Fr. Mike Schmitz ‘Bible in a Year’ Day 2 Reflection: God continues to provide
Fr. Mike Schmitz “Bible in a Year” Day 2 Reflection: Out of an abundance of love, God provided a plan to allow Adam and Eve (and us) to be reunited with him.
Fr. Mike Schmitz “Bible in a Year” Day 2 Reflection: I’m amazed at God’s tender care for Adam and Eve, even after they ate from the apple, and how he sent them “forth” from the garden — almost as if they were directed on a new mission (my interpretation). A new path to fully reconnect and reunite with God through his son, Jesus. Today’s reading includes Genesis 3 & 4 and Psalm 104.
➡️ Want to join me? Here’s my Day 0 post: ‘Bible in a Year’ Fr. Mike Schmitz Resources: Why I bought the Companion (study guide), Bible, and notebook.
➡️ Looking for other reflections? Here’s where you can find my Fr. Mike Schmitz “Bible in a Year” Reflections.
Narrative story: Genesis 3 & 4, ‘What is this you have done?’
My husband woke up early to work out, and I came down for my morning shot of caffeine. I could hear Fr. Mike Schmitz’s voice echoing up the stairs from our basement.
We’ve decided to listen to “The Bible in a Year” podcast together, and it was comforting to know we’d talk about it over breakfast.
In Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis (Day 1), Fr. Schmitz emphasized God’s goodness. His creation reflects God’s goodness, and because God made Adam and Eve in his image, we reflect his goodness, too.
“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 2:31, emphasis mine).
Fr. Schmitz shared how critical it was to understand God’s goodness before the fall in Chapter 3. In fact, if you haven’t listened to Day 1, I’d encourage you to go back and listen now.
The rest of God’s story — from this point forward — doesn’t make sense unless you understand the sheer goodness of God’s creation, which includes our creation.
Now in Chapter 3, there’s a break from God’s goodness. As a storyteller, I was struck by the foreshadowing. God introduces the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9) and warns Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of good and evil, for they might die if they do (Genesis 2:17).
Like a good father, he was clear about the boundaries he’d established for their own protection.
“I’d never heard it explained like this,” my husband said over breakfast.
I hadn’t either. But I love it! And it makes so much intuitive sense. God didn’t punish Adam and Eve by casting them out of the garden. Instead, God protected them.
After eating from the tree of knowledge, sin entered Adam and Eve’s world, and God didn’t want them to live forever in a perpetual state of shame and disconnection from him.
Remember, before they ate the fruit, they were not ashamed (Genesis 2:25).
But now their eyes were opened and they hid from God. For the first time, they experienced disconnection from their creator.
God asks, “What is this you have done?”
It’s a tone of love and heartbreak, Fr. Schmitz said, one that emphasizes the sorrow of being separated from the people he loves the most.
Leaving the garden is a divine protection
God didn’t want Adam and Eve (or us) to live forever apart from his love — my understanding is that’s pretty much the definition of hell — so God sent them out of the garden.
God then placed a flaming sword at the entrance so they couldn’t go back in and eat from the tree of life, which would have allowed them to live forever.
(This is Hebrew poetry, remember, not a literal description.)
That’s a perspective of the creation story neither my husband nor I have heard before.
And it makes perfect sense.
I believe “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and I also believe that God doesn’t contradict himself, so all of God’s actions are done out of love.
Being sent out of the garden wasn’t punishment, Fr. Scmitz said. It wasn’t done in anger or with hatred or scorn.
It was done out of an abundance of God’s love: His desire to protect us and create a path back to fully experiencing his love, just as Adam and Eve once fully experienced it.
Listen to how the Bible Fr. Schmitz is reading from describes it in Genesis 3:23. It’s almost as if God is now directing Adam and Eve on a new mission:
“Therefore, the Lord sent (them) forth.”
A mission, I believe, to return to him.
God’s protection gives us a path back to him
I rarely attended mass growing up, but I’m thankful to have attended a Catholic high school in Minnesota, which built a foundation of faith I wouldn’t have received any other way.
That’s where I was first introduced to the concept of God being outside of time.
God created time, which means he exists in a state we don’t fully understand, because he doesn’t experience time in a linear way as we do.
Instead, he lives in an “eternal now,” meaning he’s in every moment of every time he created, including this very moment.
Even as a teen, this concept made immediate sense to me.
Following the logical steps of what being outside of time means, I could grasp why God created us, even though he knew we would sin.
Considering:
God knew Adam and Eve, in their free will, would make the mistake of eating the apple.
God knew they’d sin, and he knew they’d want to hide in shame.
God knew the fall would occur before he created the world. He knew they (and we) are imperfect people. And he knew they (and we) would mess up royally.
And he created us anyway.
God created us because he wanted to love us, and he knew how much we would love being loved by him.
He gave us the choice of loving him, which means that when we choose him, our love is genuine. It’s pure.
When we choose God, when we believe in Jesus, we know we will live in his love forever, one day, when we reach heaven.
Essentially, God knew how the story would end before it began, and because God is good — and can only be good — we can trust that his ending is good, too.
