One More Day... To Be Thankful For The Other Trees

Why is it that no matter what we do or get, it never seems to be enough?

We have a good job, we want a better one.

We get a nice house, we want a bigger one.

We have a good spouse yet we want a perfect one.

When it's winter, we long for the sun on our skin.

In the summer heat, we wish for cooler days. And on and on it goes.

Let's take Eve for example. She was placed in the Garden of Eden with everything she could possibly need. Liz Curtis Higgs describes her as a "dish," because she was able to skip the adolescent stage with all the scars and blemishes, inherited no weird abnormalities from her weird aunts and because she was the definition of pure beauty as she was the only woman around. 

God gave her free reign in that garden. She could help herself to whatever she wanted... That is everything except fruit from that one tree. God commanded them, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat if it you will surely die." Genesis 2:16-17

The expectations were clear. And Eve knew the rules. She even repeated them to the serpent. That tree had been in the middle of everything- yet obediently avoided - was now all Eve could think about. 

Eve took her eyes off everything else in her life and only focused on what she couldn't have. That one thing destroyed everything else. 

I find myself wondering how Eve blew it. How could she allow such ruin? 

And then I think of you... and of me. 

We, too, do it every day. We throw away wonderful lives because we lose sight of the garden and focus on that one tree...that one small tree. 

God says no to some "trees" in our lives to protect us. It is never to harm us or punish us. He is a good father and knows what is best for each of us. He gives us what we need.  

Maybe it's time you and I got our eyes off the one tree- the thing we don't have or can't have and start thanking God for all the other "trees" we are allowed to eat from. 

"Pleasing to the eye isn't the same as pleasing to God." Liz Curtis Higgs