About a year ago I was doing my laundry at a laundromat in Blue Island, IL, and was neglecting some reading that I needed to do. So I resolved to doing what I usually do when I’m bored – walk around. A lot. It’s also something I do when I need to think. So I started my journey shortly after I put my clothes in the wash and made my way over to this bulletin board for the city.
This bulletin board was quite clustered. Half in Spanish and half in English, it featured all sorts of different ads, some more professional than others. There were apartment rentals, baby sitters looking for work, English lessons, and more. And it seemed like the less professional ones were authored by more desperate persons. For instance, there were some that were typed up, had some pictures, and had tear away telephone numbers. But the ones that really wanted someone to hire them or rent out their apartment were hand written on a scrap of notebook paper. There was this one hand written note that was a self proclaimed baby sitter. Good with kids apparently. I would not be trusting that person with my kids. No chance.
In the middle of this random assortment of want ads was this yellow post it note. And hand written on it was the note: “I am a Latin America man seeking a sincere relationship”, and on it was his phone number.
It took me some time to really process this, but finally I understood what drove this person to actually write that. We’re all looking for relationships, for connection, for community, and this guy didn’t have it, and he was going about it in all the wrong ways.
This desire to belong is normal, it’s necessary, and it’s a part of who we are. The Bible is completely in line with this idea of working together and living in community.
There’s a passage in the book of Ecclesiastes (Ecc. 4:7-12) that says:
7 Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:
8 There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
“and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless—
a miserable business!
9 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
10 If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
This idea of being together is what we were created for.
We were created to be connected with people, but more importantly we were also created to be connected with our Maker, with the God of the Bible.
We were created for a constant and consistent relationship with God. See following God is not about showing up to a building for an hour on Sunday. It’s not just about sitting in a ridiculously uncomfortable pew inside the four walls of church. It’s like trying to say that your relationship with your best friend consists of hanging out for an hour a week. When we think this way, we put God in a tiny box.
The book of Genesis, which literally means the Beginnings, is a story about how the world began, and the beginning of the people of Israel. And in it is the description of, the setting, of what things were like between God and man at the very beginning. Years and years ago, this is what it was like.
First it describes the actual creation process, how God created everything. It talks about how God first made the heavens and the earth. He made night and day, the sky, the ground and the waters. Then he made things to fill that stuff – birds to fill the sky, fish to fill the seas, and so on.
In chapter 2, we see that God creates the first man, Adam. Then later on, God saw that there was no suitable helper, or partner, for Adam, so he took one of his ribs and created the first woman. Eve.
However the most important thing about this setting is that at this point, Adam and Eve are living in perfect community with God, with their Creator. There is no wrong at all. It even says “the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” At one point, it talks about how God was walking around in the very same garden they were living around. That’s what we were created for. An unhindered, life giving relationship with God.
At one point, God creates some trees that were for Adam and Eve to eat from. We read in Genesis 2:8:
8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. 9 The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground—trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So God created the tree of life, and then the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Then skip over to verse 15:
15 The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. 16 But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
Again, at this point, the man and the woman were living in perfect community with their Creator. There is the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They could eat from any tree, the tree of life included, but just not from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A good way to think about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is experience of good and evil. In other words, from eating that tree, the result would be experiencing good and evil. Whereas eating from the tree of life would be experiencing life, without death. And the thing of it is that God intended us to eat the tree of life.
His will for us is life, not death. Good, not evil.
Then we read chapter 3:1-8
1 The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
2 “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. 3 “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”
4 “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. 5 “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
6 The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. 7 At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.
8 When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man[a] and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees.
There was separation. The perfect community between God and Adam and Eve was broken.
Pastor and author Rob Bell describes it this way:
“In the first chapter of Genesis, when God creates the first people…the story begins with humans in right relationship – in healthy, life-giving connection – with their maker. All of their other relationships flow from the health of this one central relationship – people and God. They’re connected with the earth, with each other. They’re naked and they feel no shame.
And then everything goes south.
They choose another way.
And they become disconnected.
God goes looking for them in the garden, asking, ‘Where are you?’ The first humans make coverings of fig leaves, and then they’re banished from the garden.
Disconnected from each other.
Disconnected from the earth…
…And this is where you and I come in. We were born into a world, into a condition, of disconnection. Things were created to be a certain way, and they’re not that way, and we feel it in every fiber of our being” (Sex God, pages 39-40).
We were made for relationship with God, with our Creator, but you and I were born into a world that is separated from God. Why? Because God chose to distance itself from his creation? No! Because man chose to distance himself from a loving God.