NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

May 9

Scripture focus: The woman stared at the fruit. It looked beautiful and tasty. She wanted the wisdom that it would give her, and she ate some of the fruit. Her husband was there with her, so she gave some to him, and he ate it too. Genesis 3:6 Contemporary English Version (CEV)

Eve is the kind of gal who is easy to judge. Promised the perfect husband, a great job as co-CEO of the Garden, and the very image of God, why, oh why did she mess stuff up by tasting the tempting fruit?

I sat down for coffee this week and listened as a girlfriend asked the same question about herself. She has no clue why she decided to start stealing from the company that she had worked for all her adult life. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the only answer she had? “I figured out I could take it and I did. The more I took, the more I wanted.”

Her kids are so embarrassed that they don’t want contact with her; her husband left her for another woman in the midst of this debacle. She has no money for a lawyer (ironic), and at this point, she figures at least in jail she’ll have a roof over her head and three meals per day. Eve and my friend share a powerful story. Every addiction story is a re-creation of Eve’s tumble in the garden.

My friend is deeply discouraged by the cycle of addiction:

* freedom - which became willfulness

* which was enticed by desire

* when mixed with temptation equaled attachment,

* ultimately resulting in the fall. She sees this as an endless cycle of despair.

I, however, disagree – as gently as possible! I think this story is headed somewhere. Although I am terrible at predicting who will make the journey successfully and who will not, I am convinced that this repetitive struggle with falling is preparing us for grace.


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