Micro Studies and PopCorn Verses

I've always been fascinated by the way popcorn behaves. You've got a tiny little kernel, and with the right amount of heat and time, *BANG* it turns itself inside out and becomes at least three times as big as it was before. Also, anyone who knows me knows I love explosions, and really, what other food can you eat (within reason) that has come through an explosion?

Since I've been working to get myself back to where I was before spiritually, I've dueled with self-doubt and I've sparred with guilt and wrestled with condemnation. If you check the scoreboard, I'm afraid you're going to see more losses than wins tallied for me. I keep waiting to be pulled out of the game completely, because you know if I was in charge, that's what I'd do to me.

I'm so glad I'm not in charge, because the One who is, hasn't sidelined me (I think He knows I don't want to be a bench warmer) permanently but He has set me down where I can rest for a bit. And while I'm here resting and enjoying His company, He's brought me a box of popcorn verses. Here are the ones that I've been munching on for a week now, trying to wrap my comprehension around all the wildness that's inside.

Genesis 1:14-19 (New Century Version)

¹⁴ Then God said, "Let there be lights in the sky to separate day from night. These lights will be used for signs, seasons, days, and years.¹⁵ They will be in the sky to give light to the earth." And it happened.

¹⁶ So God made the two large lights. He made the brighter light to rule the day and made the smaller light to rule the night. He also made the stars.¹⁷ God put all these in the sky to shine on the earth,¹⁸ to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that all these things were good.¹⁹ Evening passed, and morning came. This was the fourth day."

Okay, anyone else catch that the first time you read it? Because I'm pretty sure I've slept through that part every time I've read it, and when I came across it last week it slapped me between the eyes. I'm pretty sure I rubbed my fore head and went "ow".

He put in the stars in the heavens, hung them there with their first orders to act as signs. He did this on day four of the Creation story. Man's not made until day six, and animals aren't made until day five. But on day four, the stars are settled into place and the sun and moon are shown their routes, with explicit orders that their first duties are to act as signs.

Why?

Adam is still a twinkle in the eyes of the Trinity, and Eve just an idea, coddled in His heart. This is a perfect world, lush and good and full of plants and flowers and every kind of green and growing thing. It's a beautiful garden, peaceful and harmonious, there's no one really to talk to, but there's also no sin.

Sin's the thing that separated us in the first place from Him, before that He and Adam and Eve spoke face to face in the garden.