Gen 1-3

Well, hello and welcome to the first day of our walk through the Bible. As we go through today's reading, we see how God brought everything into existence, the beginning of Adam and Eve's life as well as their fall from grace and expulsion from the Garden.

Every time I re-read these chapters it never ceases to amaze me how great the task that He accomplished in a mere six days! I must say, too, that I am very impressed so far with this Bible site and the way it has topics and questions posed down the side of the readings that you can explore into different verses even further. Great way to really broaden your understanding of the scripture.

I used to be kind of angry with Eve, lol, thought I would like to meet her in Heaven some day and give her a piece of my mind. Funny how my own spiritual growth has changed my perception of her actions. I see now, however, she was merely human and I sometimes wonder how she must have suffered with her own misery for what she had done. Women tend to hang on to their guilt and shame even when we know that God has forgiven us, our sense of regret can run very deep.

I do find it so interesting to see both Adam's and Eve's behavior surrounding the fall. There they were  in the Garden of Eden, enjoying direct fellowship with God, no worries, no troubles of any kind and then they make this mistake. They disobey and when questioned by God about it, their responses to the whole situation is really no different than what we often see ourselves doing today! Adam blamed Eve and even insinuated that God might share in the blame because He was the one who gave her to Adam. Then Eve blamed the serpent, neither of them actually stood and allowed themselves to be accountable for their actions. This is something that is running rampant in today's society, in fact, it may be the single most biggest thing that is wrong with the world today, as far as behavior goes. Everywhere you look, someone is blaming someone or something else for why they act the way they do or did. It leaves no room for being accountable for our own actions if everything we do is always someone else's fault.

I don't believe God expects us to be perfect, obviously, but I believe He does wants us to own our mistakes and behavior more. I believe the whole story of what happened in the Garden gives us a great lesson in that. When I mentioned, earlier, how I used to be kind of mad at Eve, part of my spiritual growth was in how God showed me that what I was doing was in fact the very thing I was angry with her for! I was only angry with her because I am a sinner and basically blamed all my mistakes on her actions. Ridiculous, right? The whole notion seemed pretty silly when I really saw it for what it was. So I repented and with a sincere heart prayed for a better attitude for my own actions and accepted God's forgiveness, then I put on that same attitude of forgiveness and re-read those chapters only to discover Eve in a whole new light. Now, I try to always be accountable for my own actions and behaviors, although, if I am to be brutally honest...sometimes it is very difficult not to rage against the behavior or actions of another, spewing blame onto them for what they made me do; and there are times when I need a reminder (which God is quick to do), after the fact.

So that's my take on the first 3 chapters of Genesis, what's yours?

Please feel free to share your thoughts on today's reading by clicking on the word "comment" below.