You Get What You Pray For

After a very long day that Monday, I lay in bed with a nasty head cold, praying for a Christmas Miracle that I would be able to breathe through my nose again when I awoke.  That did not happen.  I woke and got my son up and out the door just in time to catch the bus.  I picked up a breakfast sandwich and had to wait.  I was 4 minutes late to the office.  I expected my boss to come in around Noon.  She phoned to say that she would be back closer to 2 p.m.  My head is swimming from the pressure and other nasty cold-related symptoms.  When she arrives, I tell her I am going to the store for orange juice and medicine and then heading off to bed.  I agree to drop off the mail in the outside box.  I won’t even have to get out of the car.  But, I decide to go in and see if – just maybe – my anticipated check has arrived in the mail.  Eureka, it has!  Finally, I had a good turn.  I cash the check and go to the store.  I picked up everything I think I need.  I am in the checkout line.  I reach into my purse.  I can’t find my cash.  The $280.00 that I have had in my possession for less than half an hour is missing without a trace.  I looked everywhere.  Up and down the aisles.  Under displays.  On the shelves.  I KNOW it was in my purse.  It was not there.  I asked a fellow shopper to keep an eye out.  She really hoped that I would find it, she said.  I went to my car.  I looked through all my mail from the post office.  I looked in the cracks.  I looked under the seats.  I dumped the entire contents of my purse.  While I sorted through it, I said, “Okay God.  What are you trying to teach me? I’m listening!”  I didn’t find it.  I looked under the car.  I looked all over the parking lot.  The lady who wished me well came up to me as she was headed for her car.  She held out her hand and asked if the bill she was holding would help with my groceries.  The sun was in my eyes.  I looked closer, and the bill was a hundred.  I resisted.  I couldn’t take that much money from her!  She insisted, said “Merry Christmas!” and walked away.  There was no discussion.  I went back inside in tears.  Some of the cashiers were tearing up because I was, being so moved by what happened outside. Three of them had gone together and paid for my groceries, which totaled 77 dollars.  I tried to give them the hundred the lady outside had given me.  They told me to keep it, because I was going to need it.  While one of the managers loaded my groceries in the car, I looked through the store and through my car one last time.  There, inside folds of a letter, inside an envelope, was my bank envelope full of cash.  I went back into the store.  Everyone had seen me crying.  There were several people in the checkout lines.  I was asked if I had found the money.  I smiled, and held up the envelope.  There was applause.  Sighs of relief could be heard from everyone there.  I was still in tears.  So were some of the other ladies.  I insisted on paying for my groceries, and giving the lady, who was gone, her money back.  They let me pay them back for my things, but no one knew the lady or if they did they weren’t letting on.  I was never upset about the money.  I wasn’t panicked.  I wasn’t crying because I lost money.  It wasn’t gone long enough for me to panic.  I was just overwhelmed by the immediate outpouring of goodwill.  In times where things are falling apart, it gives me peace in my heart to have been the target of God’s Christmas Miracle.  I wasn’t even going to get out of the car at the post office, but because I did, I got to see God work.  Merry Christmas Everyone.  If you get the chance, be a Christmas Miracle.  You will never feel the same again.

Why did God put a forbidden tree in the garden of Eden? Was he trying to manipulate us?

This question was posted by a friend of mine. 

God created man in his own image.  He saw that man was alone, and He was never alone, since He is Almighty, Spirit and Flesh. God never wished for his people to be alone or separate from him, but sin existed BEFORE Adam and Eve, as evidenced by satan’s (lucifer) fall from grace. God took woman out of man’s body in order that he should have a companion and since she was a part of him was one with Him, since they were created in God's image.

God created ALL things, INCLUDING free will.  It is not good or perfect for God to create beings with no choice but to love them and obey them.  If ever there was an experiment conducted by God, it was creating free will, not giving loving instruction to his children and hoping they chose rightly.  If they didn’t have free will to choose to obey or to love him, why would he have had to give them instructions on what tree not to eat from?  As parents, do we not tell our children what we want them to do for their own good, knowing already that they will disobey?  But we still tell them because we love them, and we want them to learn from the mistakes we already know they are going to make?

It is important also to note that there are TWO specific trees mentioned in the Garden of Eden, only one from which he forbade them to eat.  One is the Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil, and the other is the Tree Of Life.  My father in law (Pastor Dave Williamson) explained it to me further:  The Tree Of Life is the spiritual choice. If they had chosen to eat from it by relying on their faith and CHOOSING to turn away from the temptation of lucifer and also the temptation of their own five senses (the flesh), God says that they would live in innocence and paradise forever (which we who accept Christ still will).  The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil cannot be described as simply the Tree of knowing the difference between right and wrong.  It is LITERALLY the tree that first revealed to Adam and Eve, by their CHOICE, the very EXISTENCE of good and evil. The Tree Of Life is Christ.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the LAW.  Without the Tree of Life (Christ) Humans are bound by the LAW (the knowledge of good and evil), and the law can only condemn.  Christ and Christ alone can only redeem.  So, really God did know that his people would disobey, but to say that he tricked or manipulated them into making the wrong choice is contrary to the very nature of God.  Temptation came from satan’s temptation and the temptation of their senses (they saw that it was good for food), and then satan’s temptation of Adam THROUGH Eve, whom he had already attacked (meaning you can’t put all the blame off on Eve :). The choice was always theirs, even from the very BEGINNING. :)