I would never have eaten the apple...

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.