Jump Start # 573

Genesis 3:21 “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.”

This week we have spent some time thinking about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. There are many valuable lessons to be learned about sin, Satan, disobedience, God and punishment. Those are not the type of lessons that many like to think about. It may be that our failure to talk about these topics and to think about them has led us to be casual about sin and  has created in our minds a softer, more tolerate God than what He is. God hates sin. No way around that. Sin separates. Sin destroys.

Today’s verse is another reminder of the consequences of sin. It is interesting that this chapter begins with Satan talking through the serpent, and it ends with God talking. After Eve took the fruit, Satan seems to be gone. He doesn’t say anything else. Typical! Satan entices a person to sin, and then it is God who has to clean up the mess.

After they took ate the forbidden fruit, the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened. They realized that they were naked. They covered themselves with fig leaves. Two thoughts here: first, Adam and Eve were married. Nakedness among a married couple isn’t shocking. Why were they ashamed and why did they cover themselves? Was it not so much for each other as the holy presence of God? Verse 8 tells us that God was walking through the garden. They hid from God. His holy and righteous nature stood in contrast to the guilt of their disobedience and their nakedness. In the N.T., when Peter understood who Jesus was, he asked the Lord to leave because “he was a sinful man.” When Isaiah saw the Lord in the temple he declared that he was ruined because he was a man of unclean lips and his eyes had seen the King. When John saw Jesus in Revelation 1, he fell like a dead man. The glory and the holiness of God is striking especially when our impure ways intersect with Him. Adam and Eve tried to cover their nakedness.

Second, their solution was fig leaves. Fig leaves! That might work in a pinch and for a moment, but fig leaves dry and crumble away. What a difference fig leaves are to animal skins. We often try to fix our problems with fig leaves. It gets us through the moment, but it’s not a real solution. Fig leaves have to be replaced often. I think some get the idea that the fig leaves left Adam and Eve immodest. The text doesn’t give us that impression. Why cover yourself if you are going to remain suggestive, provocative and immodest? That’s a fair question that some ought to be asking themselves as summer approaches. The contrast between fig leaves and animal skins is not one of modesty but temporary and longer lasting. How long would wearing leaves last until they crumbled up? A couple of days? Three days? They would be making fig outfits three or four times every week. That’s a lot of leaves. That forces you to stay near fig trees. God knew that He was driving Adam and Eve out of the garden. They would journey elsewhere. They may not have had access to fig leaves. Skins are better than leaves. What God provides is always better than what man comes up with.

Animal skins. Where do you think God got those? Do you think He had a large rack of outfits in Heaven and He searched through them until He came to the animal skins and took them out, checked the size and delivered them to Adam and Eve. I don’t think so. Animal skins come from one place, animals. God killed some animals and used their skins to clothe Adam and Eve. The Bible doesn’t say if Adam witnessed the killing of those animals, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Up to this point, Adam has never seen blood. Eden was perfect. There was no sickness, death, pain in Eden. He didn’t know what color blood was. Adam had never seen death before. The killing of these animals to clothe Adam was most likely the first physical death in the world.

Later, when Adam’s sons, Cain and Abel offered sacrifice to God, Abel killed an animal. His sacrifice was approved. Cain offered vegetables. God rejected Cain’s. When Noah left the ark after the flood, he built an altar and offered an animal sacrifice. Abraham built several altars and sacrificed animals to God. Ancient Israel was commanded to sacrifice animals at Passover and other specific times. Then there is Jesus. The perfect sacrifice. He gave His blood to cover our sins—just as God, a long time ago, killed an animal to cover the nakedness of Adam. God cleaning up the mess that was created by Satan. Blood and death necessary to make things right.

Amazing Grace—how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’ve found…the story of Adam and Eve is a lesson in the failure of this first couple. It is also a lesson in the love of God and the coming grace found in His Son, our Savior.

Don’t think that you are too modern and advanced to walk in the steps of Adam. You are not. Every day you are faced with choices, some of them involve things that are forbidden. God wants you to do right. Satan tempts you to do wrong. He tells you that you won’t get caught. He tells you that you deserve it. The more we listen to Satan, the more we stand right where Eve did. Has Satan ever done anything good or worthwhile to your life? Can you say that you are glad to have Satan around? No. NEVER. God has. God can be trusted. God is true. Satan—he’s a liar. He’ll say anything, promise anything, and use anything to get you to take what is forbidden. It may be following a lustful heart…it may be greed…it may be substance abuse…it may be selfishness…he talks. We listen. We find ourselves standing where Adam and Eve stood.

