the obligatory Christmas post

just kidding. i wanted to do this just because i wanted to tell everybody (or anybody bored enough to read this here blog during Christmas time) my favorite part about Christmas. this comes right before Royal Dansk cookies on the list of favorite Christmas things. if you're martha, cliff, rhett, jeanne, or blake, you'll understand that; if not, try harder to be on the inside loop with the cool people next time.

don't get me wrong. i absolutely love the story of the birth of Jesus. it's awesome. but what i love more is the bigger story that it fits into. the story of a persistent God. a God who refused to let His people mess His story up. a God so loving that he would go through trial after trial to ensure that we had a way to get back to Him, despite us screwing up many many times. to me, this story has several "layers," or "chapters" or something like that. i'm gonna try to capture each one, and maybe give a really snazzy name to all of them. and after listening to the new live hillsong united album, i'm gonna try to find lyrics that capture some of them. also, i think i'm gonna make this my first multi-part blog, just because i promised i was gonna start doing shorter posts, and i don't wanna lie to my millions of faithful readers. anyway, here we go.

the beginning. God makes everything. and man, did he set it up perfect. man had no reason not to be tight with God. he got to be in constant communication with his Father, and his Father had set it up so that there wouldn't be any pain, any problems. anyway, when he set them there in the garden, God provided at least two trees for them to eat from, the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. now, personally, given the choice between those two, i would choose the first one, just because it sounds prettier. i don't know how Adam and Eve felt about it, but they are eventually talked into eating from the other one after a serpent talks them into it. i think it's really interesting that the first sin ever committed had to do with pursuing wisdom. Adam and Eve really thought that they could be smarter if they ate from that tree. they could eat from a tree that would give them life, or a tree that would make them smarter and dead, and they chose the second one. that remind You of anything? i don't think we (myself included) are much different today. we pursue all kinds of things to make us smarter, richer, and happier, a million times before we take the life that God holds out for us. when God says, "who told you you were naked?", i used to think he was really mad, just screaming at the two who had just forsaken Him. but when I read the story closer, i wonder if He wasn't simply heartbroken. i wonder if the look in His eyes wasn't more like the look of a spouse who has just realized the other cheated on them. and i wonder if he doesn't have that look in His eyes every time we cheat on Him.

further and further away. so that's when things kinda started going sour. another way i used to think about this story is that God was mad, and that's why he left and disconnected Himself from Adam and Eve. and the truth is he was mad at times. but the Bible tells us that God cannot be in the presence of sin, or, maybe more appropriately, sin cannot be in the presence of God. so I wonder that moment wasn't more like that same heartbroken father leaving his children after a divorce, getting on his plane to leave while reaching his arms out and saying "I wish I could stay, I really do wish I could stay, but I can't. But you can talk to me whenever you want to. all you have to do is call, and i'll be there. i really really wanna help you through this minefield that is your life, and i will, but i just can't be right beside you all the time now." God tried his best, through providing prayer, to allow the people who screwed up His relationship with them to still communicate with Him.

okay, i've been waiting for this moment ever since blog day 1...

. . . to be continued . . . .