Conflict with God

 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”  Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.  The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.  - Genesis 2:18-20

Have you ever read this passage before? I know I have numerous times, but I never really stopped to READ it.  Read it again.  Think about it.

I specifically left out the piece that most of us see as coming right after God created man.  Most of us where taught some where along the lines that Adam was created then the next day Eve was created.  That is not what the Bible says though.  It says that God realized it was not good for Adam to be alone and then gave Adam something to do.

As I think back again to Sunday School I remember how quickly we passed over the fact that Adam named all the animals.  Sure we talked about it a little bit, but I don't remember anyone ever talking about how long it could have taken.  How long do you think it would take you to name that many?  It certainly wouldn't have been something Adam could have done in a few days.  If you look at how many species we have today add back in the ones that have become extinct and possibly subtract the ones some consider to be "cross-breads," there still would be millions of animals that Adam would have to name.  It's not an easy task. It would have taken a VERY long time.

If you think about it, that means God believed something that He created was missing something, but made that creation wait and work.  As I think about it, I remember James 1:2-4. 

 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,whenever you face trials of many kinds,  because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

The interesting piece to me about this idea is that it very well could be that God wanted to mature and complete Adam.  Not only that, but God allowed Adam to go through years of conflict.  Adam, even though He had God and a greater relationship than many of us could even understand, still had to go through conflict and was lacking until God created Eve.  

I mention this today because I think there are so many of us who think Jesus is an answer to all of our conflicts.  We believe that He removes conflict from our lives.  Not only that, but we believe that if we try hard enough and do everything we can God will make us complete.  In reality, God created others to help us become complete.  God created others and conflict so that we can become more like Him.  It is when we embrace both that we can really begin to live our lives as a reflection of Him.



I don't want to take credit for all the ideas posed in today's blog.  Some of the concepts have been taken from a talk Donald Miller gave, and I adapted those thoughts and added them to some other thoughts I have been wrestling with lately.