Experiencing God's Curiosity and Compassion by Chuck DeGroatSample

“It suddenly feels like something’s missing,” Eve whispers.

“Yes, I know . . . and like God is holding out on us,” Adam replies. They now look at each other with suspicion for the first time. And they look back at the lying serpent, now kicking up dust as he slithers away.

It was all going so well. They’d take long walks with God in the cool of the day each afternoon. They’d belly laugh as they considered names for all God’s creatures. Some were strange – the aye-aye and the star-nosed mole, the leaf-tailed gecko and the blob fish. They gasped at the strength of the lion and the majesty of the blue whale. They dreamed of further exploration.

But then the deceiver’s voice sounded through the slithering snake: “Did God really say?” And they wondered to themselves about what God had really said about them, about the world, about goodness and flourishing and delight. The first hint of shame emerged, that rising sense that something’s wrong, something’s missing, I’m not enough. Created for worth, belonging, and purpose, they secretly began to wonder if they’d have to grasp after it in that alluring fruit hanging from the tree. Perhaps a bite would ease their restless hearts and growling bellies?

The whole account in Genesis 3 takes seconds to read, but don't rush through it. Stay for a moment in that harrowing scene. Hear the sly serpent’s “really?” Feel the rising shame. See the suspicious stares. Experience the weight of their predicament. Honor the complexity of the questions they were wrestling with. Ponder how long Adam and Eve might have deliberated before eating the fruit.

Think about it. Did they deliberate for a day? A week? Six months? A year? Did they try to remember the goodness of Eden? Did the gap between them widen slowly as they bickered about a way forward? Did the appeal of the forbidden fruit grow as their deep questions grew?

Think about your own questions. Amidst your feelings of shame, insecurity, confusion, and being not enough, do you feel compelled to reach for something that will quell the ache for just a moment? Maybe more importantly, can you name the feelings that give rise to your grasping?

You were created for profound goodness and delight, for wholeness and flourishing. Worth, belonging, and purpose are your inheritance, your birthright. And yet, you’ve grasped, like Adam and Eve. Now you live between two stories that are both alive within you: a story of profound connection and a story of radical disconnection. Take some time to feel the tension between the two alive within you. See what feelings and questions emerge in you as you spend a bit of time in the same perplexing place as Adam and Eve did.