Stop grasping, start receiving!

You will be like God.---Satan

 

Why did Adam and Eve grasp at the knowledge of good and evil? Some mysteries are only meant to be received from God, not grasped at and taken. It may not have been that God didn't want Adam and Eve to know about good and evil, but it was a sublime knowledge that He alone could give them. As soon as Eve grasped at this, her image of God changed. Satan made God out as a killjoy tyrant who was against her, keeping things from she and her husband. This is why they were afraid and hid from God when He came for their daily walk in the garden. St. Paul tells us that Jesus "did not regard equality with God something to grasped at; but, He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." The new Eve, our mother Mary, received the word of God and said yes. In doing so, she reversed the "no" of  the first Eve. What did Mary call herself in her prayer of praise to God? She called herself the "handmaid of the Lord." Mary's hands were not grasping, they were receiving. We must stop grasping and start receiving. The new Adam, our Lord and Savior Jesus, received His Father's will and did only what He saw the Father doing. (Isn't it fascinating that Jesus spent so much time in gardens?) Mary received the word from Gabriel, and in her humble yes, she became the means by which God would come to us in the flesh. Jesus gave us His flesh, and blood, for our food and drink; or as He says in John 6, "My flesh is real food, my blood real drink." These are the mysteries of an all loving God Who wants to give us everything pertaining to life and godliness, which is true liberty and joy! He has proved this in His passion, death, and resurrection. When we stop grasping at what Satan tells us is rightfully ours, and receive whatever it is that God wants to give us, we will find Jesus waiting to walk with us in the garden again. We must resist the devil and he will flee from us!

 

wkm