Lessons learned become lessons shared and lessons taught. I hope these thoughts help.

Roger

Jump Start # 572

Genesis 3:19 “By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

We continue our look at Adam and Eve and the Garden this week. There are many valuable lessons found in this chapter.

Our verse today is taken from a series of punishments and curses that God pronounced because of Adam and Eve’s choice to disobey. God was angry. He did not look the other way. He did not say, “No big deal. At least no one was hurt.” In a pickup game of basketball, there is an expression, “No blood, no foul,” which means every little bump or push is not considered a foul. It’s only the blatant stuff. If there is blood, then we’ll call a foul. That’s how some see sin. As long as no one gets hurt, it’s no big deal. Consenting adults, things done behind closed doors, things done at home—no one got hurt, why are people so upset? No one got hurt when Adam and Eve took a bite of the forbidden fruit. It was wrong. Something can be wrong without pain, blood, or people becoming physically injured. God was angry. They disobeyed Him. They chose Satan. They rejected God. That’s at the heart of sin.

There is a series of curses.

• First, to the serpent—he’ll crawl on his belly.

• Next to Satan—the seed of woman will crush the head of the serpent. That seed is Jesus. He was born of a woman. The action of crushing the serpent will bruise the heel of Jesus. This is the first glimpse of the coming Jesus. This is the first messianic prophecy. Satan’s name and Jesus’ name are not used but they are understood. This is God’s first action to save man. If a person stomped on the head of a snake, the snake would die. If a person did it hard enough, he might hurt his heel. The death blow to Satan, that also bruised the heel of Jesus, was the death and resurrection of Christ. Jesus died. His death didn’t finish Him off. He arose from the grave. Satan’s greatest tool is death. It is what man fears the most. When a person dies, they are dead. There are just a handful of people that were resurrected in the Bible, but even those people died again. Jesus is the first to die and be raised to never die again. There is nothing Satan can do about that. He has no weapons in his arsenal to combat that. The resurrection of Jesus was the crushing of Satan.

• To Eve—pain in childbirth and a position of being ruled by the husband

• To Adam– the ground will be cursed with weeds so man has to toil harder, and death.

Some tend to think that Adam and Eve did not die when they disobeyed God. They did. Not physically, but spiritually. That is illustrated by the fact that God drove them out of the garden. It is in the garden that God walked (v. 8). The relationship was broken and spiritual death is a separation from God.  Adam and Eve were separated from the presence of God.

Because of these curses, death has come upon all man. In Corinthians we are told that death entered through one man—Adam. Everyone we know sooner or later dies. When you trace your family history, one fact is true, they are born and then they die. This has led many to conclude that we inherited Adam’s sin, like a gene we inherit from our parents. Inherited sin is a major part of the religious fabric of many faiths. You read it in books. You see it discussed in commentaries. The thought is so prevalent, that most don’t think anything about it. The problem is, this is not so.

We face the consequences of Adam’s sin, but not his sin. There is a difference. Sin is disobedience. Sin is breaking God’s law. Consequences can fall upon innocent people because of the sin of others. For instance, a crack addicted teen can give birth to a baby that has multiple health problems. Is the baby guilty of drug abuse? No. The mother is. The baby suffers from the consequences. A family driving home can be hit by a drunk driver. The family can all be killed. The drunk lives. They died not by any thing they did wrong. It was the consequence of the drunk.

Adam opened a door that was closed. That door was disobedience to God. Since that door was opened, mankind has continually walked through that door. We are born pure and innocent. Sin is not something you inherit like red hair, or freckles, or height. Sin is something you choose to do. A person chooses to take that which is forbidden, when that happens, they have sinned. James 1 illustrates that process. Sin begins in the heart as lust or desire. That desire leads to choosing wrong. That is sin. An act of disobedience. Sin causes us to die spiritually. Death follows sin.

