Image

The consequences of the fall were many and its repercussions are still very vividly manifested in the human race. The inclination towards acting and being like God has many facets. One of the more subtle expressions is our desire to mold people in our image. We have expectations when it comes to how we want others to be or behave, how they live their lives and how they are to express their spiritual life through attitudes and works. When they fail to comply with our image we subtly or more directly begin to condition them applying a diversity of manipulation techniques from our copious arsenal.

Until our minds are renewed we have great difficulties in acknowledging and recognizing how God's master plan is unfolded uniquely in each individual. God employs the truth in His molding process. The truth which plainly and straight forward addresses the question; "who am I?". This truth is the definite truth, because the source is the Creator of all things. In telling us the unprecedented truth about our value and who we are in Him we are drawn close to this Person who is everything contrary to manipulative. In this truth we breathe freely and in an instant we become this truth through faith.

The paths He leads us to follow are everything the religious world is not. When we fell our preconceived opinions concerning how things ought to be were formed according to the ideas of the ruler we now had submitted to. The record is very brief when it comes to what life in the garden was like. We only catch some glimpses of Eve and Adam having an intimate relationship with their Father. There is a great secret contained in this, because in this silence the potential of true liberty is. God doesn't have to abide to a receipt in His dealings with His precious children.

So, when you ask God, as Peter did, why He leads someone in a direction you don't approve of He will answer: ".......what is that to you? You must follow me." (John 21:22). Jesus' answer might seem harsh, but if we are to paraphrase it would be something like this: "Peter, everything I do is love and my love manifest itself uniquely in each and every individual. Therefore everyone will be led along different paths where they can trust me completely, because everything is woven in love." However, there is also an edge to His words, because if we are trapped in a rigid pattern of comparing ourselves with others we will not easily yield to His perfect ways.

To compare ourselves with others denotes that we still haven't entered His rest and His freedom. It falls thus natural to us to deny others to enter this liberty when we haven't tasted it for ourselves, and the temptation to begin molding others in our image is irresistible. In doing so we are proclaiming that we do not respect the individual, we do not understand love and we are unwilling to let others flourish in His light.