FROM THE THROWS OF SORROW

(Post by: Madie Hobbs)

Have you ever noticed how poetic Scripture can be? This is an element of the great Christian life we often overlook, much to our own detriment. As someone who already loves poetry in the first place, I love it when I find passages that convey the deep tenderness of the God we serve, and how he wants to create a perfect prose for us to live within.

This has been a great comfort to me as I find myself in a rather bleak and altogether confusing state of living in my personal life. When I lay awake in the middle of the night and stare at the ceiling, and sleep evades me once again, my thoughts turning over the same circumstances over and over until their edges are worn smooth, and my sadness has grown more jagged, I have often asked God why. Why was I allowed to feel such strong and certain emotions when, at this moment, it has only resulted in grief? Why did He introduce such a thing into my life, only for it to be violently snatched away when I least expected it to be? Why did I of all people, who was trying my best to glorify Him, have to experience this?

In our small group last night, we started a video series I’m very excited to continue which evaluates the power of poetic reading in Genesis specifically, and The Lord has already begun to answer some of these questions I am wrestling with. As the professor of this course was speaking, he began to challenge his listeners to set aside, for the moment, many of our preconceived notions about the story of Creation and read it purely as a literary story. To look at the imagery that represents deeper meaning, to view the people as characters rather than mere talking heads, and to see the Lord as this being with such a deep and intense desire to love His Creation.

As we were discussing Adam and Eve’s decision to disobey the one commandment they were given from the beginning of time, to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the professor took a moment to specifically look at the dialogue in the scene.

First, we see Satan, come to tempt Eve, who begins his tempting with a lie, followed closely with a skewed truth.

When Eve tells him the tree is forbidden because it will bring death he says, “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 both good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5 NIV)

Next, we are made aware of the fact that the tree was very beautiful, but in the same vein, deadly. While it was pleasing to the eye it would not be pleasing to the soul, or the One who created it.

After the eventual disobedience we all know Adam and Eve partook in, they hide from the Lord and now become a contrast to that which they were created in the likeness of. For God is now the only one without shame and darkness weaved into His divinity.

When He finds them, after feeling the keen wound of their absence and asking, “Where are you?” He immediately senses the separation between their divinity and the pain it now created, we see that two things, good and evil, are present in this exchange.

Adam says to the Lord when asked about his sin, “…The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” (Gensis 3:12) In just this simple statement, we immediately see the havoc sin has created. While Adam is now telling the truth about his actions, he is betraying Eve in the process and severing them, in some ways, from one another by no longer referring to her as flesh of his flesh, but rather as some thing God is at fault for creating. Eve follows much the same pattern and tells the truth about the sin but introduces deceit and anger when she blames it on the serpent.

Something I never noticed about the passages following mankind’s original transgression, is the way each of them directly mirror the duality of the tree in the center of the garden, which they have now eaten from. The tree is of both Good and Evil, presenting both knowledge and shame.

In every piece of dialogue directly after the original event, we see both things now woven into everything. The serpent is both deceitful and truthful, Adam answers his Creator by being both honest and a betrayer to Eve and God. Eve is truthful, but unrepentant and self-righteous. Their consequence of being cast out of the garden is both a blessing and a curse for now they do not have to live in the presence of God and experience shame and the burning of sin which God cannot be near, but they are also robbed of the simplicity in guarding and protecting creation as they were intended to.

Because of sin and disobedience, both good and evil must now run parallel with one another in every aspect of life.

While this wasn’t exactly an encouragement when it came to my present situation, the Lord offered me some clarity for why we must live the way we do. For now, though we must endure heartbreak, and grief, and unhappiness, we have still been granted the pleasure of a relationship with the Divine, and a part in His poetry.

For poetry is not always what we think. Many of us think of poetry as silly and sappy and full of romance. But often, poetry is what someone has created from the throws of sorrow. From the throws of betrayal and feeling as if their heart might burst from their very chest. I speak from much recent experience in this area.

So, how much sweeter is it that He has chosen to keep us in the narrative? For rest assured, dear reader, His indignation would still have been righteous if He had chosen to scrap all He had done and start over or go on living without the relationship He craved as He did before.

“In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.” ~ J. R. R. Tolkien

SO, WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE?

= What struck you as you read this post?

= What are you going to do differently?