weighty matters.
How it must have saddened him to know it was only a matter of time before disobedience plunged us into chaos and separation.
Today, chaos is all around us, but God has turned separation into a choice, our choice. We can succumb to the temptations of the world, to the lust, fear and greed that permeates our lives, or we can choose closeness with our creator, peace in the knowledge that we’re eternal and that our love for him is so much more powerful because it’s given freely.
For more information visit Nik Nilsson’s website at www.smallisthegate.com
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