indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. – 2 Corinthians 1:9

Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden was not actually eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam’s sin was rebellion. Eating of the tree was Adam’s rebellion put into action. Adam’s rebellion began in his heart. He became convinced that God was holding out on him. It was not enough that God gave everything to Adam for his enjoyment. The one thing God withheld was at the center of Adam’s sin of rebellion.

Adam is not alone in his rebellion. We struggle with this prime sin daily. We forsake the clear teachings of Scripture for our own way. When we do so we have rebelled against God. Sometimes our rebellion is actually confused with virtue. When we follow Frank Sinatra’s advice, and do it “my way”, we are contenting ourselves with out own counsel and not God’s. Typically the end result is akin to disaster.

This past Lord’s Day we sang a hymn titled, “I am a Wandering Sheep”. Like sheep we are prone to wander into other fields and get ourselves into trouble. Because we are prone to such wanderings, God reserves the right to bring difficulties into our lives in order to cause us to trust in Him. For Paul and his companions, God brought a serious adversity into their lives to the point where they despaired even of life. Death seemed preferable than life. But God did this “so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God”.

When God brings you to your knees through illness, financial setbacks, relationship problems, spiritual crisis, loss of a  job et. al; it is to cause you to trust in Him and not in yourself. God’s ways are better than our ways (Jer. 29:11). It is hard to believe that when we are in the midst of adversity. Also, God does not promise to remove our adversity. He does promise to give us the grace to endure it (2 Cor. 12:9). And there is coming a day when all adversity will be done away with. Maranatha! Even so, come Lord Jesus!