For the past two weeks, I spent six hours every day (5am-12pm) from Monday to Saturday picking blueberries at an orchard in the California heat with my mom and sister. Of course, I knew what I was getting myself into: less sleep; six hours of standing; a bit of back pain from strapping the blueberry bucket in the front; painful splinters and scratches, bugs, etc.; I wanted to do it anyway for the experience. However, I think I was more than likely influenced by my mom’s hard work and dedication to provide for the family this way.
I woke up one morning dragging my feet and grumbling about having to wake up so early to go pick blueberries. While I was picking blueberries and reflecting on my experience that day, the fall of man in Genesis 3 came to mind, which eventually got me thinking about the harmonious relationship of the Creator God, creature, and creation before the Fall. I realize that I tend to forget that I am a fallen and sinful person, and that my relationship with work and God had been distorted by sin; this itself is sin. My grumbling to work that morning was the result of my fallen nature and picking blueberries definitely did put Genesis 3: 17 – 19 into clearer perspective; “…cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Shortly after, man was removed from the Garden of Eden and separated from God. It was humbling to be reminded of these truths of our fallen nature as I was picking blueberries. This may sound kind of silly, but after being reminded of these truths there was a new sense of connectedness with me and the blueberry bushes; and of course, with all of creation.
Separation from God is man’s greatest doom. In The Pursuit of God, A. W. Tozer writes, “For whatever else the Fall may have been, it was most certainly a sharp change in man’s relation to his creator. He adopted toward God an altered attitude, and by so doing destroyed the proper Creator-Creature relation in which, unknown to him, his true happiness lay.” Just knowing that we are currently living in a time of separation brings me great fear, but a fear of reverence to the Lord. Tozer goes on to write that “Essentially, salvation is the restoration of a right relation between man and his Creator, a bringing back to normal of the Creator-Creature relation.” How beautiful is the grace of God, that He would give his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life? Although we currently live in a fallen and broken world, the hope we have is Jesus, the one whom all things are made new and can have right relations with God.