The Fall

I've been thinking a lot lately about the Creation story. My understanding of the Bible's message is 'LOVE LOVE LOVE GOD IS LOVE GOD SO LOVED LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOURSELF just LOVE, OK', and it's really interesting to look at the story of the Fall in this light.  Whether or not you believe that the Creation story is mystical myth or historical fact (and, so far as I'm concerned, why shouldn't it be true? If you're going to believe in an all-powerful God who can make water turn into wine and make virgins have babies and raise the dead, why not believe in the Genesis stuff too?) - it's still always worth thinking about.
At the beginning, before sin entered the world, there was just God and humanity, loving each other, no cruelty, selfishness, sadness, etc. There was only one commandment: don't eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. Just one rule? Based on another unspoken statement: 'God is good, He loves you, He made this rule because he loves you.'
Some people talk like the whole 'don't eat the fruit' thing was super unfair of God - 'Ooooh, look, He put the tree right in the middle of the garden and made an arbitrary rule about it - He must want them to fail!' The way I look at it: God wants human beings who are genuinely capable of love and relationship - not robots who have no choice. Love is always a choice! Desire is not always a choice - but love is! So He gave humanity a choice - just one little choice - and to choose to obey was to choose to trust in His love for them. God didn't start the world with a whole giant list of rules to keep and complicated standards to follow - just one simple rule, hinging on the love-trust relationship that He wanted but did not force on His children. If anything, this situation was ridiculously simple!
So when Eve ate the fruit she wasn't just rebelling against an arbitrary rule set to be broken - she was faltering in her trust of God - she believed the snake's lie 'God doesn't want you to be happy = God mustn't really love you' so she tried to safeguard herself by listening to the snake and trying to become like God. The trust was broken. (Adam's sin was double - not because he 'should have stopped her' or any rubbish nonsense like that - because he not only committed the same sin, but also proceeded to set up the precedent of men blaming women for masculine sin!)



So the loving relationship was broken because of fear and insecurity - love without trust cannot create real relationship. There are so many relationships in my life that I just feel so insecure about - I panic and overanalyse and beat myself up because I just don't trust that I am really loved by people - I don't trust in their love for me and that makes relationship really hard.
That's why I think faith is the most important thing about the us-God dynamic - why we refer to our relationship with God as 'faith'. Because without trust, without faith in the faithfulness of God, we cannot have relationship with God and perfect love - a holy and joyous fulfillment of our purpose as people!

I want the 'perfect love that drives out fear', I want to trust in the Lord with all my heart, soul and strength - I want to show my love for God in my love for everyone... but I'm held back by my lack of trust, my insecurity, my lack of faith. I think we should all pray for one another to be gifted with that necessary, life-giving love that drives away fear and fills our hearts with contentment and purpose.