Babies do not sin. Yet babies die.  They die because death is a consequence of Adam’s sin. Women have pain giving birth. That is a consequence of the sin. The ground has weeds. It’s hard to grow a beautiful yard. It’s easy to have weeds—do nothing. Weeds just come. When it’s too wet, weeds grow. When it’s too hot and dry, weeds grow. They always grow. Why? Consequence of sin. There is a difference between the action of disobedience and a consequence.

Hebrews 9:27 says that it is appointed unto man to die once and after this comes the judgment. Why is it appointed that we die? Because man disobeyed God. Man was driven from the garden. Access to the tree of life was removed. Every day we see the consequences of that first sin. Every sin has consequences. Every sin hurts. Every sin affects relationships, especially our relationship with God.

Babies in the N.T. were not baptized. There was no need to baptize them. They had not sinned. They were not born sinful. They were not separated from God. Baptism is for those who through faith have repented of their sins and come to Christ for forgiveness. What happens when a baby dies? The soul of that child goes to God in Heaven. The doctrines of infant baptism, limbo (the place where unbaptized babies go at death) and inherited sin are not from the Bible. They come from misunderstandings about what the Bible teaches.

Inherited sin is a twisted theology that has messed the thinking of generations of people. Understanding what sin is and how one sins and the differences between sin and the consequences of sin are huge.

God wants us to trust Him, follow Him and obey Him

Roger

Jump Start # 571

Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

We continue our look at Adam, Eve and the garden of Eden. Our verse today is the pivotal sentence in the fall of man. The results would be devastating. Adam and Eve would be driven out of the garden. Their world changed. Weeds, pain and death became the norm for them. Things were different in their relationship with God. A person wonders how many nights after that event did they lay awake wishing they could have a do-over. If they could just go back and not do it, things would have turned out differently. The consequences of sin often last longer than the sin itself. And for all the fun that sin brings, the pain and sorrow that follows it are enormous. Consider the man who is bored with his marriage and he carries on a brief sexual fling with a co-worker. It’s nothing, he thinks. It won’t last and it’s purely physical. His wife finds out and divorces him. Now he sits alone in a small apartment regretting how foolish he was. Or, the teenager who has smoked some dope with his friends after school. One night they introduce him to meth. Later that night he is rushed to the hospital with a drug overdose. His world changes because of that one time. He wishes now, he never tried it. Or, the man who is facing serious financial issues at home. He switches some numbers at work, transfers some money into his personal account. Before the month ends, he is caught. He loses his job. He is arrested and may face prison. He wishes now that he just found a part time job somewhere. His world has changed because of the choices he made.

Sin does that. It takes our eyes off the Lord and the consequences that comes with disobedience.

Our passage today illustrates the transition that takes place from the heart to behavior. Up to this point, Satan and Eve had discussed the forbidden fruit. Satan has misquoted God, adding a word and planting doubt in Eve’s mind. Had Eve walked away, she may have been confused and uncertain, but she would not have done wrong. Sin always begins in the mind and the heart. It’s that way with forbidden fruit, sexual temptation, greed and rebellion. Jesus said out of the heart comes forth these wrong things. This is why location often doesn’t change things. There are times when parents may have to get their kids away from bad influences, but the far county, to which the prodigal journeyed to, is often within the heart.

Eve moved from talking about the forbidden fruit to looking at the fruit. That didn’t seem to last long until she moved to taking the fruit and then eating the fruit. Do you see that transition? Thinking about it…looking at it…taking it…eating it. These final steps come quickly once the discussion and debate is over in the mind. These are the same steps that the man takes when he has a sexual affair. This is the same path the embezzler takes. This is the same path the drug user takes. It’s the same path for all of us. The path is well worn.

All that Eve believed and trusted about the Lord went out the window when she reached up and picked that fruit off the tree. She was now committed to doing wrong. There was no turning back. Emotion, excitement, desire, lust all race through the heart and reason, logic, and righteousness are shoved out of the way.

Eve gave to Adam and he ate. There is a difference in what happened. There seems to be little discussion that took place. The Scriptures record no conversation between Adam and Eve. Later, the NT reminds us that Eve was deceived. It states that Adam was not deceived but the woman was. Adam just jumped in without thinking. He followed Eve’s lead. Eve did it. I will do it, was Adam’s thinking. There was no misquoting of Scripture. No adding words to what God said. No changing the meaning. It was simply the blind following the blind.

