Redefined: Changing One Thing About This Story Could Change Everything About Yours

By Dave Taylor and Pete Dellerba

Defining momentswe all have them. All of us can look back and remember moments when events occurred and decisions were made that drastically altered the course of our lives. Defining moments shape our perception of the world, and they become major forces in defining who we are and what we are capable of. They become the scales by which we measure our worth. Our reality is anchored in our interpretation of those moments, and how we respond to them often determines how we respond in life.

Mankinds fall from glory in the garden of Eden was a catastrophic event of epic proportions, one of the great defining moments in human history. It altered the course of humanity and redefined who we were at our core. Before the Fall, we were sons and daughters in paradise; after the Fall, we were orphans and strangers in exile. Our interpretation of that one event has shaped our self-identity. And our interpretation of Gods words and actions in the midst of the event has shaped our perception of who he is and the nature of his heart toward us.

Redefined chronicles a journey back to the time of the orphaning of the human heart. It dares to reinterpret the story in the light of the smile of Abba God. It offers the hope that if Adams darkest moment can be redefined, then our darkest moments can as well.

But the ramifications are huge. For the life of Christ and his work on the cross will never look the same to us again. And our excuses for remaining powerless against the enemy will be lost forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490810386

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Copyright © 2013 Pete Dellerba with Dave Taylor.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-1037-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1036-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1038-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013918354

WestBow Press rev. date: 3/10/2014

Unless otherwise noted, scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Cover Illustration By J. Peckham Brown

Contents

Introduction Cry Of The Orphaned Heart

Part 1 Sweeping Vistas

Chapter 1 Epic War

Chapter 2 Intentional Universe

Chapter 3 Securing Thrones

Chapter 4 And Again Today

Chapter 5 On Dirt

Chapter 6 Polar Realities

Part 2 Flaming Swords

Chapter 7 Pearl Of Great Price

Chapter 8 The Deep

Chapter 9 Queen Of Desire

Chapter 10 The Shadow

Chapter 11 The Great Divorce

Chapter 12 The Way Of The Sword

Chapter 13 Qualifying

Chapter 14 The Splendor Of Kings

End Notes

To the orphans of the world,

Those who feel cast adrift on a lonely clod of dirt

Hurdling through the cold, black cosmos…

The Father knows your name.

INTRODUCTION

Cry of the Orphaned Heart

Then the eyes of both of them were opened,

And they realized they were naked;

So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God

As he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day,

And they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

But the LORD God called to the man, Where are you?

He answered, "I heard you in the garden,

And I was afraid because I was naked…so I hid."

—Genesis 3:7-10

Childhood is a deep experience that transcends our primary years. The older I grow and the farther away from childhood my journey in this world takes me, the more convinced of this I become.

I grew up in Southern New Hampshire in the 80’s, in the city of Keene. Keene was a bustling college town back in the day; known for its annual Zucchini Festival, towering elm trees, and one of the widest main streets in the world. I was the oldest of three boys, and we lived on a dead-end street in a quiet neighborhood on the east side of town. There were a slew of kids living in the surrounding homes, and our summers were filled with every outdoor activity imaginable. The street served more as the neighborhood commons for our unofficial association of families than as a thoroughfare, and we spent our afternoons riding bikes, or playing Wiffle ball or street hockey. I look back with many great memories of life growing up in typical suburban America, where my world found haven in the comfort of close relationships and in the benign shadow of Mount Monadnock that towered off majestic in the distance.

There’s a certain sense about the place we call home that touches something deep within our souls. It tends to be found in the familiar and the routine; the soothing assurance of the predictable that measures out our days, marks our seasons, and provides a steady rhythm for life’s journey. As children, the experience of home is vital to our emotional and physical health and wellbeing. It provides benchmarks which we continually reference as we venture out on the journey of self-discovery. We can find it in the simplest of things, from the sound of an old clock in the upstairs hallway to the scent of dad’s aftershave. I used to wonder why my girls would ask me to read the same book to them before bedtime every night for six months straight. Now I understand the familiarity of the story was somehow tied to their need for the familiar voice that was telling it. Deep within my heart there burns a passion to be for them that constant, unchangeable mountain of their youth.

