My mother has always said that as you get older, someone speeds up the clock. It does seem that way. Time drags when you’re little waiting for birthdays and Christmas. Then at some point you’re thinking, “Didn’t I just have another birthday and wasn’t Christmas last week?” Anyway, it’s all in your perspective. A week has 7 days and there’s 365 days in a year. Except for leap year, this never changes. The only thing that changes is our perspective. Perspective is defined as “a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view”.
Our perspective about life certainly changes as we get older. We don’t always take the chances we used to take. We know choices have consequences. In your younger days, you’d throw caution to the wind and go for it. But now there’s more on the line – a job, a house, family etc. Our choices matter.
Adam and Eve were given every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for their food according to the book of Genesis. The Lord said in chapter 2 that the trees were beautiful and produced delicious fruit. God wanted them to have the best! Because we are not robots, God also put another tree in the garden. It was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Standing alongside it in the middle of Eden was the Tree of Life. The couple could eat freely of any tree except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Surely Adam and Eve had a wonderful life there. Everything was perfect including their perspective of an all-knowing, all-caring, all-providing God. How could it get any better? Good food, good fellowship and a face-to-face relationship with Almighty God!
Chapter 3….enter a change of perspective. The serpent, the Bible says, “was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord had made” (NLT). He cornered Eve by herself and proceeded to question the menu. Eve explained that, “it’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat.” God said, “You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.” “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman in verse 4. He goes on to explain to her in lying fashion that she’ll just basically be like God, knowing both good and evil. Wow! There’s a different perspective. God said not to do something because it was for her good. Following the rules would keep her safe, but this lying perspective sounded very convincing. Surely it wouldn’t hurt? Just once.
And so mankind is forever changed. How many times have we allowed our questioning minds to change the course of our history? We know what we should do, but we do just the opposite. The apostle Paul tells us in the book of Romans, “so you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.” I think it’s interesting that the Bible doesn’t tell us what kind of “fruit” Adam and Eve ate. In my opinion, it’s irrelevant. We just know it was “forbidden fruit”. We all have things and situations in our lives that should be forbidden fruit. It could be activities we participate in, relationships we know will hurt us if we engage in, etc. So why do we do it? We know we will ultimately get hurt. God puts parameters on things for our safety. My struggles are not the same as yours, but the struggles are real! God gives us the good fruit and all too often we’re munching on the bad fruit hoping this time we’ll get different results. WRONG! Bad fruit is bad fruit every time. We have to change our perspective once and for all.
We need a constant, steady diet of God’s word to grow us up into the people He wants us to be. This is not in any way performance based. This is a lifelong marathon, not a lap around the track. Philippians 2:13 says, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.” So let Him! Let Him direct your steps. Let Him keep you safe. Let Him give you His perspective! Allow God to speak to you through His Word and feast on good fruit. Don’t eat rotten fruit and expect a wonderful life. It doesn’t work that way.
Galatians 5:22 tells us, “the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” Isn’t that the abundant life God wants us to lead? Absolutely!!
Finally, Jesus tells us in the book of Luke that a tree is identified by its fruit. We can literally look at something and know instinctively if it’s good for us or not if we get God’s perspective through meditating on His Word. Pretty soon you won’t have any room for rotten fruit in your life and it will not look tempting to you at all. You will see it for what it is and it’s all because of a change of perspective.
Today’s writer is Brandi Crowe. A hairdresser for over 25 years, she is currently the owner of Brandi Crowe salon in Buford, GA. She loves hiking, a good cup of coffee and spending time with family and friends. Brandi lives in a custom farmhouse with her husband, Robby and cat, Harold.