Adam failed as a husband and a leader here. He turned off his spiritual radar. He wasn’t thinking, which was the problem. Too often, far too often, instead of helping our mates spiritually, one will join the other in doing what is wrong. See if this sounds familiar. It’s Sunday morning and it’s a rainy day. It’s time to get up and get down to the church house for worship. One in the marriage, rolls over in bed and says, “let’s not go today. It’s rainy and cold.” The other agrees. Instead, the other ought to have gotten out of bed and said “I’m going, with or without you. You need to rethink what you said. It will be ok. We need to think about our example to others. We both need more of worship.” Adam didn’t stand with God. We often don’t stand with God. Men, you especially have been chosen by God to lead your family to Him. Too often it is the men that drag their feet, don’t want to do what is right and come up with the lame expression, “Do we have to go?” The answer is YES. If you went more often, you wouldn’t be saying that!

Marriage can be a great spiritual blessing. Help each other do what is right. When one is offering forbidden fruit, don’t just take it. Think. Remember. Help them get back on board with God.

Eve takes most of the hits in this story because she was tricked by Satan. I get more disgusted with Adam. He just went along with it. He wasn’t tricked. He wasn’t deceived. He was just Dumb (and that’s with a capital “D” in my book). When caught, God addressed Adam.  He immediately pointed his finger to Eve and blamed her. God didn’t buy that. They were both punished. They were both at fault. There was no spiritual leadership here. There was no reproving and rebuking and contending for what is right.

Your greatest spiritual help or you greatest threat can be the one you are married to. Compromising to make peace doesn’t work. It doesn’t work with Russians and it never works with Satan. Remember the song we often sing, “Stand up, Stand up for Jesus.” That’s true in your marriages as much as it is with the world. Help your mate get strong in the Lord. It will make a better marriage. Help them choose right over wrong. Pray together. Read Scriptures together. Talk things through. Listen. Consider. Walk with the Lord.

Adam and Eve—what a pair. You’ll notice, their names are missing from Hebrews 11, the great Hall of faith. The first man, the first woman are not there. They are not examples of faith. They didn’t walk by faith. They listened to Satan and that will get you in trouble every time.

Roger

Jump Start # 570

Genesis 3:1  “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

We continue our look at Adam, Eve and the garden  of Eden this week. Our verse today leads us to the choice Adam and Eve had to make about trusting and obeying God. We call this the fall of man, because they made the wrong choice and sinned. They fell. Sin is described as “falling short of the grace of God” in Romans. There are several lessons worth looking at here.

First, we are not given all the details that our curiosity would like to know. For instance, how long after creation did this happen? Next day? Next week? Next month? We don’t know. Guessing is just that, and we don’t want to build a theology, faith, or manufacture facts that are based upon guesses. Also, was the serpent the only animal that could talk? Eve doesn’t seem shocked that she is having a conversation with an animal. If our pets started talking to us, most of us would leave the house. We don’t know what the serpent looked like. Most pictures show a snake wrapped around the tree. The serpent’s punishment was to crawl. Could it be that there were no snakes in the garden? That definitely would be paradise for me! I’ve heard people talking about “good snakes.” To me, the word “good” and “snake” do not belong in the same sentence. It’s amazing that of all the animals in the world, the snake is one that most people do not like. Was this a lizard like creature that lost it’s legs and became snake like? Guessing again. What about the forbidden fruit? An apple? One of my kids had a college professor who was adamant that the forbidden fruit was a Granny Smith apple. That made us all laugh when we heard that. How could it be called “Granny Smith” if this all took place hundreds of years before “Granny Smith” was born? Most likely, it is not a fruit we have today. The forbidden fruit came from one tree that was in the garden. Access was denied to the garden after the first couple sinned.  Don’t fear eating an apple today, it’s not the forbidden fruit

Now, some lessons from this.

• Sin doesn’t have to appear ugly to be ugly. Verse six says that Eve looked at the forbidden fruit and it was a delight to her eyes. I expect if the fruit was an overripe banana, that was brown and mush, she would have turned away. It wasn’t like that. It looked amazing. Sometimes, preachers, myself included, talk so much about the consequences of sin that we leave the impression that sin is not desirable to the eyes. That’s false. It is. Sin looks good. That’s the attraction. That’s the tug on our hearts to do what we know is wrong. Young people need to grasp this concept. Fornication, alcohol, drugs, stealing all have an appeal to them. There’s something about them that attracts our eyes and pulls on our hearts. John wrote in this first epistle that there is a “lust of the eyes, a lust of the flesh, and a boastful pride of life”  – that’s how sin operates.

