A Choice - Day 6
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Psalm 23:4
God did not leave Adam alone to himself when He put him in the garden. He gave him work to perform and He told him what he could and could not do. There was only one thing Adam was prohibited from doing. Genesis 2:16-17 says, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Why, in this perfect place of peace and security would God plant a tree conspicuously in the midst of the garden and tell Adam not to eat from it? In verse 16 God told Adam that he could eat from any of the trees but one. Genesis 2:9 says, “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food;” So, there were many options for Adam to chose from. How many? We are not told. But considering how many trees we have that produce edible fruit today, there must have been a lot! So why the one prohibited tree? There must be a reason. God doesn’t do anything that is pointless. We know the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not poisonous nor evil because God proclaimed it good. Our all-knowing God knows evil and good, so it must not be wrong to have that knowledge.
God, being relational, and wanting a real love relationship with mankind, wanted Adam to depend on Him to know what was good for him or bad for him. Whenever Adam was faced with a choice, and didn’t know which was the right choice, all he had to do was ask God. God would never tell Adam to do anything wrong. God would always be in control over Adam’s life. This is the love relationship God wants with us all. He is still the same today. He doesn’t leave it up to us to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong. God wants us to go to Him whenever we are faced with life’s choices. He has already told us the right and wrong in Scripture. We don’t have to decide for ourselves. The sad truth is that whenever I decide on my own what is good or evil, I choose evil every time. Let’s go to God and learn from Him. He will always choose good!
“Thank you, Father, for loving me so much that you have not left me alone, but have given me your Word, the Bible for instruction on life’s decisions. Amen.”