For Adam and Eve, life in Eden was filled with all the aspects of this wonderful virtue. The Lord had created a home for them, an environment that was beautifully rhythmic, from the songs of the birds and rippling of the streams to the daily visitation of the sun and moon in the sky. It was in this setting that the man and woman were invited on their own journey of self-discovery. Into this setting God himself would enter. In the evening, with gentle predictability, God visited and engaged the two in relationship. They came to expect him and anticipate his warm presence, this One who formed them from the earth. There, in the safety of the known, Creator encountered creation, and the relationship moved from casual to something far more intimate. The surroundings were as the encounters would become; the familiar was designed to cultivate the familial.

Creator was revealed to Adam as Father. Luke 3:37 says that Adam was "the son of God". The longer I live, the less filial credence I give to merely biological or positional relationships between people; apparently, Jesus held this same sentiment¹. Biologically, Adam was the creation of God. As for his position, he was the first man, the progenitor of the human race. However, these attributes alone did not make him a son. Something else formed in that relationship between God and Adam over time in Eden, moving Adam ever deeper into the place of sonship. The same was true with Eve as a daughter of God. The abundant time, tender intimacy, unhindered trust, unconditional love, mutual honor, and candid openness defined their relationships and made them a family. And in the comfort and peace of that terrestrial home built by Abba, the man and woman flourished and grew.

However, it is not this enduring utopian world that Eden is remembered for, because we know the rest of the story. The liar would come, and he would attack their innocent hearts and wound them terribly. In their humanity they would yield to the lie. They would receive the fruit of the serpent’s own tongue, and in that terrible moment darkness would fall upon them as the poisonous lie entered their spirits and flooded their hearts with all the vileness of Hell. Fear consumed them, death overtook them, and shame drove them from the One who loved them. The lie corrupted their minds and altered their perception of themselves and the world around them, and in their hearts they were orphaned from Abba.

We just knew it was too good to last, didn’t we? Of course we did, for their story is our story.

My own story is not unlike many of yours. Out from among the shrubbery of my own safe childhood world the liar came, and in the trauma of certain events he offered me his fruit. In the trauma of sexual abuse, of divorce, and of countless other painful events in my life, the lie was offered. In my woundedness and ignorance and desperation for comfort I took it and ate it. There in my heart the lie succeeded in coloring my world. It governed my thoughts and determined how I saw things, and the familiar became alien and hostile. There the lie spoke to me. It told me I didn’t belong. It told me the world was no longer a safe place. And it told me God wasn’t good.

The lie came to me for the same purpose it came to Adam and Eve, to orphan me. Fear, rejection, abandonment, loneliness, depression, and anxiety filled my heart. I was made painfully aware of the shame of my nakedness in those days and responded just as Adam and Eve had. I ran, hid, and covered myself. I ran from my heart, hid from authenticity, and clothed myself in anger and defensiveness. I suppressed my heart and buried my pain. On the outside, I refused to be vulnerable to people and did everything I could to appear successful. But on the inside, I was still that hurt, terrified little boy who had been separated from his heavenly Father.

Perhaps your story makes mine pale in comparison, for I know many do. Or perhaps your story bears the signature Ozzie & Harriet seal of perfection. Still, whether we grew up in a wonderful home with loving parents or in an alcoholic home where nothing was certain, the truth of the matter is the lie eventually comes to all of us. It only takes a moment. It could have been in the department store at age six, when Mom disappeared from sight for a split second and terror seized your heart. It could have been on the playground at recess, when the girls laughed at the haircut your dad gave you over the weekend. It only takes a moment for the seed to be planted, a single thought planted in your spirit and death begins to grow like a tree. All of us have been attacked and wounded at one time or another, and most of us have been left orphaned someplace deep within our souls.

In my experience, the orphan spirit is one of the most powerful spiritual strongholds in our Western society, and Christianity has not been unaffected. The gospel message has touched the lives of countless people in our nation, who have been drawn into fellowship and into the church for teaching and discipleship. Yet many of us, if we were honest, would admit that even after years of discipleship and church attendance we still do not feel like true sons or daughters of God. We have never been able to cross the chasm between who we are and who we should be. So the idea of living a deeply spiritual and mature life in Christ has become an elusive dream; something to be discussed in the third person or lived vicariously through authors and teachers. We have grown used to the idea that there are those spiritual giants out there that we admire and talk about… and then there is us.