• Satan loves to remind us about what we are missing in life. He did that with Eve. The conversation between Satan and Eve revolved around which tree you could not have. Instead of counting your blessings and realizing that she could eat the fruit from all the trees except one, it was that one tree that Satan focused upon. Satan does that. He wants you to think that God is restrictive. God doesn’t like you. Look what He’s done, He won’t let you have that one tree. That works on the mind. That crosses our thinking. We find ourselves agreeing with Satan, which is always scary. We focus upon what we don’t have instead of what we do have. We forget that God knows what is best. We forget to trust God. We start to think that we know better than God. Always dangerous.

• You will notice also, that Satan didn’t take a piece of the forbidden fruit and sneak it in Eve’s salad. He didn’t force her or even make her take the fruit. He got her mind twisted and she chose. Satan plays a contributing factor in all of this, but the bottom line, Eve chose to eat that fruit. Eve was responsible. The same goes us for. Satan dangles that beautiful carrot before our eyes, he plays with our minds, confuses us and we grab that carrot without thinking much about other things. All we can see is that forbidden fruit. It’s our choice. Don’t blame parents. Don’t point fingers to the church. Don’t say, “I was tired,” or “I was lonely,” – doesn’t matter. We choose.

• Verse six also says “she took from it’s fruit and ate.” Nothing is said about lightning flashing after that or a loud clap of thunder. She took, she ate. She enjoyed. She then gave some to Adam and he ate. It reads almost as Satan had said to her. “See, you didn’t die. See, it wasn’t so bad. See, I know what I’m talking about. See, God didn’t do anything. See, you can trust me.” Oh, how dangerous that is. Every time I read this chapter, I want to scream, “Run, Eve.” But she doesn’t. She has a conversation with Satan. He lies. He always does. Don’t talk with him. He’s the enemy. He can’t be trusted. He can’t be turned. He can’t be saved. Don’t talk…run.
• Satan didn’t look like Satan—he appeared as a serpent. Much later in your Bible, Peter would say something to Jesus that just wasn’t right. In fact, Peter rebuked Jesus for talking about his coming death. The Lord responded, “Get behind me, Satan.” Was Satan actually in Peter? Probably not like the serpent, yet he was using Peter. Satan will do that. He will use friends, co-workers, neighbors, brethren, TV, movies, music or anything else that is available to twist, turn and crisscross our thinking so we take what is forbidden.

This shows just how wicked and evil Satan is. Learn to recognize his voice. It speaks to us through commercials, movies, music and other avenues. It’s always telling us that we need to have what is forbidden. The forbidden is where it’s at. The forbidden is good. The forbidden is incredible. He tells you that you’ll love it, and that’s probably the only true thing he says. You will. He fails to tell you that it comes with a price, your soul. He fails to tell you about the consequences or how addicting and controlling sin can become. He fails to tell you that it will change you. He fails to tell you that it will hurt every good relationship you have. Sin does that. If it’s on God’s forbidden list, it’s there for a reason. He knows what’s best. He determined, not Satan, what’s forbidden and what’s acceptable. God knows. God is good. He is good to you.

We will continue with more thoughts tomorrow.

Roger

Jump Start # 569

Genesis 3:1 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

This week our Jump Starts are going to focus upon Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. There are many valuable lessons there for us and I hope that these will remind us, teach us, encourage us, and help us in our relationships at home, and our relationship with the Lord.

Let us begin with Adam. What God says and what we’ve learned from school, museums and the Discovery Channel don’t always fit together. Adam was the first man. Paul said that in 1 Corinthians 15. He was made at the “beginning.” Genesis confirms that, and Jesus believed that. This first person was intelligent. He was given the task of naming the animals. He communicated with God and his wife Eve. We get a different concept when we look away from the Bible. Evolution has convinced many that there was a series of ape-like humans that in time looked less like a monkey and more like a human. The common thought is that these “early men” grunted, had very primitive form of language and intelligence. Cave men is what most think of when the idea of early man is discussed.

