Meditations from Zion

Based on Genesis 2:1-9 and Notes from Zondervan’s Spiritual Renewal Bible (hereinafter called SRB).

My first thoughts today were all about “why.” Why is there a “second” creation story? Why do we have the big overview in chapter 1, only to rewrite the story in chapter 2 (with changes and anomalies). This is probably a huge controversy out there in Bible land or, at the least, fodder for commentators and PhD candidates.

In the SRB notes, it is noted that in 2:4, it is the first time that God is referred to as Yahweh, the Hebrew form for God, the unnameable one, and yet the One that is in relationship with human. And so it occurred to me that this part of the Bible is the relationship story between Yahweh, the creator and his created humans. And, if it’s anything like the creative process I go through (as well as thousands of other writers), the creation part is fun and almost easy, but it’s the re-write that is hard. It’s in the rewrite that the product is transformed and perfected.

We are all in the human rewrite process.

So, how did this happen? I’m guessing that God followed through on his big plan (see Creation Story & Me) and decided to replicate himself. But here’s the hinky part: God is a being of free will of choice. And as a result, created beings have the same DNA.

One of the ways we see immediately this situation is the two trees in the garden (planted together in the center of the garden) where one, from which human could freely eat, was the tree of life (yum!) and the other was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We know this story. Don’t eat from the second tree. Choose wisely.

But, here’s where we humans tend to  be perpetual teenagers: when told not to do something, it becomes the very thing we want to do. God is saying, “I made you and you can choose to be like me” by following in my path, eating from the tree of life, etc. Or you can choose to be “not like me” by eating of the other tree. (This is really interesting since we know that the “serpent/Satan” convinced human that eating of the second tree would be the “more like God” choice when, in reality, the opposite was true. Lies, lies, and more lies. But I get ahead of myself.)

As parents, aren’t we doing the same thing: be like me. Learn from my mistakes. Let me warn you about the second tree (or whatever it might be) and yet, they often choose outside of our hope for them. And as a result, a different path is trudged.

We had those choices. We still do.

Will I be a perpetual teenager and keep choosing my own way or will I finally get it?

Choose God’s way.