A week ago the pre-school class at Journey Church colored a picture of the Serpent in the Tree of Knowledge enticing Eve with the fruit. That is always the way the picture looks, no matter the curriculum. Satan is in the tree tempting Eve to have a bite. This morning, however, as I read Genesis 3 my mind’s eye saw a picture of a cunning creature walking and talking with Eve in the periphery of the garden; the places where Eve’s daily life would normally take her. She knew to stay away from the center of the garden where the forbidden fruit grew. Her relationship with God was strong and she had no desire to disobey Him. The Tempter had to come to her.
I picture Satan visiting her in the safest part of the Garden, having small talk, building a comfortable relationship, before he began to attack the good and proper thinking that God had established in her. God had surely warned her that she must listen to His voice alone, lest she be drawn to a place of certain peril. But Satan, being the crafty one, knew he had to convince her that he was her friend; a comfortable fellow with which she could easily relax; a comrade who could be trusted.
As I work with the people of Journey Church, these new followers of Christ, I see people who love walking with God in the cool of the Garden. They are happy with the new relationship they have with Him, yet there are times in their week when they struggle to see the Tempter as evil, because he has walked with them long enough to have built a relationship with them. They readily hear his voice and easily turn to see what he is saying. They do not see the danger, because they are in the Garden where they walk with God.
“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” asks Satan. He takes a bite of the forbidden fruit in front of her, looking alive and quite well. “You will not die…You will be like God,” says he, as juice drips from the corner of his mouth, smiling at the sweetness of the harmless looking fruit.
What I am observing here in Australia are common temptations that bring about the death of a beautiful and innocent relationship with God. It is the temptation of a relationship that is unwholesome, the fire of unbridled anger, the self-centered spirit that refuses to “prefer one another in love,” the lure of the bottle to settle the troubled spirit at the end of a difficult day, the call of just one more ‘need’ that interferes with much needed family time, the unforgiving attitude that keeps couples looking back to what was rather than looking forward to what can be.
My new friends are young in their faith. They are receptive to someone holding up that x-ray machine so they can see that the beguiling temptations that lure them are, at the core, merely a crafty enemy seeking to destroy their new found faith. They listen. They hear. They ponder the options. Sometimes they turn away from the center of the garden where the forbidden fruit grows and sometimes they slip back in and take another bite. But now they have been told. They have tasted the sweeter fruit of walking with God in the garden of life and, for most of them there is repentance and restoration.
I guess people are much the same… no matter the hemisphere they call home. Please continue to pray for these beautiful people who have become my dear friends. Pray that they will see that sin never pays what temptation offers. Pray that I will lead effectively with wisdom and love. Pray that their particular temptation will be less and less enticing and they will enjoy those quiet walks with God in the garden.
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