A present for Easter

The Choice
by Max Lucado
He placed one scoop of clay upon another until a form lay lifeless on the ground.
All of the Garden's inhabitants paused to witness the event. Hawks hovered. Giraffes stretched. Trees bowed. Butterflies paused on petals and watched.
"You will love me, nature," God said. "I made you that way. You will obey me, universe. For you were designed to do so. You will reflect my glory, skies, for that is how you were created. But this one will be like me. This one will be able to choose."
All were silent as the Creator reached into himself and removed something yet unseen. A seed. "It's called 'choice.' The seed of choice."
Creation stood in silence and gazed upon the lifeless form.
An angel spoke, "But what if he ... "
"What if he chooses not to love?" the Creator finished. "Come, I will show you."
Unbound by today, God and the angel walked into the realm of tomorrow.
"There, see the fruit of the seed of choice, both the sweet and the bitter."
The angel gasped at what he saw. Spontaneous love. Voluntary devotion. Chosen tenderness. Never had he seen anything like these. He felt the love of the Adams. He heard the joy of Eve and her daughters. He saw the food and the burdens shared. He absorbed the kindness and marveled at the warmth.
"Heaven has never seen such beauty, my Lord. Truly, this is your greatest creation."
"Ah, but you've only seen the sweet. Now witness the bitter."
A stench enveloped the pair. The angel turned in horror and proclaimed, "What is it?"
The Creator spoke only one word: "Selfishness."
The angel stood speechless as they passed through centuries of repugnance. Never had he seen such filth. Rotten hearts. Ruptured promises. Forgotten loyalties. Children of the creation wandering blindly in lonely labyrinths.
"This is the result of choice?" the angel asked.
"Yes."
"They will forget you?"
"Yes."
"They will reject you?"
"Yes."
"They will never come back?"
"Some will. Most won't."
"What will it take to make them listen?"
The Creator walked on in time, further and further into the future, until he stood by a tree. A tree that would be fashioned into a cradle. Even then he could smell the hay that would surround him.
With another step into the future, he paused before another tree. It stood alone, a stubborn ruler of a bald hill. The trunk was thick, and the wood was strong. Soon it would be cut. Soon it would be trimmed. Soon it would be mounted on the stony brow of another hill. And soon he would be hung on it.
He felt the wood rub against a back he did not yet wear.
"Will you go down there?" the angel asked.
"I will."
"Is there no other way?"
"There is not."
"Wouldn't it be easier to not plant the seed? Wouldn't it be easier to not give the choice?"
"It would," the Creator spoke slowly. "But to remove the choice is to remove the love."
He looked around the hill and foresaw a scene. Three figures hung on three crosses. Arms spread. Heads fallen forward. They moaned with the wind.
Men clad in soldiers' garb sat on the ground near the trio. They played games in the dirt and laughed.
Men clad in religion stood off to one side. They smiled. Arrogant, cocky. They had protected God, they thought, by killing this false one.
Women clad in sorrow huddled at the foot of the hill. Speechless. Faces tear streaked. Eyes downward. One put her arm around another and tried to lead her away. She wouldn't leave. "I will stay," she said softly. "I will stay."
All heaven stood to fight. All nature rose to rescue. All eternity poised to protect. But the Creator gave no command.
"It must be done ... ," he said, and withdrew.
But as he stepped back in time, he heard the cry that he would someday scream: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34) He wrenched at tomorrow's agony.
The angel spoke again. "It would be less painful ... "
The Creator interrupted softly. "But it wouldn't be love."
They stepped into the Garden again. The Maker looked earnestly at the clay creation. A monsoon of love swelled up within him. He had died for the creation before he had made him. God's form bent over the sculptured face and breathed. Dust stirred on the lips of the new one. The chest rose, cracking the red mud. The cheeks fleshened. A finger moved. And an eye opened.
But more incredible than the moving of the flesh was the stirring of the spirit. Those who could see the unseen gasped.
Perhaps it was the wind who said it first. Perhaps what the star saw that moment is what has made it blink ever since. Maybe it was left to an angel to whisper it:
"It looks like ... it appears so much like ... it is him!"
The angel wasn't speaking of the face, the features, or the body. He was looking inside—at the soul.
"It's eternal!" gasped another.
Within the man, God had placed a divine seed. A seed of his self. The God of might had created earth's mightiest. The Creator had created, not a creature, but another creator. And the One who had chosen to love had created one who could love in return.
Now it's our choice.
From In the Eye of the Storm
Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 1997) Max Lucado

Adam on the loss of Paradise

 Adam on finding himself banished from the Garden in consoling himself before gaining true repentance and submission to God's will. 

