Who Told You You Were Lacking?

 Many have at least skimmed through Genesis 3. You’ve heard it in a sermon; you’ve read it on your “Read the Bible in a year” plan that we all start in January. We teach it to our children in Sunday school and even the world at large has a general understanding of the fall of man. We have even become so familiar with the content that we joke “that would never be me.” We boast in ourselves claiming that if it were us in the narrative there would be a completely different ending to the story. We speak with such conviction in our foolish jesting that failing to see how we fall daily in the same areas as Adam and Eve. See they did not fall haphazardly is if one day Adam and Eve turned off her cognitive reasoning. They looked at all they had in Eden the promised land before the parting of the Red Sea. They knew the meaning of Emmanuel before the Isaiah 7 prophecy. And yet the voice of the enemy comes, and believe me it will come, presents the reasoning that somehow in Eden you’re still lacking. That somehow in a place where God has laid provision farther than the eye can see something is still missing.

We may longer live in the Eden of Genesis three, but we also have promises upon promises, provision, abundance, prosperity and most importantly presence sitting here and waiting. And yet… How often has the enemy convinced us that promises of God are somehow lacking? We too listen to the whispers of the enemy, our respective industries, families, social media whatever it is that tells us we are missing something or better put missing out on something. That if we live in purity, you’ll miss out pleasure and intimacy. That if you Sabbath you miss the bag that’s waiting. That if you steward your money, you won’t see the inside of the plane like you’ve been praying. The most heart wrenching part of the deception and our listening is that we are chasing after things God already promised to give in our modern verse of Genesis 3.

In our abiding, in our walking, in our waiting we must take heed to voices we allow to exploit our desires and needs. The desire was never the problem with Adam and Eve. It was when the stopped doing things God’s way to satisfy that desire or need. One thing I’ve learned recently from reading Genesis 3 is staying in Eden is going to require restraint from me when my flesh speaks too loudly and trust that God really does have all I need. I don’t say this flippantly as if it's easy. If it was would so many of us struggling with thinking, we are lacking? So, no it is not easy but it is possible, but we start by hoping. Hoping starts with choosing to believe. Choosing to believe the promises God made me. That He is everything I need even when what is see is so lacking.  It's then adding the restraint or self-control, a fruit of the Spirit by the way ( i.e. you can’t do this without Him), and living a life that mirrors what you choose to believe.

I often wonder what would’ve happened if Adam and Eve choose to believe, remembered to believe any questions I have I don’t have to get answered from the fruit of this tree I can just remember in a few minutes I’ll be in the presence of Elohim and He knows everything. I can’t say how that would change the story, but I can in my own daily walking choose to believe in God I lack nothing.