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

—John 14:6

Jesus is the way—the only way—to the Father. Christ came to restore what was lost in Eden, to reveal the heart of God as Abba Father toward his children. He came to reconcile us to the One we ran and hid from, and he came to destroy the liar who caused it all in the first place. Perhaps the answer for the discipleship challenge in the Western Church lies in exposing the orphan spirit that has cut us off from our heavenly Father. Perhaps the secret to authentic discipleship is in somehow restoring authentic sonship.

This book is an attempt to take one radical step toward that end. The following pages are a journey back to the time of the great orphaning of humanity, for we were all there. We were there when the darkness came. We know just what it felt like to have the guilt hit like a freight train. We experienced the panic, and we ran. We threw up walls around our hearts and distanced ourselves from those who love us so we wouldn’t have to deal with being exposed to more hurt, and we put on the fig leaves and managed the problem to the best of our ability so that we could get on with life. But it hasn’t been life. It’s been the farthest thing from life.

We missed something there in the garden. We missed Abba’s heart. Sure, we heard him confront the man and woman in Chapter 3. We heard him rebuke and curse everything in sight like an angry father storming into the house after a horrible day at work to deal with his pesky kids. We heard the disappointment in his voice, saw the scowl on his face, and felt the shame in his heart toward us.

That’s our perception of the story, but is that really how it all went down? I’m not so sure.

I have to wonder if what we heard and saw there in the garden was a true picture of Abba or just a product of eating the serpent’s fruit. I wonder if we really did hear Father at all, if all this time we really knew his heart toward us in those moments. Perhaps we missed him after all. Perhaps we didn’t see him or hear him as we should have. Perhaps we failed to catch the gentleness in his voice when he called out for us. Perhaps we missed the gleam in his eyes because we were too ashamed to look into them; perhaps we failed to see the deep, eternal wisdom behind that loving, fatherly gaze. Maybe if we had dared to look, we wouldn’t have found a single trace of shame in those eyes at all. Maybe, if our hearts hadn’t been pounding so hard in our heads, we would have heard something else in the voice calling out for us, Where are you? Perhaps if we had really listened, we may have heard the intonation of home. Maybe what we took as rejection was actually a beckoning to come home. Is that not what Jesus was desperately trying to communicate to us in the parable of the prodigal son?

We are going to do something crazy in this book. We will challenge centuries of commentary on the first three chapters of Genesis. We will propose that the traditional interpretation of the story is rooted in an orphan spirit and has produced within the Church orphan-based theology. And we will reveal just how powerfully that insidious theology has affected our daily lives and corrupted our perception of the kingdom of God, of life, of death, of our most intimate relationships, and of ourselves and our purpose here on planet earth.

This is about reinterpreting a childhood story,

This is about redefining a moment in history,

This is about discovering who we really are…

We invite you to take a stroll with us, back to where it all began. Brace yourself for what you are about to see, for it is not what you have thought. Prepare to be transformed at the primal roots of your understanding of God, the world, and of yourself. You are about to discover things that will forever change the way you live life. For there in the garden, where it all started, you will be invited to gaze steadily into the face of God and behold the smile that reinterprets this story. That same smile changes everything about your story as well. Join us in our journey before the annals of time to discover the Abba of Eden and, along with him, every provision we have needed to fulfill our true destiny as his children.

PART 1

SWEEPING VISTAS

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

—2 Peter 1:3

We have everything we need…

A few years back, during a time of prayer, I had a life-changing encounter with God. I cannot recall the specific situation or what I was praying about, but I distinctly remember being interrupted in mid-thought by a gentle voice coming from somewhere in the depths of my spirit. The Father said, Pete, you need to stop asking me for things I have already given you. I realized much of my praying was actually serving as a distraction, keeping me from seeing and laying hold of the answer that had already been given. That encounter with God drastically changed the way I approach the whole prayer thing. For me, prayer has become not so much a time to ask the Father for things, but a time to acquire his heart and mind so I can see what he has already provided me. The result of this new understanding has been transformational for me.