Sometimes God puts odd messages upon one's heart. It is 1 AM on Christmas morning and I cannot sleep. I don't think it is about anxiety over opening presents here in a few short hours. I got beyond that a few years back. Truthfully, I don't know why I can't sleep. But the above photo is what I woke up with upon my mind.
Above is a female Blue Dasher eating a Desert Firetail. I took this photo at Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona several years ago, back in the day when I was first learning about dragonflies. Something that recently came to my attention is that initially, in Creation, all God's creatures, including humans, were vegetarians. " And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food. And it was so." - Genesis 1:30.
And then man fell out of favor with God, due to his inability to follow directions. We just had to eat from the one plant that we were not supposed to eat from. Of course, God gives us freewill, which means we have the choice to not follow directions. After the big screw-up, the game plan changed, and carnivorous behavior began. While the Bible does not directly state when carnivorous behavior began for animals (and some plants!), or at least not that I have found yet, for humans, carnivorous behavior began following The Great Flood of Noah fame.
I do not think God's original intent was the harsh world we have today. Creation was paradise; death did not exist. But then man got smart! By eating of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, man acquired the knowledge to do stupid things and make a mess of the world.
Currently in America, this great knowledge of good and evil has transformed into a battle over guns. Recently, twenty children were shot in their school in Connecticut. We all agree this was a terrible act. We disagree how to fix it. I recently heard Richard Land, a top administrator in the Southern Baptist Convention declare that the way to handle the awfulness that America has become is by arming everybody. Land's spiritual logic was that the best way to show love to your neighbor is to shoot a bad guy that is trying to harm your neighbor. Only by everybody holstering a side arm on their hip can we truly feel safe!
Many of us will be coming together today to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I think Richard Land's Jesus must be different from mine. I look at how Jesus handled situations when His neighbor was being threatened. Lets consider the woman who was being accused of adultery. The punishment for adultery in that day was stoning. As the crowd gathered, intent to stone this woman, did Jesus gather up rocks and start chucking them at the crowd which had gathered, in an attempt to protect the woman from harm? No. Instead He responded in John 8:7, "When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, 'Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.'” Jesus actually granted permission to anybody who was without sin to throw the first rock. Jesus' response in this case was the exact opposite of Richard Land's.
America finds itself at a crossroad, not because we have taken God out of our schools, but rather because we have taken Jesus out of hearts. Christians have forgotten how to Love. Don't get me wrong, I have some Christian friends who have Love down to a science. But I think many Christians have gotten caught up in a mentality that is spreading across our nation of "every man for himself", much like the photograph I opened this morning's blog with.
With this in mind, I want to close this episode of My Search for Creation with a different photo. I'll apologize in advance for the blurriness of the shot, but I think it is a better portrayal of what living in Christ is about. It is a photo of two Spangled Skimmers sharing the same branch in peace and harmony. The Jesus I know, who was born this day in Bethlehem, would be much more approving of this shot. My prayer as I try to go back to sleep, now at 2:30AM, is that we can all, including myself, live with a greater sense of peace, Love, and harmony.
Beautiful photo, Chris - thanks for sharing! Just wondering, though - do you really think that all creatures were initially vegetarian? Tigers, lions, sharks... vultures? Did canines develop the taste for meat after the fall? ...Just a few thoughts to chew on (no pun intended).
ReplyDelete-Angie K. :)
Well, Genesis 1:30 certainly makes it sound as if everyone was vegetarian, which admittedly has an odd feel to it. My understanding is that death did not exist before the Fall, which means nothing could have been carnivorous before the Fall. One thing that I do stand firmly convinced of is that there are questions about Creation that will never be answered!
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