Salty Zebra

  And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”   Genesis 3:11  When God came to meet with Adam and Eve in the Garden that evening, He knew what He would find. He was not surprised. Saddened maybe. Disappointed perhaps. But not surprised. And yet, when he calls them to Himself, He asks them two questions. What we need to realize is that these questions are not for God to understand the situation, but for us to.   “Who told you that you were naked?” They had been naked from creation and had never known it. Nothing on earth wore clothing, so naked was the standard. In order to realize that they were naked, in order to feel the need to cover themselves, someone had to have pointed it out to them. They had to listen to someone other than God, and believe them over what God had already taught them. And in that lies the problem. They were given an alternative viewpoint from what their creator and fri...

  When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.   Genesis 3:6  Adam and Eve catch a lot of flack for their choice in the Garden and how it has led to all of humanity being slaves to sin ever since, but if we’re honest, I’m not sure any one of us would have done differently. Sure, with the benefit of hindsight we can say that we would choose to obey, but they didn’t have that. That’s a key fact we, as humans, tend to overlook. You don’t know what you know until you know it. Before that, we’re all ignorant.   Just imagine Adam and Eve bopping around in the Garden of Eden. Every day is wonderful and fresh and new. They have the animals. They have each other. They have God walking with them every evening. How cool is that? At this point in human history, there is no sin . Realistically, we can’...

  That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife, and they become a new family. The man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed.   Genesis 2:24-25 NET  Can you imagine being naked and not ashamed? I can’t. As a distant concept, maybe, but I don’t think it will ever be my lived reality on this earth. Why do you think they were able to be this way?   At first, you might argue that they were made by God and there was nothing in them to be ashamed of. They didn’t have a bulging belly or cellulite or blemishes. They had never gotten a bad haircut or dye job. No wrinkles, no gray hair. All the things we count in ourselves to be “bad” they didn’t have yet. This is because they were made by God, but wait, so were you and I! God made each one of us, formed us in our mother’s womb ( Psalm 139:13 ).   Also in their favor was a lack of comparison. Eve was the most beautiful woman on earth, because she was the only woman on eart...

  Did you know that there is a maximum dose of radiation that has been determined for each human body organ? This is a lifetime limit called the organ tolerance dose   because radiation damages the tiny blood vessels inside organs, causing them to progressively narrow and scar — a process called obliterative endarteritis. Over time, normal tissue is replaced by stiff, fibrous scar tissue that has little capacity to function or heal. These changes are largely irreversible (1). So, with few exceptions, radiation therapy is a once-and-done treatment. The image above is of my treatment plan with the different colors representing different levels of radiation being delivered. The red in the center is the highest dose and the blue at the outside the lowest. This means that my scalp received the least amount of radiation, and therefore the lowest side-effects, like skin redness and hair loss. That doesn't mean I didn't experience it at all, but it was limited as much as possible: ...

  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”   Genesis 2:16-17  These verses describe the institution of human agency. God could have made us as automatons that would blindly obey Him, but He didn’t. He gave us choice. He gave us independent minds that could understand our options and weigh our decisions. Later this week, we’ll look at what humanity did with that gift (spoiler alert, it wasn’t good), but for today I want to focus on the gift itself.  Why did God make us with the ability to choose for ourselves? Well, I’m not God, so I can’t speak for Him, but I have a pretty good guess. I wrote a long time ago about how forced love isn’t love at all. If you were to use a love potion, as happens in movies, on the person you desired and they instantly became infatuated with you, you’d know they didn’t re...

   God's timing is... eerily perfect. I got home from my radiation therapy setup appointment, and this study was in my mailbox. At no point in my past did I think that God would lead me into a season of brain radiation, but here I am. So, here comes the test of if I will truly follow God into whatever season He leads me into...  Obedience to God is not something we do to earn our salvation or atone for our sins. It is not a burden placed upon us, but rather the product of a grateful heart overflowing with joy and love of its Savior. The commands of God are not harsh or heavy. They were given for our benefit and blessing. In this next study, Where He Leads I Will Follow , we will look at key figures in the Bible, their decisions about whether or not to obey in pivotal moments in their lives, and the outcomes of those decisions. Looking at the list in the Table of Contents, if I didn't already know the stories of these brothers and sisters of mine in the past, this would al...