Wicked Women Of The Bible DevotionsНамуна

Eve: Day 1

Painting by Gustav Klimt titled Adam and Eve

Bzzt, bzzt. She swats the flies away but they keep on coming, too many to count. She has grown used to the constant annoyance, just one of many. Their favorite spot is around her eyes, where they gather to suck the tears away before she has time to shed them.

Still, Eve is a splendid creature, the most beautiful woman in the world, her husband says, enjoying his little joke. She has big honey brown eyes, smooth skin, and thick, dark hair, flowing like a river down her back.

Eve has a memory, but it is not long. It swirls about her now, filled with images sharp and bright and shadows deep and long. She recalls what it is like to feel every sense satisfied, every need cared for. To walk with God in the cool of the day. To know the immensity of God's love.

She remembers, too, what she did not know at first. That there could be a place less perfect, a life less loving, a future less bright. That sin could lurk at your door, waiting for a chance to beat you down and shatter you into a thousand jagged pieces. Deceit, blame, want, shame, and terrible grief—all these and worse she has known.

Because of their sin, she and her husband, Adam, have been barred from paradise. They have traded wholeness for brokenness, health for sickness, calm for anxiety, prosperity for want, and harmony for strife. Instead of living in the brightness of God’s presence they live alone in the dark.

But it is not completely dark.

Fortunately for Eve and for Adam and for all the children who will become their descendants, God has devised a plan to draw his people back to himself. Hinting at the work his Son will one day do, God speaks to the serpent that deceived Eve and her husband:

I will put enmity
      between you and the woman,
      and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
      and you will strike his heel. (Genesis 3:15)

God will not let his people go.

Adapted from Wicked Women of the Bible by Ann Spangler. Learn More