Cursed be the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat the bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.The once pristine garden is overrun with thistles; man's once great estate is marred by vice, folly, pain, sorrow, madness, oppression, toil, wickedness, vanity, weariness of the flesh— all a striving after the wind— and in the end, death. "All go to one place; all are from the dust, and to dust all return" (Ecclesiastes 3:21).
That is the human condition: we are walking dust. For a time we shall walk, but shortly, the wind will blow and carry us away. Always, we are going back to dust.
EDIT: Commented on Mallory Searcey's "Why I Love Dr. Mashburn."
There's a great album you can listen to called Back to Dust by Sev Statik. His music is smart and loads of fun. Why don't you listen when you have time?
ReplyDeleteThe picture you paint when you say "God creates a perfect world; man rejects it. God is the voice of righteousness; man hears the voice of the snake. God gives man a simple law to obey..." is such a hard picture to see. The fact that we as humans were willing to give up eternal perfection and right standing with God, for momentary pleasure is such a picture of how small and weak minded we can be. We see things in small, when really there is a whole, perfect picture to see.
ReplyDeleteI think it is very poetic that way that God created us from dust and dust we will become. This to me reminds me that all we do in the world like the gain of worldly material at the end of it all is useless because we will not leave this world with our success or earthly materials but the only treasure worth everyone's time is the gift that God has offered us.
ReplyDeleteAgain, back to Ecclesiastes. "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!" So if all is vanity, what are we to do? What are you to do? The Preacher tells us.
Delete"Go, eat your bread with joy"; "Enjoy life with the wife whom you love"; "Whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might"; and finally, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" (9:7, 9, 10; 12:13).