“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for
food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took
some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he
ate it” (Gen. 3:6, NIV).
I have probably read Genesis 3:6 dozens of times. When I
read it recently, though, I was stopped dead in my tracks. How could Eve’s
perception be so misguided? Adam and Eve had been given full reign of the
garden. They could basically do whatever they wanted. They were simply given
one area of boundary. God said, “‘You are free to eat from any tree in the
garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen. 15:16-17). It’s so
simple . . . yet, Eve couldn’t help but see the fruit as being good, pleasing, and desirable. She believed a lie, and she justified her decision by mentally
wrapping the fruit with pretty paper. God said not to eat, but it was seen as
being good, pleasing, and desirable.
Now, because of the account recorded in Genesis, mankind has
a sinful nature. This means that we are going to fall into the same trap that
Adam and Eve fell into. We are going to see things in the world that are going
to make sense to us as being good, pleasing, and desirable, but in reality, those things may be the very sinful
things that will harm us most. If only Adam and Eve had trusted in their God. We
look at Adam and Eve, now that we know the outcome of their decision, and we want
to do everything in our power to stop them and make them aware of the magnitude
of the mistake they were going to make. While there are many things to learn
from this account in the garden, I find that we must notice that not everything
that seems good, pleasing, and desirable
really is. Instead, we should have faith in our Creator and in His
definitions of things.
