Part 2 (2/2)

After only three b.u.t.tons she had to stop and catch her breath. What was happening to her? She and Adam had gone swimming all last summer in their bathing suits and thought nothing of it. Suddenly his bare neck was the most dazzling thing she'd ever laid eyes on! It was all she could do to keep from pressing her lips there. When she gazed up into his darkening eyes, she realized that Devin's ”knowing” was starting to grow in Adam, clearly matching her own.

The faintest of breezes stirred the moss hanging over the gazebo entrance when a deep voice rang through the garden.

It was her father!

”Adam!” He was looking for them. ”Where are you, Adam?”

Oh, Daddy.

Panic-had she ever felt that before?-had her fumbling with the b.u.t.tons on Adam's s.h.i.+rt. The same ones that, moments earlier, had opened so quickly, now refused to respond to her trembling fingers.

”Where are you?” Her father was mere steps away from them.

The trembling in her hands turned to shaking all over. Her face was on fire. Was she ill? Had she caught whatever fever Devin had, with just one kiss? Her stomach felt queasy. When Adam stared down at her, she noticed his face was a startling red. The guilt she'd sensed for the first time only moments ago was now mirrored in her fiance's own tear-tinged eyes.

”Oh, Evie...” Adam's whispered words seemed to stick in his throat. ”When your father finds us, beloved, there'll be h.e.l.l to pay. Are you ready?”

She swallowed hard and tasted something like fear. ”Y-yes.”

Reluctance written all over his face, Adam turned toward the steps that led back to the garden. ”Down here, sir...”

High Noon in the Garden of Good and Evil: Eve.

The LORD G.o.d took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Genesis 2:15 Thirty years ago Joni Mitch.e.l.l wrote, ”We've got to get ourselves back to the garden.” Quite right, woman, but Woodstock isn't back far enough. Not thirty years but thirty centuries is more like it. Forty. Fifty. Waaaay back, all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

Eden is often translated as ”delight” or, by way of a Persian word, ”paradise.” This wasn't some haphazard wildflower garden; it was a carefully designed and beautifully executed park of trees featuring cedars, cypresses, and figs, ”the kind only planned by great kings.”1 Such gardens don't maintain themselves; that was Adam's job. Even before the Fall, he was given the task of caring for the garden. It was far from hard labor though-remember, no weeds, no thistles, no thorns, no frost, no floods, no irrigation, no grub worms, and no ”wascally wabbit” eating Adam's best carrots.

Adam was called to work, but it was a cushy gig.

The first man had everything a human needed to be happy in this garden of G.o.d's: water, food, warmth, shelter, and all-natural-fiber clothing...well, that came later. When G.o.d created Adam, he surrounded him with beauty that engaged all his given senses: shapes and colors for his eyes, fragrant flowers for his nose, a thousand textures for his hands to examine, the music of rus.h.i.+ng streams to fill his ears, and endless tastes to try, all over the garden.

Okay...almost all over.

And the LORD G.o.d commanded the man, ”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 of it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17 There you are. A simple commandment. Not ten of them, just one: ”Thou shalt not eat.” (Personally I wish the very first edict from G.o.d hadn't involved dieting, don't you? If only he'd said, ”You must not eat anything with less than four hundred calories.” Now there is a commandment I could live with.) Knowledge is good, but it was the intimate ”knowing” of evil that was dangerous. Like any good parent, our heavenly Father built a hedge around his child in order to protect the young man's innocence and to keep him from learning things he didn't need to know.

Adam was obedient, but he was also lonely. Ask an only child, and he'll tell you it's mighty quiet in the playroom all by yourself.

The LORD G.o.d said, ”It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18 Immediately after giving Adam his look-but-don't-touch edict, the Lord announced that his charge needed company. To keep Adam's mind off the forbidden tree? To help with the gardening? Or simply in response to Adam's very human longing for companions.h.i.+p?

One commentator voted for that last option: ”Solitude is not good; man is created for sociability.”2 Even those of us who cherish our quiet moments alone get stir-crazy eventually. When I'm holed up in my writing loft, I last about six hours before I wander downstairs or hit the Internet to check my e-mail. It's a G.o.d-given drive, this need to connect with other humans. People who have only a little of that drive are called ”loners.” People with even less are labeled ”hermits.” People with none are put in straitjackets.

”People who need people” have G.o.d to thank for it.

First, though, G.o.d tried pets. Not just cats, dogs, and yellow canaries but a whole beastly bunch of animals. Adam named them all, antelope to zebra, yet no matter how he tried to fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d's furry and feathered creatures, there were too many of those basic irreconcilable differences.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. Genesis 2:20 ”Suitable” is elsewhere translated ”comparable” (NKJV) and ”right for him” (ICB). G.o.d was looking not for a good fit but rather a perfect fit. This wasn't The Dating Game; it was The Match Game, with one and only one correct answer. And ”helper” by no means suggested a lowly servant. It meant an equal, a colaborer, a ”suitable partner” (CEV).3 This partner had to be as valuable as Adam, as worthy of living in G.o.d's glorious Garden of Eden, as equally created in G.o.d's image, and yet...different. Adam was made from the dust of the earth. His partner (truth be told) was made of finer stuff.

So the LORD G.o.d caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Genesis 2:21 (Say, two favorite movie t.i.tles in one verse: While You Were Sleeping and Adam's Rib!) Why a ”deep sleep”? So that Adam wouldn't feel the pain of the Lord's amazing-but-anesthetic-free operation, and so Adam wouldn't see the mystery of creation.

