Thoughts about dirt
The other day in youth group we were discussing the first man and woman which is obviously Adam and Eve. As we were talking I found myself being more and more swept away by Genesis.
One of the big things that I “discovered” was that God let Adam and Eve eat fruit. I had always thought that Adam and Eve were vegetarians but, God didn’t let them have vegetables. I wondered why this was and I remembered what my Farmer Dad had said about the definition of the difference of a fruit and vegetable. Farmer Dad said that a fruit was attached to a plant: an apple comes off of an apple tree or a banana comes off of a banana tree. Then he told me that a vegetable is the plant: a celery is the stalk of a celery plant and lettuce is the actual lettuce plant. When he told me this my entire view of fruits and vegetables changed but I was not as blown away as I was when I applied this truth to the Bible. God let Adam and Eve have fruit because if you eat a fruit, the plant does not die. There is still life in the plant. However, if you eat a vegetable, you are eating the plant and the plant therefore is dead. Before The Fall, there was not death, so… eating vegetables was impossible. It might suffice to say there were no vegetables in Eden. I had never thought of this before and I thought this was fantastic. The book of Genesis is becoming more and more alive every time I open it up.
But what really took me at youth group the other night was when we were discussing why God created man the way He did. We asked why God would create man with a bunch of dirt and a bit of breath. The youth group took the conversation more towards the breath part and not as much to the dirt part. However, while they were all talking, I was being bothered by the significance of the dirt and wondering if there was any at all. This was really causing me trouble and it was festering inside of me all the way home.
When I told my mom about my suffering she told me something that I will never forget. She told me that if we are just breath and dirt, there’s not much God can do with us. I said “Okay…” and she continued, “it is not until we accept the living water of Jesus Christ that we become what God wants from us.” I was really lost. I asked her to explain and she said that dirt (us) mixed with water (Jesus) becomes clay and God can mold and shape you into what He wants and that as clay we are where we are supposed to be.
I am easy to excite so of course I was blown away by this. I had never heard my mom say anything so profound. When my meaningless dirt is mixed with God’s breath I become alive and able to live according to how I want. But if the Living Water is added to that I become something so much more. It’s like the breath and the water and the dirt become a beautiful threesome that becomes more than the three alone. I am nothing without the breath and even with the breath I am not much without the water. How beautiful is that?
There is so much more going on in this world than I can ever begin to realize and this bowls me over. What is even more amazing is that there is so much to me that I never realized. I don’t mean this in an arrogant way but exactly the opposite. I’ve been pretty sure about who I am in Christ and who I am to everyone else but lately this has all been changing. There is so much more than just me and that “so much more” is definitely God.
Dear God, You are so beyond me. You are so holy. I cannot thank you enough for what you are doing to me on a daily basis. Thank you for being so much more than me. Time spent with you is most assuredly time spent alive.
