GOD DIDN’T SAY Adam and Eve should avoid any flowering shrubs over a cubit tall…

He didn’t say to also avoid any plant life that is green on every other Wednesday, and on the opposing Wednesdays to avoid the red stuff.  None of the “leaves of three, let it be” nonsense.  Whether we are okay with what He did or not, God was clear: “Stay away from that one tree, all of the time.”

I have come to appreciate the risk of that tree for God — and the necessity of that tree for us.  Simply put, that tree made is real: it gave us choice.  God wasn’t looking to make some complicated hamsters that He could set up in a sweet cage.  He created us for real relationship with Him.  Real relationship simply cannot exist if you cannot choose something else other than that relationship.  We pity a woman whose husband or boyfriend keeps her locked in their house, monitors the few phone calls he allows her to have, and keeps even her family at arm’s length.  No one would call that love.

Had God not offered the tree and with the opportunity to rebel against Him, He would have been that guy.  Love that isn’t chosen is forced.  In giving us that tree and making the warning very clear, He gave us choice, even the option to reject His guidance and companionship.  He knew very well that decision would cost Him dearly, but it was what was best for us.  Jim Pace, “How Could He?”, Should We Fire God?, 60-61

Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 3:15-17

Mike Benson