On this beautiful bank
holiday, as my husband was outside building decking, my train of thought
wandered from decking to gardening to gardens to the Garden of Eden and man’s
initial sin. A totally normal thought pattern of a May bank holiday. I thought
back with a due sense of shame and embarrassment at the arrogance and naivety
of my youth. I remember pondering the Garden of Eden scenario at a young age
and being utterly convinced that in Eve’s place I would never have eaten the
apple.
Oh how wrong my teenage
years proved me. Of course I had sinned pre-teen but if ever there was an apple
to be eaten, it was during the puberty ridden, hormone fuelled, angst defined
years that the gobble fest took off. It is clear to me now that the Eden story
is each of our stories. Whilst I believe it is true, the story transcends the
garden and the tree of knowledge has become every lie, lust and illegitimate
longing in our lives.
But back to Eden. I
allowed myself to pursue my previous thought and wondered what would have
happened if Eve hadn’t eaten the apple. What other ways do people respond to
temptation? I came up with four other responses, three of which arrive at the
same devastating end: sin (falling short of God’s plan for us).
If I, in all my
apparent wonderfulness, had not eaten the fruit, I would have probably done
what I did when I became a Christian: avoided that area of the garden
altogether. Now the bible clearly says to flee from sin and temptation BUT, and
it is a big but, it also says that we are to be IN the world. It is good
practice to avoid obvious temptation but if we cut ourselves off from the world
and live in a Christian bubble, this throws up lots of other issues. God wants
us to tell people about Jesus, who himself befriended many whose lives were
publicly sinful. If we avoid everything tempting how can we grow in
self-control and a reliance on the Holy Spirit? If we avoid whole areas of the world, are we truly living in
the freedom of God and taking on our great commission to spread the good news?
To let the notion of sin dictate your every life choice reeks of the
misunderstanding that sin is external and can be escaped if only we can hide
from the world. It refuses to see that sin is in us. To avoid the tree in the
garden would have been to reject God’s invite to go anywhere and rule
everything and if we are outside God’s plan and ignoring His desire, is that
not sin?
The practical and
self-sufficient side of me would have decided to chop the tree down. I can
picture it now, the smug, self righteousness of every swing of the axe as I
delight in how holy my destruction must look. And I have swung that axe. Before
being a Christian (and since if I’m honest) I would, often with a hangover,
declare the need to better myself. I will
give up smoking. I will give up drinking. I will read more. I will get more
hobbies. I will stop hanging out with those people. I will lose weight. I. I.
I. And that is the problem. When ‘I’ is the most used word in your
vocabulary there is a huge problem. Our entire culture is based around an
inflated sense of self (notice how I is the only vowel requiring capitalisation
when it stands alone). However, it took very little time to realise ‘I’ could
do very little and the unreachable targets I set were destructive to my soul.
Without God’s help we can cut down trees but never get near the root of the
problem. It will feel good and the effects will be evident at first but the
stump remains as a constant reminder of our failures. God does not want us to
work alone and when we do we inevitably feel disappointed or dissatisfied.
So if I didn’t eat the
fruit, avoid the tree or cut it down I think I may have started to get a little
bit too crazy about a tree that looked similar. Liking a similar tree looks
like this: I’m not looking up porn but I am looking up holiday shots of exes on
facebook, I’m not sleeping with him but I am doing everything else, I’m not
gossiping but I am sharing everything
they told me so we can ‘pray’ for them. It’s all the grey areas, all the close
to the liners, all the areas that are just shy of what we think of as actual
sin. Liking a similar tree is usually coupled with a pious sense of being in
the right. It stinks. God hates it. And the fact that we convince ourselves
that it’s not sin is even worse. If it looks like the naughty tree and tastes
like the naughty tree then it might as well be the naughty tree.
The only way to avoid
sin, and the fourth response to temptation, is to fix your eyes, fully, on God.
If Adam and Eve had done this then they would have not had time to listen to
the snake or more importantly they would have known that God’s heart for them
was one of pure love and faithfulness, which would have made the snake’s lies
redundant.
My main problem in the
past was fixating on sin. I was either bent on doing it or avoiding it or
overcoming it and all the while ‘it’ was my main focus. Such is the world
today. People look at Christianity as a list of rules and things they can’t do.
Having a daughter has
helped me to get passed this. I looked at her yesterday, my heart bursting with
love. I looked at her perfect, chubby body and her innocent eyes and I prayed
that only a man who fought and won her would ever hold her heart. I looked at
how fresh and healthy she is and prayed that she wouldn’t let excessive alcohol
or smoking or drugs poison her. I prayed she would know how precious and
valuable she is so she’d never be envious of others. I prayed she would know
that she could tell the truth and experience the freedom that brings. I prayed
she would be safe, know her worth and know she is loved.
This is only a
fraction of the Father’s heart for us. His rules are there to protect the
children He loves. As I sat and cried over my daughter, knowing in the depths
of my heart that whatever she does in life, whether good or bad, I will love
her just the same, it became apparent that the only reason I don’t want her to
do certain things is because I know they have the potential to hurt and damage
her. What good parent would ever want that for their beloved child?
God knows what is best
for us. But if we don’t know Him or trust Him, His guidance is misunderstood
for oppression or manipulation. How wrong that is.
Draw close to God and
know His love for you is unchanging regardless of what you do BUT, and it is
the biggest BUT of all, He does know best. Take ‘I’ out of your vocabulary for
one minute and replace it with ‘You’.
You, Father, know what
is best for me.
You, Father, love me
more than I love myself.
You, Father. I want to
walk with you.
And on that walk, the
trees become somewhat insignificant.
