Opposition, Choice, and the Flow of God’s Plan

We woke up this morning snowed in, the world outside wrapped in white and silence. Church was canceled, so, we held our own little Sunday School at home. The Old Testament was our topic, specifically the moment when the serpent tempts Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit. My wife said something that stopped me in my tracks. She said, “If God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eventually partake of that fruit, He wouldn’t have planted the tree.” And the more I sat with that, the more it opened up. The serpent didn’t know the mind of God. He thought he was frustrating the plan, when in reality he was stepping into the only role he was ever capable of playing — opposition. Not equal to God. Not rival to God. Just the resistance that makes agency meaningful. The tree wasn’t a trap. It was an invitation. A declaration that choice is sacred. In Moses 5:15 we read:  And as many as believed in the Son, and repented of their sins, should be saved; and as many as believed not and repented not, should be damned; and the words went forth out of the mouth of God in a firm decree; wherefore they must be fulfilled.

That word damned is one we often hear with fire and brimstone attached to it. But think about a river. When a river is dammed, the flow stops. The movement ends. The water can no longer go where it was meant to go.
Damnation isn’t about punishment.
It’s about stopped progression.
And salvation, through Christ, is the breaking of the dam. The restoration of flow. The return of movement, growth, and becoming.
Adam and Eve’s choice opened the door to mortality, agency, and change. Christ’s choice opened the door to redemption, resurrection, and eternal progression.

Opposition made choice possible.

Choice made repentance meaningful.

Repentance made progression eternal.

Even the serpent, thinking he was clever, ended up playing into the very plan he hoped to derail.
And maybe that’s the quiet reassurance for us today: snowed in, or stormed in, or just wrestling with our own little oppositions. God’s plan is never fragile. His purposes are never at risk. Even the things that push against us can become the very things that move us forward.