thrilled at each new step

Tuesday March 11^th, Genesis 3:  ⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.  Welcome to the real world!!  In the story Death occurred in an instant, science tells us to took place over a millennium, they are both right in many ways.  Humanity has moved from instinctual being to reasoned being, from a created being known to many as Lucy or even perhaps pre-Lucy, to beings created in the image of God.  Good can be seen in change and in contrast, so can evil.  Nakedness, the blissful total exposure before God and one another is replaced by shame and the painful attempt to cover one’s self with the abrasive quality of fig leaves and lies.  Life is not easy from here on for humans. With good in our sights, evil is always there in the wings and rear view mirrors, pulling us off the path God has set before us or back into what has been.  Just as parents are thrilled and pained at each new stage in their child’s life, so too is God thrilled and pained at each new stage of the life of this child call humanity.  Thrilled at the first steps, yet concerned at where they will go, thrilled at talking, yet concerned at what they will say, thrilled at going to school, yet concerned at what they might learn from one another, thrilled at their ability to drive, yet concerned at where they are going out of our sight so late at night, and on and on it goes.  God, as are we, is thrilled at each new step the children take, as individuals and as humanity, yet concerned at what direction evil will pull them and us aside and how we all will handle it.  We are created in the image of God; the maturity of what that means is yet to follow.