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Two Trees

God created man in His image to become like himself, capable of having fellowship with Him. In the garden of Eden two ways were set before man for attaining to this likeness to God. These were typified by the two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God’s way was the former: Through life would come the knowledge and likeness of God; in abiding in God’s will and partaking of God’s life, man would be perfected. In recommending the other, Satan assured man that knowledge was the one thing to be desired to make us like God.[1]

 

I am a knowledge junky. I am one who hungers and thirsts for knowledge. And I like it that way. There is certainly no room for boredom. Whether the knowledge is about cosmology or theology or theories of consciousness – there is no end to obtaining knowledge. But with Andrew Murray’s introduction to his chapter on “The Spirit of Truth” in his book, The Indwelling Spirit, I saw something for the first time. In the Garden, God set before man two paths – one was the path of life and the other the path of knowledge. “Through life would come … knowledge” Murray says. Not “Through knowledge would come life.”

So what does that mean for a knowledge junky? Do I miss “life lessons” because I am absorbed in “book lessons?” Do I retreat from the messiness of life to the safeness of knowledge acquisition? I think that tendency is real. Today, may I not be afraid to enter into the messiness of life. Today, may I choose to learn through walking with God in the life all around me. May I choose to treasure every person whose path I cross.

[1] Murray, Andrew. The Indwelling Spirit (pp. 79-80). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.