Yesterday’s local newsfeed highlighted a man shooing off the main trek a huge, five to six foot, diamond back rattle snake (I’ll keep that visual to myself; your’e welcome!). Ladies, I’ve never seen a snake so big, and if I had seen this one, I wouldn’t have been on the news as the one escorting it to safety. Snakes, even the “good ones,” and I do not belong in the same frame of being.
Crafty & Cunning, Shrewd & Subtle
God tells us of Eve’s first encounter with a snake; the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Remember it?
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
MORE subtle than any other creature that had been made, and it was the one Satan would use to unfold his evil scheme. Let’s do a quick review of the conversation Eve had when the serpent came to her.
Genesis 3:1-3
1Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”4“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
What would you do?
That’s the trick of more subtle…from here:
subtle, adjective : not loud, bright, noticeable, or obvious in any way
Sneaky Snake
Sneaky Snake, I mean, Satan. He was there to tempt Eve. God had already told Adam exactly what would happen if he and/or his wife ate from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. (And for the record, God never said they could not touch the fruit, those words were added to God’s Word. Sound familiar of today’s ongoings?) . And don’t miss this, either, Adam and Eve knew the consequences of their choice should they decide to do what God told them not to. But the subtleness of Satan overtook Eve, and we know the rest of the story. Yet, look at where it began. It all started with her seemingly innocent conversation with her garden visitor.
Eve’s Weakness’ Challenged
Following this conversation, things changed in a quick minute. Look how the continuing story unfolds, and think about your own life.
Genesis 3:6When the woman saw. Yes, that is not the end of the thought or even this first sentence here in verse 6, but we need to pause for a second. When Eve saw. We have to assume her focal point had changed, because Scripture doesn’t say she continued to look at The Tree, it says, “When the woman saw.” Her thoughts drew her gaze to that tree, The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the tree the Lord said was off limits for food. And yet, her focus locked in, and she saw.
Satan isn’t stupid
We read all over Scripture of the Evil one’s cunning trickery. This is no exception. Though woman was God’s newest creation, Mr. More Subtle Clever & Cunning himself zeroed in on what he must have known. I have to think that is true because, well, I am a woman who has already lived more than half of my life on earth, so I’ve known a lot of other women, too. And, guess what? We are much like Eve. I can imagine the darts Satan threw at Eve are the same ones that we also find firing up our lives.
Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Do you Find Yourself there?
Eve saw the tree was useful: it was good for food.
Eve saw the tree was enjoyable: it was beautiful to look at.
Eve saw the tree was enticing: it was desirable for wisdom.
Any Women’s Struggles
We women have the same struggles in our own lives all the time. It’s not even debatable. Let me look online real quickly, hold on…ok, here are some of the titles from the popular women’s magazines this month:
Cozy Comfort Food
Nourish: Sweet and Savory
How to Network your way through Stanford
Get Glowy Skin Fast
Are you too Sensitive?
You, Beautiful
Good Faith
Strong & Sexy
Same Satan, Same Lies
And the commercials all agree. Society targets women today much the same as Satan did Eve in the garden: Her physical, Her emotional and Her intellectual.
Where is your struggle?
Eve saw THE tree was good for food: physical, it was beautiful: emotional, and it would lead to wisdom: intellectual. Where is your greatest struggle? Stop to think about it because it’s important. Where your greatest struggle is, whether a new, old, short term or seemingly everlasting, there, likely, is your weakness.
Physical, Emotional, Intellectual
There is SO much more to learn right here in the Garden of Eden and we will discuss it further next time-don’t miss it! But for now, we need to stay here and think about our own area, or areas, of pain and struggle. Some of my own life struggles are sure to be familiar to many of you. Physically, my weight has always, always been a fight for me. My hormones have revolted against female common place, and the two most painful by-products have been warring weight and infertility/pregnancy loss. You can imagine, probably, what that has done emotionally over the years. At one time, I bought into the lies that the more education I had, and one more degree would ease the pains of life and make my personal- even secret -insecurities less prominent as if they could be counterbalanced with wisdom. Or maybe I would be a better woman/wife/mother, if I had more education. Foolishness. God has been good to teach me what His truth is through His word, and I’ve since learned that wisdom comes from the fear of the Lord, not from a degree on the wall. Still, I have unwrapped life’s problems under the spotlight of physical, emotional and and intellectual temptations all too long. Like Eve, I listened to the wrong voice, I engaged in conversation-with myself or any other avenue of voice that soothed my fears (others, music, movies, literature…). I mixed in lies with truth, and when life felt too hard or the hurt looked too much to bear, I chose what seemed more useful, enjoyable and enticing: I chose sin over faith.
The Price of sacrifice
It would seem Eve chose to sacrifice disobedience for obedience, same as me. When it’s too hard to obey, or too easy to sin (and are those statements backwards? Is it better stated: When it’s too easy to sin and too hard to obey?) I too often hit the easy button. There, the temptation to please myself physically, emotionally or intellectually override the truth I know of God and His Word. That is sacrifice, too, but one to no good end. Eve chose sin. She could have escaped her temptation just like we can, every single time. God was with her. And He is with us, too.
God is With Us
Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Temptation is tempting
Duh. It goes without saying, or it should, if there was no second glance temptation wouldn’t be a problem. Where we are weak, we are tempted. THAT is why it’s importation to ask God to take inventory of our heart. I guess for ratings it’s good to take a 350 lb diabetic woman who is trying to be the next Biggest Loser and seat her in the middle of a sugar banquet, but it’s not wise to place ourself where we know we struggle with weakness. When we need forgiveness, and each of us have, will, do, there is Jesus. Where we succumb to self, temptation and sin, we have forgiveness in Christ as we repent and continue to follow Him. The Psalmist gives great advice here:
Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. 24See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the way everlasting.…
Go Boldly
When we realize where we are weak and allow the strength of God to help us in our weakness, we have God’s promises. In every way, Jesus knows temptation and He as already paved the escape route. He invites us to draw near to Him.
My teenager and I have been employed in some puppy training. With the newest puppy, our invitation (with expectation of obedience) “come here” is a bit more quiet and tempered with gentleness than for that of her older roommate, but God paints a different word picture for us. He says we are to come to Him with great confidence. Friends, we can go boldly to Christ; He promises to meet us there with the mercy and grace and promise of escaping every temptation as we do. That is the truth of temptation’s deliverance: Mercy and Grace.
Mercy & Grace
I invite you to turn your struggles and temptations into exactly what the Lord has for you. Instead of balling up in fear and weakening at the subtle whispers of easy or enticing (by they way, exhaustion & stress are dangerous counterparts linking ever so effortlessly to easy and enticing, aren’t they? I need to guard my own heart in this very way so intentionally!), we can go boldly in the direction that has already been mapped out as our personal escape and fall into the luxury of God’s amazing mercy and grace instead.
Temptation is universal, God’s way of escape is personal. Go with confidence, Sister, to your God.