After the first sin, Adam and Eve were clothed. There wasn’t generations of hairy, naked, ape-like creatures, not if the Bible is true. We must be able to stand with God and realize that so much of the early man concepts are theories that support godless evolution.

Adam and Eve began in the garden of Eden. They were created by the perfect God. Everything God made was good, right and functional. Adam and Eve were created mature, smart and with the capabilities to live well in the garden. Adam was to cultivate the garden and care for it. That took some knowledge of plants, horticulture, and agriculture.  Adam was no dummy.

It is interesting that God uses several words in His communication with Adam that he had never experienced. He must have had an understanding of these words, but how different they must have been for Adam than they are us.

• God told Adam to leave his father and mother. Adam didn’t have a father or a mother in the way that we do. He was the first. How would he have understood that? All of us have a mother—good, or bad. Adam didn’t.

• God told Adam to cleave to his wife. That was Eve. We understand marriage. We’ve been to weddings. Many of us are married. Adam’s concept of marriage was based upon what God told him, not on experience, observation or books.

It is interesting that God gave Adam one choice, Eve. He didn’t date. He didn’t date and break up and then found someone else. There was no comparing Eve to anyone else. Eve didn’t have to worry about the neighbor’s wife, be in competition with the super models, or contend with past romances of Adam. God presented her to Adam. That was the one. That was the only one. Adam and Eve didn’t come with a past, baggage or sins, as we bring into relationships. It was all fresh, new and original.

• God warned Adam and Eve that if they ate the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden they would die. Death. We see it all the time. Our loved ones die. Our pets die. We drive and see road kill. This is part of our world. The news tells of violence overseas in which people were killed. There are storms that kill. There are accidents which kill.

For Adam, death, like marriage, like parents, was an intellectual understanding, not one from witnessing nor experience. Genesis one ends by telling us that all living creatures ate plants. This included the beast of the fields. This included Adam and Eve. Originally, everything ate plants. Animals did not kill each other for food. Man didn’t kill animals to eat. Not originally. The change happens after the flood, in Genesis nine. This means, until the sin, nothing ever died. Death was a concept and not something Adam saw.

A side point, this means that the dinosaurs did not die out before man came along, not if the Bible is true.

God placed Adam in a perfect world. Adam’s world was the best it could be. It was not marred with crime, pollution, nasty attitudes, prejudice, hatred or, atheism. The perfect world involved God. The perfect world had rules. The perfect world had consequences if those rules were broken. In this perfect world, God gave the first man the ability to choose. He had a free will. He was pre programmed. He was on a destination that was beyond his control. He was given a mind, a will and a God. The first man had to believe and trust God. It was in this perfect world that we find Satan, tempting, twisting and tormenting the mind of the first couple. Man had to choose between God, who they knew, or Satan who they had no history with. Who had been good to them? Who had helped them? Who made them? The answer seems obvious to us, yet, it remains the same for us. Satan continues to twist, tempt and torment our hearts between what we know of God and what Satan offers.

More will come about Satan and the first couple.

I find it interesting that God didn’t start with a community, only one man and one woman. There was no facebook to communicate with others, only each other and God. I wonder how many of us today would survive like that. Many rarely talk with their mates but communicate with others all the time. There may be some lessons for us in this. Would we have survived like that? Do we spend more time talking to others than our mates? Do we share our personal lives and feelings with others more than we do our mates? Maybe we ought to talk a walk with our spouse and find out what is going on in their world and heart and mind. This may lead to a closeness that is missing and head off an affair which most often starts between two people who find a connection in being able to talk to each other. They find something in others that is missing at home. They share stories, empathy, and hearts. Before long, they share a bed. Adam had only Eve and God to talk to. Eve had only Adam and God to talk to. That arrangement may have made prayers more alive, more detailed, and more specific. There was no one else to talk to.  Bland prayers and prayers that say the same thing each time may come from hearts that don’t know how to talk to God and hearts that don’t have much to stay to God. Could it be that we’ve become “talked out” with God because we’ve talked to everyone and anyone other than God.

Adam and Eve had only each other and God. So often, we have just the opposite. We have the world, but avoid  each other and God. Maybe something we ought to chew on for a while.

Roger