What is good? What is evil? What is right? What is wrong?
In today’s world, we are taught at a very young age to
differentiate GOOD from BAD – and that’s good ;) These things were not
instilled into us by birth but rather through external factors in our society,
the education system, our parents and through our experiences. But who can say what is right and what is
wrong? One culture may say its good to eat dog, which I am still very intrigued
to give it a shot, while, in another, its like eating your best friend. Who’s
to say what is right? To be very honest, its all relative and much is also true
in our relationship and obedience to God.
We go back to the very beginning where God commanded:
“And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat
from any tree in the garden; 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.””
(Genesis 2:16-17)(NIV)
What does this mean? I really don’t think God’s intention
was to hide knowledge away from us or to create mindless robots but rather, the
tree of good and evil distorts the purest form of relationship with God by
setting a stage for us to rely less on God and depend more on what we know.
In many situations, generally, we choose to do things because it is the “right” thing to do and avoid things that are “bad”. We do this because of societal expectations or because of what we’ve been taught or maybe because its based on the people closest to us or simply just because we FEEL it’s the right thing to do. All these things are GOOD but I think it should be much deeper than that and we must search deep within our core self and heed the Holy Spirit. It could be the right thing to leave your current relationship but is this what the Holy Spirit is prompting you? It could be what is expected from me to live the conventional lifestyle but is there an ache somewhere to do greater? The knowledge of good will bring you down as quickly as the knowledge of evil. You may feel good about something but what does your heart really tell you?
Crazy enough, even when you follow the Holy Spirit, it does
not always bring you into a “nicer” place. The Holy Spirit even led Jesus into
the wilderness to be tempted (Matthew 4:1) but there was a purpose. Sometimes
listening to the Holy Spirit will be the tougher decision but know that there
is a greater divine purpose that’s for us.
I’ve come to this season realizing that everyone is
different; we come from different backgrounds, different upbringings, different
experiences, different lives and actions from one person may not arrive to the
same result for another. We have been uniquely and wonderfully made through the
image of God and doing “good” may not necessarily be what God has for us; its
doing what our heart is telling us and what the Holy Spirit is leading us
towards – this is when we depend more on God and less on what we know and if we
truly believe in this, it will change the choices that we make.
