Genesis 1: 28-29, Genesis 2: 8-17

Liz Dumain

I read something this week that made me realise that I'd never really thought about how big the place that we call the 'garden of Eden' must have been.

In Genesis 1 we read "God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground." Then God said, "Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground-everything that has life."

God gives Adam and Eve the run of the whole earth - not a small confined space that restricted their lives - an amazing choice of food and surroundings. Even the special garden that God plants and asks Adam to look after must have been huge as it contained many trees to choose from and a river flowed from it, there's no indication it was small!

"Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. The LORD God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground-trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit........ The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the LORD God warned him, "You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden-except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die."

God gave Adam and Eve loads of trees to choose from - an 'eat all you like buffet' of amazing variety and choice. Only one thing was off the menu. You'd have thought that with all that choice it wouldn't have been a problem. The forbidden tree should have been quickly forgotten as Adam & Eve indulged in all the other amazing things on offer. But no - even with all those other options that God had provided for their good - Adam and Eve ended up wanting only the one thing they couldn't have.

How often are we like that? Even though we know God has provided so much for us, we would rather mess with things that we know He doesn't want for us. How often do we go after what is 'off the menu', rather than enjoy all that God provides for our good? Why do we always want what we shouldn't have?

Sometimes it's obvious - too much drink, sex outside marriage, drugs, pornography or other people's things. But other things are more subtle - we're jealous of what other people have, their responsibility, their partner, their respect, their life......... Instead of enjoying and exploring the unique life we have been given - our 'garden of Eden'- we trade it for envying what other people have. We may not go as far as eating from the forbidden tree - but we'd actually really like to and spend too much time thinking about it, plotting to get it or being angry that we don't have it...........

God has given you your own unique 'life-garden' to explore, enjoy and live out.

What is it for you that destroys your delight in what you have, by tempting you to seek after what is not yours to take?