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Meditation 5

Watch Your Step

The Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.”

—Genesis 2:16–17

Are you using your freedom wisely?

I spent most of the summer prior to my freshman year in college studying at a Sea Lab along the Alabama Gulf Coast. While much of our work was in the classroom and lab, there was also a great deal of work in the field; and the field for budding marine biologists is the sea. On a few occasions, we used our small vessel for less noble causes than collecting specimens, and instead caught our dinner by dropping a large drag net.

Our maritime grocery cart would be hoisted out of the water, bulging with some of the finest shrimp the Gulf had to offer. A pull of binding and the entire contents would spill out all over the deck. Students were then free to choose their own, but sifted in the rich harvest were some dangerous foes—crabs with sharp pincers, stingrays whipping barbed tails to and fro, the poisonous lionfish and stinging man-of-war. A careless move, choosing poorly, even a careless step could mean a nasty wound, or worse, a trip to the hospital. Everything that fell on the deck was there for the taking, but not everything was good for the takers.

However you wish to interpret what was going on between God and the first humans in the Garden of Eden, it is clear that part of God’s plan was to give humans freedom to choose—freedom to choose right and freedom to choose wrong. It is also clear that there were far more opportunities to choose right than there were to choose wrong. Our divinely created forebears could eat of all the trees they wanted, but they were warned to stay away from just one.

For the most part, you and I are free to choose—our friends, our spouses, our habits; what we eat, drink, and how we use our free time. Virtually all of these “freedom of choice” opportunities include both right and wrong offerings. We never regret making the right choice; we almost always regret making the wrong one. St. Frances de Sales wrote, “We have freedom to do good or evil; yet to make choice of evil, is not to use, but to abuse our freedom.”

God’s gift of freedom tells us a lot about God’s parental policy. God is a loving God, not a controlling God. As loving parents counsel, coach, and guide, but do not “control” their child, God sets before us a myriad of opportunities, tells us where to go, but leaves the freedom to choose up to us. As the church father Origen suggested, “The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.” Hmmm. . . watch your step.

A Bit of Heaven

Are you using your gift of freedom wisely? In the myriad of choices before you, right now, have you identified the choice you should not make? How will you live into that decision?

A Prayer

Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart,

which no unworthy affection may drag

downwards;

give us an unconquered heart,

which no tribulation can wear out;

give us an upright heart,

which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside.

Bestow upon us also, O Lord our God,

understanding to know You,

diligence to seek You,

wisdom to find You

and a faithfulness that may finally embrace You;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

—Thomas Aquinas, d. 1274