"I don't want to think about the future or an afterlife," my friend told me. "I just want to eat and drink and enjoy the now, enjoy my humanity as it comes." An interesting sentiment, and one that I'm sure many people share, in various mutations and permutations.
This weekend at the retreat, the pastor addressed that very subject. "Isn't is interesting," he said, that the very thing that so many humans deny is the very thing that makes them human?" He went on to explain further. Animals eat and drink their full, never worrying about the future. Sometimes they will prepare for the next year, such as when squirrels collect nuts or bears hibernate, but for the most part animals live in the now.
So how are we different? What is it that makes us human? What makes us human is, quite simply, our capacity to know and commune with God. It's what sets us apart from the other species. But the tragic thing is that, by asserting our own humanity, so many of us have lost sight of what it truly means to be human.
God made us to be with Him. The animals He did not. That's the beauty, the wonder, the incredible thing about being human - we were not made to just exist, we were made to be with Him. To ignore that is to disregard our essence, the very thing that makes us human in the first place. Don't settle for just existing. He made you for so much more.
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 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.”
18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
This weekend at the retreat, the pastor addressed that very subject. "Isn't is interesting," he said, that the very thing that so many humans deny is the very thing that makes them human?" He went on to explain further. Animals eat and drink their full, never worrying about the future. Sometimes they will prepare for the next year, such as when squirrels collect nuts or bears hibernate, but for the most part animals live in the now.
So how are we different? What is it that makes us human? What makes us human is, quite simply, our capacity to know and commune with God. It's what sets us apart from the other species. But the tragic thing is that, by asserting our own humanity, so many of us have lost sight of what it truly means to be human.
God made us to be with Him. The animals He did not. That's the beauty, the wonder, the incredible thing about being human - we were not made to just exist, we were made to be with Him. To ignore that is to disregard our essence, the very thing that makes us human in the first place. Don't settle for just existing. He made you for so much more.
Genesis 2:15-19
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 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.”
18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
No comments:
Post a Comment