A common dilemma: Getting it wrong, again

I love to ponder the story of the Garden of Eden as it is written in Genesis.  Recently I had some new thoughts. When thinking about Adam and Eve, it occurred to me that their problem was not so much eating the forbidden fruit, but in thinking that that fruit would make them like God. If you read Chapter two carefully, you see that the tree is called "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (2:17).  It is as if the author is trying to tell us that knowing good and evil does not equate becoming godly or God-like. We need more.

I wonder if the real reason Adam and Eve are removed from the Garden of Eden was not because they sinned, but because they failed to understand. God had given them everything they could want. Yet, with all their blessings, they didn't know where to look for growth. They thought it would come from something outside of themselves.

By being cast into a harsh world, Adam and Eve actually had a better chance. Not having the beauty or comforts of Eden, their search had to turn inward.  They had to realize that growth starts, not in something outside of themselves, but within their own hearts, with pondering and reflection.

It is a lesson for you and me.  Perhaps we too fail in our search for God when things are going well and life seems blessed. Perhaps we think we can find God in the fruit of success and the taste of accomplishment. And perhaps the difficulties we encounter are meant to help us retreat from searching outside of ourselves, so that we will search within. 

That brings us to the real question, where is the Garden of Eden? Is it some beautiful place of long ago, closed to us forever? Or is it a hidden place, one we can and must discover for ourselves? I think it is the latter. And I think that we find that Garden when we retreat and reflect. For the secret of the Garden is really that God walked with his creation. And when we find God, we have by that very definition, discovered our own Garden of Eden. For what is the Garden but a place where God is close to us, and we no longer need to seek the Divine in the things outside.