Back to the Garden
By Laura Story
Sit back for a moment and let your mind imagine anything that would make your life wonderful. A cruise to the Caribbean? A day at the spa? Or how about just one conflict-free family gathering? I believe that whatever comes to your mind doesn’t begin to compare with the daily experience of Adam and Eve. It was, after all, the garden of Eden.
What changed? And how did this change so distort normal that no one’s been able to re-create it this side of heaven? We know the change involved a serpent and some fruit. But more than that, it started with the question, “Did God really say?”
A simple question with incredible implications. This question set Adam and Eve on a path that forever changed their relationship with God, their relationship with each other, and their relationship with their environment. When human sin entered the garden, it brought with it changes of cosmic proportions. Changes that would reach through generations and across all cultures. To this day, we still suffer the consequences of this question and Eve’s response.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 3:1–5 NIV)
How interesting that Adam and Eve were so content and yet somehow the serpent was able to suggest there was something better! He planted a thought: God is holding out on you. In effect, this was really an attack on the most fundamental question: Can God be trusted? Despite all their pleasures, they began to doubt.
After reading this story over and over, I’ve come to a mini revelation. Adam and Eve were living life to the fullest. Theirs was a life of harmony, peace, and fulfillment. And as I look back over my own life, I’m amazed that I too have enjoyed seasons when life was filled with ease and prosperity, relatively free of hardships. My experience during these good and easy times has been that I’ve dropped my guard a little—just enough to begin living life in my own strength, moving through my days and the weeks with little consultation with God. So what’s my revelation? It’s been during those times of relative ease that I’ve been most susceptible to the whispered question of the serpent, “Indeed, has God said?” which in turn has led me todoubts about what I’ve been called to do, or in some cases, to not do.
Like many of you, I’m also driven to doubt when under severe stress, dealing with hurt and pain, or facing unknowns. But for some reason, during those harder times, I’m more likely to run to the Father. It’s when I have no hurdles or resistance that I begin to function on autopilot. Perhaps I’ve been fooled into thinking I can expect to live in garden-of-Eden-style normal. I’ve forgotten—that ideal of normal ended long ago.
Can you relate?
Isn’t it fascinating to consider how everything in creation and in our own lives was turned upside down because of Adam’s and Eve’s sin? And yet, even through the disappointment of the first couple’s fall from grace, we see the kindness and faithfulness of God. After Adam and Eve were deceived and ate of the forbidden fruit, the story continued. “They heard the sound of the Lord God in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden” (Gen. 3:8–9 NASB).
The God who created everything and knows everything bent low toward Adam and Eve and played along with their childish game of hide-and-seek. “Where are you?” he asked (v. 9 NASB). His question was amazing and far more profound than the question asked by the serpent. Where the serpent’s question resulted in destruction, God’s question resulted in restoration. God knew exactly where they were, not just physically but spiritually and emotionally. He was God! No, this question was for the benefit of Adam and Eve. God was helping them become self-aware. In a sense, the serpent’s promise was indeed coming to pass.
They would know things they had never known before.
As God lovingly pursued their hearts and walked them through a very deliberate process of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation, he “set eternity in their hearts” on another level. He offered them a promise, the same promise he offers us today. A promise of future deliverance, a promise to one day return things to a God-designed normal.
However, until the day Jesus returns, their journey—and ours— would be filled with peril and challenges as well as moments of joy and thanksgiving. Hearts would be shaken. Lives would be rocked. Yet God would remain steadfast.
Does this help explain why we crave normal? Does it make your heartache for what was lost and long for what is to come? My hope is not to leave us in a depressing place, or leave us mad at Adam and Eve for blowing it for all of us. My point is this: We were designed by an orderly God to thrive in an orderly world. But just like Adam and Eve, we have no choice but to say so long to the garden and step into the world that lies east of Eden. Until Jesus returns, and the garden is restored, we’ll continue to crave a sense of order and normalcy that will always be beyond our reach. The first step is this acknowledgment about ourselves. The next step is seeing how this affects our day-to-day lives and our world.
Taken from “So Long, Normal” by Laura Story. Copyright 2021 by Laura Story. Used with permission from Thomas Nelson.
Laura Story is a worship leader, author, and award-winning Christian recording artist.