Use Your Brain

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 2:17 NIV)

From the very beginning God has encouraged us to use our brains.  God didn't have to put a forbidden tree in the center of the garden.  If he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from it, he could have left it out.  In putting it there and telling them NOT to eat from it, God was making very sure they absolutely WOULD think about it.  Just like that "wet paint sign"... we are not happy until we touch it to see if it really is wet paint.

If God had told the lions or the the dog or the the sheep to not eat of that tree, it wouldn't have bothered them.  They do not have analytical brains.  That's just for us humans.  And God expects us to use them.  He knows it won't always lead us to the right choice.  Just look at that very first decision!  But he expects us to use them.  God could take away all our choices and just cause things to happen the way he wants them.  But what kind of life would that be?  We would be just like the lions and dogs and sheep.  No need for a better brain... just take what life gives us and act out of little more than instinct.

God expects more of us because he gave us more.  He has given us the ability to choose.  The choices are not always clearly good or bad, right or wrong, yes or no.  That makes it hard.  And that is the main reason we don't always get it right.  Life is way more complicated than black/white.  But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.  It doesn't mean we shouldn't think about things  and challenge the way "it has always been done."

God gave us brains to think and to question... even to question him.  God is big enough to handle our questions.  He is big enough to handle it even if we stray from "accepted theology."  Actually, I think he encourages thinking along those lines most.

Give your brain a good workout today.  If you are on the internet a lot, find a "fact" someone passed along to you (if you agree with it, even better) and research it.  Find both "for" and "against" arguments and then use your brain and come up with some original support for your decision.

Creator God,
You have crowned mankind with an amazing brain.  Scientists have only scratched the surface of its abilities.  Help us to use it more instead of simply accepting the work others have done (or claim to have done) with their own brains.  Amen.