Listen

The Lord God took the human and settled him in the garden of Eden to farm it and to take care of it. The Lord God commanded the human, “Eat your fill from all of the garden’s trees; but don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because on the day you eat from it, you will die!”

Genesis 2:15-17

Think

We have a lot of baggage in the Christian family around this story of Adam in the Garden of Eden. Because Adam disobeyed this command, the story is often used to emphasize how terrible we are as human beings, disobedient, rebellious, and sinful to the core. And yet, God entrusted the creation to Adam. God saw him as good, trustworthy, and capable.

How can we hold an honest assessment of ourselves? How can we claim the good, the whole, and the beautiful alongside the broken, selfish, and self-centered? This is the challenge of honesty: to look with clarity at our lives, to see with God’s eyes all that we are and all that we are not!

Rob Mueller

Pray

Lord, help me this day to look at myself honestly… to admit the truth about myself. Enable me to own my gifts and my liabilities, my strength and my weakness. Help me to see my sin and my goodness through your eyes. Amen.

Go

Jesus said, “The truth shall set you free!” Live out of the truth about yourself this day.

You are an amazing and good creation of God, who sometimes fails to live up to God’s trust in you.