Journey to Jerusalem day 6

Monday, March 2 Genesis 2:25-3:7
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

It begins in a moment’s quiet whisper: why not? Why not just do what a moment before we seemed so steadfastly committed to not do? Just why, we suddenly accuse ourselves, do we honor this restriction over our own desire? Why, we now indignantly demand as we think, as we listen, do we accept an authority that limits ourselves from ourselves?
Perhaps the allure of acting contrary to the boundaries we accept has somehow multiplied in power. Perhaps it is simply fatigue with fighting this alien urge.
Or perhaps something or someone has entered the most private reaches of our heart with an intent to pluck the scattered seeds of the peace we have with … with what, with whom, we demand to know?
This struggle takes place in a realm that differs from the see and hear about us. With a speed surpassing light, we notice something missing as we relieve the tension by doing now what was so insistently attractive then. And the peace we sought to grasp in the forbidden act leaves us. Now we are alone, starkly alone, and exposed. Seeing with our soul’s eye, we behold we are naked, and it is not good.
Yet again we learn we had what we truly desired, what we truly needed before we somehow thought otherwise. “Fool me once, … fool me twice, …!” How many times to learn that we can trust the God of all peace, that all intruding alternatives to that peace are always bogus and dreadfully malignant?

Lord Jesus, we praise you and bless you that our foolishness is not limited to seventy times seven. We ask you to help us to sustain the desires of the new heart you wrought for us, and to dismiss the fallen longings of the old. In Your Name we pray.