Redirecting Your Future

I was already late for worship team rehearsal when I realized I had just taken the wrong freeway on-ramp and was headed north instead of south. Suddenly, I was once again painfully aware that one wrong turn can cause you to end up far from your intended destination. Have you ever found yourself headed toward a future you don’t want because of foolish or sinful choices you have made?

I certainly have. That’s one of the reasons I love the book of Genesis. It is not only the book of beginnings, it is also a book of new beginnings. In story after story it shows us how we can partner with God in redirecting our future when we discover that our lives are headed in the wrong direction. One of my favorite new-beginning passages tells how Adam and Eve experienced the reshaping of their future through the power of obedience.

God had destined Adam and Eve for greatness. They were invited to have:

Dominion: They were intended to rule over their circumstances instead of being ruled by them (Gen 1:28b).
Partnership: They were designed to have a position of shared stewardship and creativity with God regarding His creation (Gen 2:19).
Eternal life: They were welcomed to eat freely of the Tree of Life and experience the power, glory, and grace of God’s presence forever (Gen 2:9, 16).

However, something went terribly wrong and instead of experiencing the life they were intended to know, they found themselves on the outside looking in on what could have been – locked out of Eden as well as their future and the flow of God’s intended blessings.

What happened? In a word…disobedience. They experienced the consequences of willfully taking the wrong onramp and heading off in a direction God had warned them not to go. They were staring into a bleak future they had created for themselves.

However, as they found themselves outside the gates of Eden evaluating the devastating fallout of their actions, they were not experiencing an act of God’s judgment, but of His mercy. If He had allowed them to remain in proximity to the Tree of Life and they had eaten of it in their condition of disobedience, their fate would have been sealed for eternity. Although their circumstances appeared to be hopeless, in reality, God had set up the conditions for a new beginning.

Before we explore that possibility further and its implications for our own lives, let’s notice a couple of other things. Please see with me that God had given Adam and Eve two commandments essential to their divinely appointed future:

Something to do
Something not to do

He had told them to be sexually intimate and have children (Gen 1:28a). He also told them not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen 2:17). God’s compassionate commandments always fall into one of these two categories.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God by doing something He told them not to do.

Please note that sins of commission – doing what we should not do – are always:

Unrecoverable: They cannot be undone.
Consequential: They result in devastating consequences.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that our God is immeasurably merciful and always ready to engineer a new beginning for us. However, His plans to bring about redemption when we find ourselves on the outside looking in on what could have been because of our disobedience, will now require our...obedience.

In Genesis 3:14-19, as God was sadly declaring the consequences of the first couple’s sin, He was also mercifully declaring His plan for their redemption. However, be sure to notice that His plan of redemption was completely dependent upon Adam’s and Eve’s obedience. The coming of the Redeemer Who will reverse the curse, depends on their talking action.

Although they had disobeyed one of the two commands God had given them, there still mercifully remained an opportunity to obey the other one. They had done what they shouldn’t have, but they could still do what they should have. They could conceive a child together and thereby place into God’s hands the means for Him to bring about the redirection of their future.

Now at first glance, as we consider what it took for Adam and Eve to obey God in this way, we may be tempted to cynically think, “How hard was that?” But let’s take a look at the situation a little more closely…

God had just told Eve that having children was going to be a painful process. And since there were no other women who had already been through childbirth to compare notes with, can’t you imagine that this prospect would be seriously frightening to her?

Also, God told Adam that he was now going to have to fight with the natural world for every bite of nourishment. Can’t you imagine that the idea of adding another mouth to feed to his present set of responsibilities was not a welcomed thought?

Obeying God is always difficult. We will always be challenged by our own fears, lusts, and sinful natures as well as the Devil who knows better than we the redemptive power and possibilities unleashed whenever one of God’s kids obeys Him. But just as Adam and Eve discovered as they set their fears aside, obeying God is also always pleasurable. It brings a sense of rightness to the soul and a sense of power over our adversary.

Often, there are limits to the timing available to us to do what God tells us to do. Opportunities pass. Nevertheless, when we find ourselves having acted in disobedience to God, there is usually something of God’s commands to us that can still be obeyed.

When you find yourself locked out of your future through disobedience, instead of getting mad at God, wallowing in self-pity, or continuing in sin, start looking for the nearest command you can obey. It won’t be easy, but it will always bring a deep spiritual pleasure and will facilitate God’s amazing grace that can change the course of your history.