Why the man's rib? Perhaps because when it comes to the human skeletal structure, one rib isn't exactly a load-bearing wall. Plus, from an emotional standpoint, G.o.d wisely chose the bone nearest the man's heart as a gentle reminder to keep his helpmate close by his side-physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Then the LORD G.o.d made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. Genesis 2:22 Oh the majesty of that moment when G.o.d brought the crown of his creation to the one for whom she was designed!

Girls, you know she was a dish. She skipped childhood completely, so no chickenpox scars. No adolescence meant no blemishes marred her lovely face either. No genetic anomalies from weird Aunt Jane, nor did she inherit her mother's flat feet. G.o.d did everything perfectly, including carving a woman out of bone (a real hard-body look) with ideal proportions.

She was also sinless. Her personality would have been utterly delightful. In Paradise Lost Milton wrote of her, ”Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, / In every gesture dignity and love.”4 Other writers in other centuries have called her ”the best flower of the garden” and ”Heaven's best, last gift.”

Since she was the premiere edition and the only woman around, she didn't need to worry about compet.i.tion from supermodels or centerfolds or the woman sitting next to her in church four sizes smaller than she. The first female was the very definition of womanly beauty. No one was taller, thinner, younger, or prettier. She was it!

I know what you're thinking: Why did she blow this? How could a woman with all this going for her ruin her life so completely?

Women do it every day. Men do too. We all throw away perfectly wonderful lives because our foolish, sinful appet.i.tes take us places we should not go.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Things were still rosy in Eden.

The man said, ”This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,'

for she was taken out of man.” Genesis 2:23 One look at G.o.d's gift to man and Adam got positively poetic. ”There is no doubt but Adam is saying, 'This woman, first, last, and always!'”5 In other words, ”Ooh, baby. You got it right this time, Lord.”

By no means was she to be Adam's ”girl toy.” She was created to be his partner for life.

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:24 Marriage was inst.i.tuted on the spot and ordained by G.o.d, ”not as a civil contract but as a divine inst.i.tution.”6 One man, one woman, one flesh. We need never doubt what G.o.d's perfect will is on this issue. One mate for life. How it behooves us to choose wisely!

The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Genesis 2:25 I don't know any practicing nudists, but I suspect more than one has pointed to this verse as justification for throwing caution and their clothes to the wind. Sorry, but that bird won't fly. This is a BF scene-Before the Fall. And there were only the two people, and they were married. When they rejoined their bones and flesh in s.e.xual union, it was wholesome and natural, utterly enjoyable, and without embarra.s.sment, shame, or hiding anything from each other.

Ah, but paradise was about to be lost.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD G.o.d had made. Genesis 3:1 Make no mistake, it was a snake. A real, live, cold-bellied serpent-one of the animals G.o.d had created as part of his ”Let's Find Adam a Friend” project. Satan isn't mentioned by name in this pa.s.sage, but his slimy style was all over this snake-skinned charmer.

Various translations call the wild creature ”subtle” (AMP), ”cunning” (NKJV), the ”shrewdest” (NLT), the ”most clever” (ICB), and the ”sliest” (TAB).7 An animal ready-made for Satan's uses then. No doubt attractive to look at, with some colorful pattern on his sleek skin. He chose his words with care and saved his venom for later, showing the woman only his lightning-fast tongue but not his lethal fangs. As Shakespeare reminded us in King Lear, ”The prince of darkness is a gentleman.”

One word of comfort, sisters: The snake was a he, not an it, and definitely not a she.

He said to the woman, ”Did G.o.d really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?” Genesis 3:1 Why Eve and not Adam? I wonder. Was she in the wrong place at the wrong time, or did the serpent go looking for her? And why, oh, why didn't she realize that if none of the other animals talked, this one shouldn't have either?

How I long for more information! Ah well. As Christopher Guest said in The Princess Bride, ”Let's just start with what we have.” What we have is one gullible gal and one sly serpent. When the devil comes a-tempting, he seldom goes in for group conversions. He waits until we're alone, then spins his web of deceit.

The only question I don't have is, ”Why didn't she go find Adam and discuss all this with him first?” Get a grip. She knew he'd talk her out of it. A married woman knows better than to ask her husband a question like, ”Shall I buy this outrageously expensive linen suit from Lord & Taylor?” She can bank on a negative response. It's the same reason women order stuff from catalogs and hope the UPS truck pulls up on a safe day.

Besides, we don't know where Adam was at this point. We left him back at the close of the last chapter, naked and not ashamed. Maybe he was taking a shower. In any case, the serpent was bending the woman's ear. She who will be called Eve by story's end makes (at my count) not just one colossal blooper but a plethora of mistakes, beginning with one that every child is cautioned against from the cradle: Don't talk to strangers!

Satan isn't called the Father of Lies for nothing. He opened his cozy chat with the woman using a deliberate lie-misquoting G.o.d, even putting words in the Lord's mouth. Satan has been doing that for millennia, sisters, and he's devilishly good at it. For that reason, whenever I hear a line of Scripture used to make a point-even by a well-meaning speaker or teacher-I go back to the Bible and see what the verse actually says in context.

By twisting the Lord's decree, Satan also tossed out one of the big stumbling blocks he still uses with great success today-making G.o.d look less than fair, kind, or loving. When tragedy strikes-a precious child is killed in an accident or a young mother dies of cancer-Satan tempts our faith with the same sort of opening line: ”Would a good G.o.d allow that?”

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