Recovery in the Bible (RIB)

ADAM AND EVE

It took me years to finally understand what the story of Adam and Eve was telling me -- that I have just one assignment in life: to choose God’s will over my own. It seems so elementary, so simple, so clear. But it has taken me years to understand that message.

Why has it been so hard for me? I guess it’s because I’m human. I inherited the tendency -- it’s in my genes. I’m descendant of Adam and Eve; I am related to Adam, related to Eve.  No wonder I’ve spent so much of my life thrashing through the jungle and slugging through the swamp instead of basking in the sunlight of Eden.

It’s that yummy fruit. At least, it sure looked yummy. But in the course of me lifetime, I’ve finally learned that, at best, it contains empty calories; at worst, it is poison.

Financial security, for example, always looked good to me. It is, to some extent, what I’ve striven for  all my life -- just to have a job of work to do in order to pay my bills. Not so I could incur exorbitant expenses -- just so I could pay my own way. But now I see that security (financial or otherwise) is an illusion. If I’d had it, I might never have turned to God.

For the longest time, however, that delicious looking piece of fruit was what I wanted,; I mean I wanted some of it. I didn’t really appreciate that I was supposed to be doing something else. I just wasn’t listening.

It was financial insecurity that gave me ears to hear. Thanks to God, I began to listen and look. What I heard was the still, small voice of God; what I saw was the Cross of Christ: Jesus doing what God wanted Him to do no matter how hard it got.

I am so grateful for what Jesus did. His obedience shows me what I must do, too. He shows the way. It means dying to self, one day at a time. It means God’s will be done, not mine.

Finally, after all these years, I’ve realized that my deafness was because I’m human-- that, when push comes to shove, I naturally tend to do what I want, instead of what God is asking me to do. And so I pray to forsake eating of the yummy-looking fruit of this life, to listen for God’s will for me, and to do it, whatever it is and no matter how hard it gets.