Of this new glorious World, and me so late
The glory of that glory? who now, become
Accursed of blessed, hide me from the face
Of God, whom to behold was then my highth
Of happiness ! Yet well, if here would end
The misery; I deserved it, and would bear
My own deservings; but this will not serve:
All that I eat or drink, or shall beget,
Is propagated curse. O voice, once heard
Delightfully, 'Increase and multiply'; 730

Now death to hear! for what can I increase
Or multiply, but curses on my head?
Who, of all ages to succeed, but, feeling
The evil on him brought by me, will curse
My head ? ' ill fare our Ancestor impure !
For this we may thank Adam !' but his thanks
Shall be the execration; so, besides
Mine own that bide upon me, all from me
Shall with a fierce reflux on me redound,
On me, as on their natural centre, light 740

Heavy, though in their place. O fleeting joys
Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes!
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man? did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me, or here place
In this delicious garden? As my will
Concurred not to my being, it were but right
And equal to reduce me to my dust,

Thy terms too hard, by which I was to hold •
The good I sought not. To the loss of that,
Sufficient penalty, why hast thou added
The sense of endless woes ? inexplicable
Thy justice seems. Yet, to say truth, too late
I thus contest; then should have been refused
Those terms whatever, when they were proposed.
Thou didst accept them: wilt thou enjoy the good,
Then cavil the conditions? And though God
Made thee without thy leave, what if thy son 760
Prove disobedient, and, reproved, retort,
' Wherefore didst thou beget me ? I sought it not!'
Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of thee
That proud excuse? yet him not thy election,
But natural necessity, begot.

God made thee of choice his own, and of his own '
To serve him; thy reward was of his grace;
Thy punishment then justly is at his will.
Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair,
'That dust I am, and shall to dust return. 770

John Milton Paradise Lost Book X

cavil:
Function: verb
Date: 1542
intransitive verb  : to raise trivial objections to
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cavil

Elohim and Jehovah, God the Father and God the Son

  God the Father,

 to 

God the Son,

 on seeing Satan escape from Hell.  

   

 The God's see Satan escaping Hell through Chaos. Satan, is climbing the outer shell of the  "World of the Planetary Universe" .

 Satan was banished from the Empyrean (Kingdom of The Gods).    Satan and his follower revolted after seeing God the Father appoint God the Son  Viceroy of his kingdom in the Empyrean.   God the Father foresaw Satan's corruption of the new world, constructed in Chaos after Satans banishment.  Chaos is the vast unorganized area above Hell  and below the Empyrean where the Gods live. The "World of the Planetary Universe" contains all organized worlds of which Earth is one small planet.

 God the Father explains that this course of  action had been foreseen by him but not predestined.

God the Father delineates the two special cases of sin, or separation from God,  willful rebellion, and deception.

The first case , Satan and the fallen Angels,  rebel out of a sense of unmerited demotion.

The second case , man having free will will be deceived by the first and fall.

In the second case, God the Father further explains, man, shall receive grace and mercy in redemption.  For man will heark'n to his glozing* lyes. . [Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. Not free, what proof could they have given sincere of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love.] 


The first case shall never be redeemed.  

    

                Onely begotten Son, seest thou what rage [ 80 ]              

Transports our adversarie, whom no bounds

Prescrib'd, no barrs of Hell, nor all the chains

Heapt on him there, nor yet the main Abyss

Wide interrupt can hold; so bent he seems

          On desparate reveng, that shall redound [ 85 ]

Upon his own rebellious head. And now

Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way

Not farr off Heav'n, in the Precincts of light,

Directly towards the new created World,

        And Man there plac't, with purpose to assay [ 90 ]

If him by force he can destroy, or worse,

By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert

For man will heark'n to his glozing lyes,

And easily transgress the sole Command,

        Sole pledge of his obedience: So will fall, [ 95 ]

Hee and his faithless Progenie: whose fault?

Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee

All he could have; I made him just and right,

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

Such I created all th' Ethereal Powers [ 100 ]

And Spirits, both them who stood and them who faild;

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

Not free, what proof could they have givn sincere

Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,

Where onely what they needs must do, appeard, [ 105 ]

Not what they would? what praise could they receive?

What pleasure I from such obedience paid,

When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)

Useless and vain, of freedom both despoild,

Made passive both, had servd necessitie, [ 110 ]

Not mee. They therefore as to right belongd,

So were created, nor can justly accuse

Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate,

As if predestination over-rul'd

Thir will, dispos'd by absolute Decree [ 115 ]

Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed

Thir own revolt, not I: if I foreknew,

Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,

Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.

So without least impulse or shadow of Fate, [ 120 ]

Or aught by me immutablie foreseen,

They trespass, Authors to themselves in all

Both what they judge and what they choose; for so

I formd them free, and free they must remain,

Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change [ 125 ]

Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree

Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain'd

Thir freedom, they themselves ordain'd thir fall.

The first sort by thir own suggestion fell,

Self-tempted, self-deprav'd: Man falls deceiv'd [ 130 ]

By the other first: Man therefore shall find grace,

The other none: in Mercy and Justice both,

Through Heav'n and Earth, so shall my glorie excel,

But Mercy first and last shall brightest shine.

(Paradise Lost, John Milton Book III)

*glozing;  obsolete to fawn or flatter (someone)

http://www.yourdictionary.com/glozing