Story beginning: God’s creation, including Adam and Eve, is good. They (we) belong to God and live in perpetual love as they (we) walk with him through the garden.
Inciting event: Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge, forever disrupting their (and our) lives and setting into motion a series of events in the story. A lot of things happen (the understatement of the century) as God leads his people in a fallen world along a path he created. He sends his son, Jesus, who is resurrected, completing the path back to God that’s readily available to all.
Story resolution: Through our belief in Jesus, death is not the end. We can take the path God created for us through our belief and fully reunite with God in heaven, living in his loving presence for eternity.
➡️ ‘Bible in a Year’ Fr. Mike Schmitz Resources: Why I bought the Companion (study guide), Bible, and notebook
Fr. Mike Schmitz Bible in a Year’ Day 2 Reflection: God’s provision continues today through fields of abundance here in Iowa. I took this picture last spring, after heavy rains broke a nearly four-year drought.
Psalm 104: ‘God the Creator and Provider’
Fr. Mike Schmitz “Bible in a Year” Day 2 includes Psalm 104, which is titled “God the Creator and Provider.” It’s a beautiful piece of poetry, a prayer that recognizes and praises God for caring for us and providing for us.
Even though we no longer live in the Garden of Eden, God never stopped being our father.
What struck me was the intimate way God provided and cared for Adam and Eve, even after they ate the apple.
It was God who made them clothes to cover their nakedness so they would no longer hide.
God wasn’t ashamed of Adam or Eve, and he didn’t want them to feel ashamed either. That’s not what a loving father does.
I had this backwards. I had thought that it was Adam and Eve who had made the first set of clothes because of their fear and shame, but I was wrong.
Out of an abundance of love, God was the one who crafted their first coverings.
They made a mistake, sure, but he never stopped loving them (or us). God never stopped being a father.
God provided for Adam and Eve before they left the garden, and he provided after they entered the fallen world.
A world that no longer reflected God’s perfection, as the garden did, but a world of suffering and strife and death.
It would be harder this way, but God continued to provide: Through the soil they could till, the rain that nourished the fields, and the sun necessary to grow their food.
“You created the grass to grow for the cattle and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth.”
— Psalm 104:14 (NIV)
I live in Iowa now, and the rhythm of the year is tied to farming. Farmers listen to weather reports to gauge when to work the fields. Brothers and sisters, children, and grandchildren who live in cities or suburbs will return to their family’s farm each fall to help with harvest.
For the last four years, we have been experiencing a drought. There were steps farmers could take — irrigation, for example — but the reality was, everyone was praying for praying.
God provided this spring. The heavens opened, and the water poured. Day after day, it came. You could almost sense the relief. The overwhelming joy.
God’s provision is for our stomachs and our souls
I love gathering stories of faith, and a farmer’s wife shared one last summer that stuck with me. For years, she had prayed for her husband, who didn’t believe in God.
She prayed with the devotion of a wife who loved her husband. Consistently. Persistently.
They had had a particularly rough winter. I don’t know the specifics, but she said that his animals started to die. He may not have cared for God, but her husband cared for his cattle.
He cared deeply about them, and when calf after calf died shortly after birth, he took it to heart.
This wife continued to pray. She prayed for her husband, for the calves and mothers, and for the rain to come.
Things got worse and worse — until one afternoon the skies broke open and the rain began to pour.
God had heard her prayer, and in that moment, she sensed that God had reached her husband, too. She ran outside and praised God. In the rain, she shouted her thanks.
Her hair was dripping, her shirt and pants soaked, but she didn’t care because she had to express her overwhelming sense of gratitude.
“I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.”
— Psalm 104: 33 (NIV)
God had answered her prayer for rain, but more importantly, God answered her prayer about her husband.
He came to believe in Christ, just as she had sensed the day God brought the rain.
I can’t even begin to comprehend what sometimes feels like the counterintuitive nature of God.
First a drought, then a storm. He provided materially for their farm — for this couple and their cows — but he did it in his own way and with his own sense of timing.
God provided spiritually for this farmer, too. God sustained him with rain that day, but he also sustained him for eternity — by creating a path to return back to his Heavenly Father.
Join me in reading or listening to Fr. Mike Schmitz read ‘The Bible in a Year’
I’m on Day 2 of “The Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz,” which shares the greatest story ever told. A story I believe God is still actively writing in the world today.
Will you join me for Day 3?
➡️ Want to join me? Here’s my Day 0 post: ‘Bible in a Year’ Fr. Mike Schmitz Resources: Why I bought the Companion (study guide), Bible, and notebook.
➡️ Looking for past days? Here’s where you can find my Fr. Mike Schmitz “Bible in a Year” Reflections.
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Mackenzie Ryan Walters is the author of “Faith Storytellers: Unleash the Power of Your Story,” which shares Christian testimonies and stories, as well as curated lists about Christian books, gifts, and more. A national award-winning former journalist who’s covered a presidential campaign, been inside NASA, and reported on education and schools, Mackenzie now edits the Faith Storytellers website and is passionate about lifting up and sharing the story God is writing in the world.
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