The First Lie

What is the problem of wanting to do better for God?  We can fall into trouble by not submitting to God after he says we’re good enough – not submitting to God’s judgment and God’s authority.  My oldest child got a perfect score on his academy report – on his first draft!  His teacher said he didn’t have to make any changes for his second draft: he could either not submit a second draft, or just resubmit his first draft.  That’s great!  The teacher gave him a pass/an “okay” for the assignment, but my son wanted to do better.  He thought there was a part in the paper that he missed, or forgot, or didn’t do.  (I said if the teacher didn’t catch that, then all the better for him.)  However, maybe the teacher did catch that, but decided in her authority that it didn’t matter.  Maybe that part of the paper wasn’t the focus of my son’s lesson that day.  (Maybe that part of the paper wasn’t what the teacher wanted my son to learn.)

What would happen if my son decides to challenge his teacher’s ruling and make changes or argue with the teacher (as I did when I was his age)?  What happens any time a subordinate argues with authority (especially when the authority is in the right)?  Complications, confusion, separation, loss of relationship, loss of intimacy… in another word, sin.

It reminds me of Eve (and every commercial ever made).  Eve already had and was what she wanted – to be like God – but the enemy convinced her that she wasn’t (that she didn’t really have what she really had).  Our problem is believing this same first lie.  We can handle not buying whatever they are trying to sell us if we are secure in the facts that we already have a better or at least good enough version of what they’re selling.  Then we won’t be tempted to buy the new (that promises to be better, but rarely comes through.  It usually is just as good and sometimes worse that what we already have because now we have less money, more worry, and more stuff sitting around that now is taking up more of our precious mental real estate).

Eve already was like God, she didn’t need to disobey God to be like him.  She didn’t need to do anything more than be who she was to have what she wanted, or to be more accepted, or to do things “more right” for God to like her, or, to approve of her.  If I say that I want to be more like God, to do things better in my life for me and for others, that’s admirable.  But what if God is telling me that I’m already doing exactly what I’m supposed to?  What if God is saying that I don’t have to beat myself up for “failing” to complete every aspect of what I think MY life should look like on this earth?  What if God only wants one thing from us?  What if he wants us to learn only one concept or lesson right now?  What if he doesn’t need us to be the best in every area of our lives?  What if it's okay with God that I’m not employed out of the home, even though I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing anything here?  What if it’s okay with God that I think I made a lot of bad decisions along my journey, though I think I should have said “Yes” to a lot more opportunities that came up for me, but I was too afraid to take those leaps?  What if it’s okay with God that I never grow a lot of muscles or stay on an exercise regimen, though I think I would be healthier, last longer, and look better for me and my wife?  What if God thinks it's okay that I never become a morning person and sleep a lot, though I feel guilty about not accomplishing enough during those times when I feel so tired from the day straining under the pressure of the guilt I feel?  And so on and so on?

What if the only thing God is really concerning himself with (and trying to get me to be more and more concerned with to the point that I just let go of and forget about all MY other goals for MY life) is getting me to be a better lover of my wife, children, and other people because that would accomplish what he wants me to learn?  In just loving more, I’m learning self-control, appreciation, tolerance/forgiveness/grace and mercy.  In loving more I’m having to rely on faith more (which would actually help me make those leaps if an opportunity ever should come my way again).  I’m learning that loving more is pretty hard, focused work.  I’m learning that, even though I’m not earning a paycheck, I may just be storing up treasure for myself in the form of returned love and adoration of those in whom my love is focused upon.  (And maybe God likes me more and more because I’m trying to be obedient to him and wanting to bless me more?)

In learning to love more, I can begin to see it’s in the best interest of those I love for me to be healthy – to stay around for as long as I can – so I can continue to love those that I love for as long as I can.  (The longer I’m here, the longer, and hopefully better, they’ll be loved.)  So, instead of feeling guilty that I’m not exercising, God’s lessons are showing me that I can choose to see that exercising is just another way that I can show God’s love for those around me, and shows his love for me.

