I recently attended a conference dealing with church health, and since relationships is really what church is all about, one of the speakers spoke about the 1st relationships that ever existed and what happened to them. Of course I'm referring to the Genesis account in the Bible. God created Adam & Eve and had this cool relationship with them where He would meet with them and walk & talk with them every morning and evening. Life at that point must of been awesome! Then in chapter 3, sin enters and the relationships begin to fracture, one after the other.
When God shows up for the evening walk and looking for them, where are Adam & Eve? Hiding, because now they are afraid. That's the first relationship that's fractured, the one they had with God until the moment they sinned.
God wants to know why they are hiding, and Adam says it's because they are naked. Until they sinned they were just fine with their nakedness; now they are ashamed of it. That's the 2nd relationship that was shattered; their self-esteem and how they saw themselves, their significance.
When God questions Adam, who does Adam blame? Eve. Who does Eve blame? 'The devil made me do it!' The 3rd relationship now fractured.
As a result of their actions, God now has to make them leave the Garden of Eden, fracturing their relationship with the earth; and man has had to toil to survive by the sweat of his brow ever since.
Did you notice the order in which these fractured relationships took place? 1st, God & man - then man & his self-image - next husband and wife - finally man and his environment. Now here's the notion; what if this order of fractured relationships never changes? We spend vast amounts of time, money, and energy trying to correct our broken relationships with our spouses and others who are significant in our lives; when it's quite possible that doing so is only 'putting a band-aid' on the real issue, which is our fractured relationship with God and our own self-image. I have to admit, it's got me thinking.
PJ
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