The story of Adam and Eve can be looked at as a literal happening or a touching story, in either event it's message is designed to remind us why we are here. Adam and Eve had everything they could ever want in the Garden of Eden. The problem that they faced was that in having everything, they experienced nothing. For how special is the most perfect thing if you have it at all times.
If you were able to drive down the street every day of your life and always have a green traffic light, after a few days or weeks, having green lights all the time would not feel special, it would feel ordinary. In that example you have the perfect ride to your destination, but you can't appreciate it as the perfect ride in the absence of an imperfect ride. Without an occasional red light, you cannot fully appreciate all the green lights.
This is what the Garden of Eden represents. It is everything we always wanted, but without the experience of not having it, there is no way to fully appreciate it. The tree of Knowledge represents this truth. Adam and Eve had everything, yet they could not experience having everything because they did not know what it was like to have less. There was no context to give their greatness perspective.
By taking a bite of the apple, Eve and Adam chose to give up perfection for an environment which would allow them to experience perfection. As soon as they gave themselves the knowledge and experience of something less than perfect, they could now appreciate and enjoy the perfection.
This is our gift from God not our curse. And the tale of Adam and Eve is His way of letting us understand why He doesn't just give us everything we desire. God has given us this playground so that we can do and be and create. We can experience the most fantastic and we can appreciate it and hold it dear to us in the face of all things less. When we have or do something extraordinary, we can truly appreciate it and feel great about it because it has meaning to us in the light of that which is not extraordinary.
Scoring a touchdown, winning the lottery, eating vegetables fresh from the garden, catching a string of green traffic lights, finding a dollar on the street.... these all feel really good because we can experience them "Knowing" that they are special.
Adam and Eve did not sin against God. They lived in Eden, surrounded with perfection, but they could not feel the perfection. By placing that tree of "knowledge" in Eden, God made it possible for them to have the experience of perfection. Ultimately that was a greater gift than the perfection itself, for how can perfection be appreciated in the context of nothing else?
I thank God for the lesson this teaches us, for the perfection in our lives and for the imperfections that allow us the perspective to appreciate all the things that we do have.
How can you experience Eden? This is the most simple thing in the world. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." If you see someone needing food, feed them. If you see someone standing on the bus, offer them your seat. If you see a person with their hands full in the grocery line, let them go ahead of you. If you see a person getting wet in the rain, offer them shelter under your umbrella. By giving away that which you have, you can experience the greatness of having it. You can know yourself as having an abundance of food. You can rejoice that God provided you with a comfortable seat. You can experience the feeling of not being rushed because you have time to let someone else slip in ahead of you. You can appreciate the shelter that God has provided you.
This is the lesson of Adam and Eve. This is the gift God has given us by allowing us the fruit of knowledge. Knowledge so that we can appreciate the first gift and know it for what it was and is. We can now experience the greatness of God in the eye of that which is less than great.
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