Epiphany

I know it's several days past the actual day of Epiphany, but I wanted to take a minute to tell of an insight that God allowed me to see recently.

At church we had been discussing the origin of sin, and why Eve went and ate that fruit and why didn't God just step in and stop her. He could have easily shown up and said.. ah ha--what do you think you're doing?? and they would have said.. Oh.. I'm sorry Lord, it'll never happen again. Things were perfect in the Garden, so God probably wouldn't have yelled too much--so just the rarity of the event would have had an impact. And life would have gone on perfectly. Why didn't God do that?

It seemed easy enough to explain. God wanted to tell a redemptive story. He wanted to give mankind years to try and do things on their own. And then say, here's a way. He wanted to show them what they were saved from. What His grace bought them out of--He wanted them to see that. So he waited several thousand years before Jesus appeared.

Would we have realized His grace and mercy if we had stayed in the garden? If everything had stayed perfect, would we have looked to him for our perfecting? I can't know for sure, but I don't think so. Isn't it human nature not to know how good we have it? God wanted to be sure we knew how futile it was to do things on our own.

And as I sat in my Sunday School class, in this discussion, I realized something. God is doing the same thing in my life. When he makes me wait for things--such as a husband and home of my own--He's allowing me to see that my fulfillment doesn't (or shouldn't) come from those things. My identity is found in the fact that I'm a child of God--not in my marital status. I'm not sure I would have appreciated that had I not had this waiting time.

And when and if they do arrive--I will know to treasure them. And love the Giver of these gifts more, because in His grace, He allowed me the time to learn to love Him.

So let us not let the time go duly by.