Men Made of Earth

Proverbs 30:15-16 The leech has two daughters — Give [and] Give! There are three things that are never satisfied, Four never say, “Enough!”: The grave, The barren womb, The earth [that] is not satisfied with water— And the fire never says, “Enough!”

While reading this, I studied the three things that first came up before the writer changed his mind from three to four. The grave, the barren womb and the earth itself are all related. The grave is below the surface. The womb came from dust. The earth is the earth.

This led me back to you the reader and I. We too are from the earth. That means we are the missing thing on that list — the fifth!

We too (by default) never say ‘enough’. That’s the reason why greed comes easy; it seems to be knitted within every human DNA in some form. Some infants don’t want to share their toys with others. Some politicians subject monarchies where once democracies reigned. Some men can’t just settle unless they sleep with any or more women. Corruption within state leaders is evident, etc… These are all examples of the greed that comes with being a product made of earth.

But what’s the antidote?

Well, this is the mystery of the rebirth (or what is commonly known as ‘getting born again’): We get to receive a new identity that’s apart from earth. We get to be born again by the father of light, who Himself is made of light.

Now since the things the poet of proverbs indicated are mostly made of earth, and not light, we can’t say the same of light. If we were told three things never say ‘enough’ and these are the sun, moon and stars, we’d have said light as well is greedy. But it wasn’t so.

We therefore need to seek the fundamental effects of light — the ability to see, the ability of enabling plants to make food and release oxygen which we humans take in — basically light is life. This God states that He’s the way, the truth and life. When we believe for a rebirth by Him, (like dogs beget dogs) we too are no longer just dust, but in another way — LIFE!

C.S Lewis elucidated the difference between ‘begotten’ and ‘made’ in his classic Mere Christianity. He said, when man makes, he can make something like him but not his true nature. Take for example, a robot. It looks like a human but it has no marrow for bone. Man can make a statue, clay or golden, but in however sense of resemblance that it portrays to be close to humanness, it still has no breath in itself or blood running through its veins! Yet — when man begets a child, the scrwany little thing is in every way like him. It could have eyes as blue as his, a tiny nose just like him — quite different from the statue he just made without!

In the same manner, God made us like Him, BUT, to carry His full identity, we have to become begotten (by receiving His son Jesus, believing that He died for our sins as our personal Lord and savior). In so doing, Lewis says that if God (like man) had made us as statues in a shop, this would then mean that once one statue believed on Jesus, it would — literally, unfictionally — suddenly turn from stone to flesh, from mortified to dignified, from statue to human!

Now, let’s apply this same allegory to the greed theme. Because we haven’t been begotten yet, made but of earth alone, we shouldn’t expect less but greed to show up at various points in our lives, however subtle it might be. But once God comes in, and we are now begotten, He makes us light — since He’s light. And light is not greedy.

Light has self control. Hence our new nature shall always stand opposed to the earth pinch, and will pin us down from following through our ‘greed’ emotions. Whoever hasn’t received this light, will find it hard to rule his or her spirit. Even if they’ve trained themselves to; it can’t hold for so long since the strength from which it comes is all but earth, all but self and the will can easily give in. But with the light, there’s a higher power able to silence the tempting voices that drive us mad to consumption without limits. This applies to gluttony as well…

Now this is the part where the plot twist comes in. God has also been called a consuming fire somewhere in His word. And fire appeared fourth on the list.

I can explain!

When we now bear a new nature, yes even if it’s fire (since God’s not only light now but has assumed a new identity), we’ll not deter it in terms of the opposing forces.

Let me elucidate;

Anger — the Bible says — shouldn’t be your companion when the sun goes down. When I was younger, we were told getting annoyed is a sin. And so I used to query the Almighty; “Sir, you made us in your image. Why is anger bad? You too got mad at the Israelites. You too sinned!”

I was young, like I said, so don’t penalize me. But you see, in His kindness, He answered me, saying, “The anger is meant to be targeted at the devil.”

So yes, when the enemy tries to steal, kill or destroy, I unleash the wrath of the titan I am on him and he flees with whimpers. In the same way, like anger has a purpose which you could have not known before, fire saying ‘not enough’, (even if it’s not meant to be as deep as I’m making it sound), we being fires should never say ‘enough, now God’s kingdom has spread so far.’

‘So far’ has to be everywhere. It has to be ‘all the ends of the earth’. If it’s not, then it’s not ‘enough’ yet! Until then, your fire for God shouldn’t flicker one bit. Your fire for prayer shouldn’t dim for a second. Your fire and love for God shouldn’t faint any moment, but grow and grow and grow. We as fires should never think we’ve prayed enough, read the Bible enough, loved enough, spent enough time with God that we take Him for granted…

I do hope the point’s been driven home. I’ll take my leave for now.

But, change your nature, if you haven’t — to escape greed — and, keep fanning that fire for Him. May it never say ‘enough’ indeed. Until the day of glory, when He’ll come on the clouds of glory… Or if He calls you up to your home eternal!