In just focusing on loving more, I’m resigning myself to becoming genuinely humble, more soft-spoken, a better listener, and becoming interested in the other human beings that I’m interacting with.  I still want things for myself, but I’m beginning to see that all of that might just be MY old nature fighting against this new nature – God’s nature for me.  (It seems in my lessons, I’m learning to trade my old life for his new life; switching my focus from myself to focusing on what God wants me to see and how he wants me to see.)  I’m learning or seeing through my instruction and experiences that what I’m learning seems to be at odds with the way I’ve always done things in the past.  That to do one, must negate the other.  I can’t become a good lover of others while I’m only studying on loving myself.

However, the Good News about God’s lessons are that I’m thinking and seeing that when I learn to love others, for example, at the very same time, I’m learning to really love myself also, because I’m able to now let myself “off the hook” (so to speak) when I deem it necessary for me to do more, or be more, or be better, than I really need to.  I don’t have to be, or feel, guilty anymore if God says that I’m right on track, and that my work, my progress, is good enough – that I’m after his own heart.  I don’t have to fall for, or believe, the first lie – that I need to be somewhere else, doing something else, or being someone “better,” before God can teach me what he wants me to learn.  I can be anywhere, be anyone, doing anything and God can still show up in my life and teach me.  In fact, I don’t think God ever leaves us. Nor do I think that he ever stops trying to teach us.  I think it’s more that we don’t often submit to his authority in our lives – we want to be better for God, but in doing so, end up disobeying God by ultimately trying to usurp his power and authority by simply stating that “we know better for our OWN life” thus putting us in the prideful position that Lucifer was in – but that got him thrown out of heaven.

Are we getting ourselves “thrown out of heaven” – getting ourselves tangled up in a life without knowledge and without peace – because we don’t just let our teacher’s estimation of us stand?  Are we having all sorts of troubles in this life needlessly because we don’t just submit and take the good grade when it comes because we still see life by the world’s standards and viewpoint?  We must remember, that, as students, we are not yet qualified to know how to teach, and, because of this, we may not yet understand the different teaching methods an experienced teacher uses – crafting his lessons for every individual’s needs.

If the student accomplishes what the teacher wants; if the teacher sees that the student has learned the lesson; if the parent knows the child is a good child and won’t break the rules that endanger themselves or their siblings, then the Master sees that it is good.  The problem, as I see it, is not that we aren’t really good.  The problem is that we don’t see it; we don't see that we are good.  We more often than not believe the first lie – that we’re not good enough.  But God has created us that way – good.  God wants us that way and when we forgot that, God already had a plan in place for us to know that we can be good again – Jesus.

I think Jesus was frustrated in his attempts to pass on that message:  God is good and so are you/you can be good again/you will be good again because of the Father’s love for you, through my obedience and my work on the cross that our Father entrusted me to do.  We are good.  God has maintained that notion all along.  It was a good notion.  It still is.  God doesn’t like his plans changed.  And thank God that he doesn’t!

Don’t believe the first lie – you are good because God has made you good (made you and remade you/renewed you/restored you good).  You don’t need to be anything more than what you are now to start learning what God is trying to teach you.

What do you think it is that God is trying to teach you?

Will you submit to his authority and begin practicing that lesson?  Will you start to shut out the worldly commercials in your life and get to work on your lessons?  I guarantee that you will learn more from this Teacher than you realize, and that everything you learn will probably be two-fold: it will benefit others, and yourself!

Don’t believe the first lie – that you can learn as well from any other School Master; that you can benefit yourself any other way; that you can simply buy an education; that you can learn without practicing; that you can benefit by procrastinating; that you can benefit by arguing; that you can benefit by seeing as the world sees; that you can benefit from continuing to value things and people as the world values them.

You are good.  That’s God’s evaluation of you.  Will you choose to see that?

Will you choose to believe it?  If so, that is the first lesson – submission.  Allowing the Teacher to be right, even if we don’t understand or yet see how he is right.  The rest will come in time, if we give our time to what God is teaching us and not give our time any longer to what we’ve been listening to and learning non-stop all our lives – to what the enemy, the world, and even our own flesh has been selling us – the first lie.