The Search for Hope


The missing link to hope, fulfillment and peace.





Searching for hope in a dying world

Why did God make a world like this?

Life is scary. Uncertainty, corruption, and death stalk us continually. Why did God make a world like this?

This treacherous world is not what God planned. His dream for us was the sweetness of Eden -- a place where we would always be safe in his watchcare -- a place where he could provide for his love objects without their ever having to know pain or heartache or loss.

But Adam and Eve chose to step outside the boundaries of God's plan when they ate the forbidden fruit with which the serpent tempted them. This was the second greatest tragedy of the human race. (I'll share the greatest tragedy on another page of this series). Listen to what happened after Adam and Eve gave in to the serpent's temptation:

So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all the livestock... And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children...."

To Adam he said,... "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food" (Genesis 3:14-19 NIV).






None of us can really imagine what the human race was like before the "fall." What would it be like to have a body that could deliver a child without pain, a body that would never die? What would it be like to live in a world where there were no thorns or thistles, no sweat in harvest, no sorrow? We have no concept of what we have lost. But even greater than our loss is the loss that God experienced because of our choices. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit reigned in ivory palaces. Yet something was missing. Can you imagine anything missing in God's life? How awesome! Yet God longed for a family -- someone to lavish His love upon!

God could soar through eons of diamond stars and play with the golden sun. Yet God loved the human race more than anything in His kingdom. Listen to this, a passage that portrays Jesus as the wisdom of the ages:

The Lord made me as the start of his way, the first of his works in the past. From eternal days I was given my place, from the birth of time, before the earth was.

When there was no deep I was given birth, when there were no fountains flowing with water. Before the mountains were put in their places, before the hills was my birth: When he had not made the earth or the fields or the dust of the world.

When he made ready the heavens I was there: when he put an arch over the face of the deep: When he made strong the skies overhead: when the fountains of the deep were fixed: When he put a limit to the sea, so that the waters might not go against his word: when he put in position the bases of the earth:

Then I was by his side, as a master workman: and I was his delight from day to day, playing before him at all times; playing in his earth; and my delight was with the sons of men (Proverbs 8:22-31 BBE).

Jesus loved the beauty of the creation He and the other members of the Trinity had formed. Every day He doted in the love of God His Father -- "I was his delight from day to day, playing before him at all times; playing in his earth...."

Jesus lived in a place bedecked with silver, gold, and jewels beyond imagination. The magnificent Milky Way was but a playground for Him. Yet to Him, these things paled in significance to the object of his delight. He said "My delight was with the sons of men!"

God lost a lot when Adam and Eve took things in their own hands. Was God angry because of man's fall?

To read more, click here.




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Scriptures in the Knowing God section are taken from the "New International Version" and the "Bible in Basic English."

Copyright ©1981-2006 by Lois Turley
Used by permission."