context for the Garden

In Genesis, chapter 3, we see the record of man's first choice...first decision...and it was the wrong one!  Adam and Eve had been placed by God in a perfect garden with everything they would need.  There was beauty in their surroundings.  There was plenty of food available without having to work hard.  They had the company and companionship of each other.  They enjoyed a close relationship with God.  But given this perfect setting they still made the wrong choice.  Why was that?  I'm not sure completely.  But I think they forgot the context for the Garden.  I think it was easy to take for granted their beautiful life.  I think they may have failed to realize what it took for the Garden to be formed, for their very lives to be fashioned and for their relationship with each other and with God to be forged.  They may have begun to think that the Garden was actually theirs because they benefitted from it and lived within it.  Perhaps it wasn't so hard to be convinced by Satan that they could choose their own desires over God's direction because the Garden seemed to be under their domain.  If they were the ones who ate from the trees who was God to tell them which ones were acceptable and which ones should be avoided?

I think we do the same today.  We take our Garden for granted...the garden of our marriages, of our jobs, of our children and of our time.  We forget the context for our Garden.  Who created our Garden and who placed us in it?

If we can remember the Creation account of Genesis 1 and 2 it may help us to avoid some of the poor choices that show up in Genesis 3.

Genesis 3:3 The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?"

blessings,

Rob Smith