Since Scripture creates the foundation for what we believe about the world, the first three chapters of Genesis help give us renewed vision for what God created us to experience. My hope is that each time we look at the story, you will see how our core desires were designed to be fulfilled in the environment of shalom God created for us. I also hope you see how drastically things changed when sin entered the equation.
We’ll start by taking a fresh look at the shift that happens in Genesis 3, which if we’re honest is a little jarring. In only a few verses, a moment of pure bliss in Genesis 2:23-25 transitions to a moment of difficulty and hardship in Genesis 3:16-24. The story moves from Adam and Eve thriving in Eden to them being evicted from that same garden bearing a new reality that is marked by the curses God gives to them.
As the Creator of the universe, God’s curses are not unfair but rather are the natural consequences of Adam and Eve’s choice to be the determiners of their own fate instead of loyal followers of God. In five verses, God provides the harrowing details of what their new life will be like. With words and phrases like, “labor pain,” “painful effort,” “thorns and thistles,” and “sweat of your brow,” it becomes quickly apparent that Adam and Eve’s new lives will be characterized by one thing: struggle. Even though Genesis describes their pre-fall reality, we don’t know how good Adam and Eve had it until we see in these verses how bad things would be.
Before the fall, with ease our children would be birthed, relationships would be sustained, the ground would be cultivated and cooperate with us—not to mention that instead of experiencing death, we would live forever. Life was supposed to be easy, calm, tranquil, and perfect. Adam and Eve were created to live in paradise. We see glimpses of this in the description of Eden, as Moses tells us that the rivers that went out from the garden were near lands that had precious stones like gold, bdellium, and onyx (Gen. 2:10-14).
There is no place more peaceful than paradise. But our experience of it was only possible under the rule of God. Adam and Eve’s disobedience leave them banished from Eden with the challenge of trying to figure out life outside of paradise. Instead of having an unbroken experience of tranquility, their lives will continually be interrupted by difficulty—the fruit of a world impacted by sin. Consequently, they will also continue to fight against the self-empowerment temptation the serpent offered them. As their sons and daughters, we fight against the same temptation, striving to regain peace by figuring out life on our own, apart from God.
This is an excerpt from Elizabeth Woodson’s new book Habits of Resistance.
Habits of Resistance
In this game-changing book, Bible teacher Elizabeth Woodson shows you how to get unstuck from culture’s discipleship pathway. Through biblical teaching, personal stories, and practical tools, Elizabeth helps you not only deconstruct 7 false gospels that invite you into the wrong story and wrong way, but resist them through powerful, time-tested spiritual habits that bring you back into God’s story.
You will not accidentally experience wholeness and abundance; you must be intentional about it. Habits of Resistance will help you fight to stay in the only true Story, true Way, and true Path to abundant life—all of which only come through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
