“I don’t want to do that. I want to do this!”
As a parent of two young children, I hear comments like this occasionally (well, honestly, Dana and I hear these statements every 5 minutes on some days). My children are good kids (wonderful, in fact!), but like all of us, they have their faults.
On my drive to work in our London office today, I really noted the gently rolling hills with the changing leaves on the trees. The beautiful landscape got my mind solely thinking about God, the one who created the universe and everything in it. God, the almighty, the alpha and the omega, the great I Am!
This immediately raised a question in my head, “How is it that anyone denies God?” And I began to remember the story of the Fall, from the book of Genesis. In it, Satan deceives Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He tells them “if you eat of it your eyes will be open, and you will be like God” (Gen 3:5). It was the pride of Adam and Eve, their desire to be “like God”, that led to the birth of sin in our world.
To me, it is this same fault, our pride, that challenges so many of us, Christians included. We often want to be in complete control of our lives. We want things, again as my kids would say, “my way.” Atheists take this “my way” attitude to the extreme, where there is complete lack of acknowledgement of God. It is pride, which is defined as “a high opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority”, that causes us to turn from God.
We usually want life to center on us, filling both our needs and our wants. We easily are distracted away from God, so we can focus our every second to our lives. The problem is that our lives, when compared to the time in the universe, are insignificant. The reality is that nearly every person is just 2 generations, a 100 year period or so, removed from being completely forgotten. This seems impossible, or scary, but it’s also a reality. However, the one who will not be forgotten is God. When you see life like this, a God-centered life as opposed to a Me-centered life, is where true meaning is found.
I hope, if you are not a Christian, that you think about these things. I hope that you are able to see God and His glory in your life. He is waiting for you with open arms!
1 Timothy 2:4-5 “God, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus”
