We Were Meant for More

            Every culture in the history of the world has had stories.  Fables, legends, tall tales...whatever you want to call them, everyone has them.  Most stories involve a hero doing something extraordinary.  The characters in these stories are stronger or faster than everyone else, or they can grant wishes or fly or perform some superhuman feat.  Today's American stories are superheroes.  We are fascinated with the idea of a hero who can do everything we can't in order to fight the battles we can't seem to win.

            What if all these stories point to something more?  What if we are obsessed with powers beyond our capabilities because deep down we yearn for what once was ours but now is lost?  We long to be more than we are - that because deep down we know we were created for more?

            The degree of power we lost in the garden cannot be understated.  The moment we made the choice to break the one and only limit we had, we gave up a vast and nearly limitless existence.  Can you imagine what we were most likely capable of?  I have dreams at night of being able to jump and sail through the air, covering miles and miles in a single bound.  Is it possible this is still in my dreams because I Was created to do just this very thing - but I am limited by the fallen world in which I live?

            Look at the course of humanity throughout history.  We are explorers and adventurers.  We continuously push higher and faster and create more and more.  But it's all artificial.  For centuries, mankind dreamed of flying, and then we finally achieved it...but just in a machine.  We want to travel, and so we invent cars and boats and trains and bikes to get us where we want to go.  We long to know what lies beyond our own atmosphere, so we build rockets and ships that will take us to the stars.  We work to be stronger, smarter, faster, better - always knowing, deep down, that we were meant for something greater than what this world has to offer.

            It's said that we only use something like 10% of our brains.  Why would we have been created with 90% of something we can't access?  What if it was because we were supposed to have much more power than we have, but we proved ourselves unable to handle it?  Look at what we have done with the knowledge we've been given.  We discovered and isolated the atom - and proceeded to split it in order to bring the most destruction the world has ever known.  We discovered the electron - and we used it to create pornography, graphic violence, and an avalanche of just plain idiocy.  We've made incredible discoveries in the medical field and used them to enhance our looks, our bodies, and our ability to kill other human beings.  Now our abilities to "do" are getting ahead of our abilities to reason - and so we have things like stem cells and cloning which have greater complications than we know how to handle.  We can't behave ourselves with the tiny bit of revelation we are allowed.  God only knows what kind of destruction we would cause if given the fullness of our brain power...which is why, in His mercy, He limited us to save us from ourselves.

            When we were removed from the original intent of creation, we were given certain restrictions.  I firmly believe it was the Lord that placed these barriers in our minds and on our capabilities.  He knows we are capable of much, much more - we are, after all, created in His image, and there is no end to what He can do.  But He has seen what we do with what we've been given, and like any good parents, He put child locks on the powerful stuff.  Bleach is an amazing cleanser, but we aren't going to hand it to the 2-year old.  She'd kill herself with that much power.  So it is between God and His sons and daughters.  He longs to be able to show us more, but He can't until we prove we can handle it.  He won't let us at the power tools until we stop hitting each other with wooden blocks.

            Where does this leave us?  The quest for knowledge is good.  We were made to be explorers.  We should climbs and jump and dig and fly.  But we will never know the fullness of our potential until that day when we stand before Dad having been proved to be trusted with all of our creationary power - not by anything we do, but by our willingness to surrender and let Christ cover it all.  That will be the sign to God that we are ready - by the fact that we've laid it all down at the cross and let the blood of Jesus cover our pathetic and futile attempts to break into that life on our own power.

            The garden is still there.  It's been protected -not from us but for us.  Someday we will go back and experience the life we were meant to live.  Until then, we must keep exploring deeper into the Father's heart and enjoy the revelation He has given us now, looking forward to the day when there will be so much more. 

            We were made for so much more than this.