THANKFUL

Chatting with Jesus

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Lord, their choices made it impossible to last. Adam and Eve lived in perfection. Perfect health. Perfect environment. Perfect innocence. Most importantly, they enjoyed a perfect relationship with you. Perfection was all they knew—except perfect obedience.

You gave them the perfect Garden of Eden. They freely ate from any tree or plant. Luscious oranges, ripe grapes, perfect summer watermelons. Avocados begging to be made into guacamole. I imagine even broccoli looked scrumptious. How can we dismiss how tempting the big, juicy apples looked. How could they not be satisfied? A plant-based Golden Corral was a vegan’s paradise.

However, their perfect life had one restriction. You told them not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You warned them if they ate from that tree, something foreign to them would happen. They would die spiritually, and later, physically.

Lord, as we know, they fell for Satan’s lie that the fruit would make them equal to you. They ate, and something inside them—their spirit—died. They were no longer the same. Their perfection ended. Sin separated Adam and Eve from you. This is what you meant when you warned they would “die.”

Lord, if the first people lived in a perfect world yet could not keep it so, what makes us think we can create a utopia? You must laugh when governments promise peace and prosperity, and a kumbaya society. I’m reminded of the ancient proverb whose truth remains:

“There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” (Proverbs 16:25)

Lord, help our obedience. Forgive us when we fail, strengthen us to continue in your grace. Our perfection is found only in you, Jesus. Amen.