It is human nature to desire to be perfect. In essence, we want to be God, and since God is perfect in every aspect, we desire to be perfect in every aspect. But regardless of how hard we try, we’ll never make it. We are sinful people. Living in a sinful world. Our lives are filled with temporary pain and struggle, where the ultimate joy and perfection comes after we die to ourselves and live with Christ.
But it got me to think…there was a time when we were able to experience “perfection”. A pure mindset and pure motives led to living in a perfect world. And this all happened before the fall of man, before sin entered the world through Adam and Eve. God created Adam and Eve to worship Him and have fellowship with Him, and placed them in the perfect land. But after being tempted by Satan, they desired to be God instead of truly worshipping Him, and chose to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And with one bite, sin entered the world and the face humanity was never going to be the same. (Praise God we’ve been redeemed through the blood of Christ and are able to get back into the perfection of heaven and union with God when all is said and done).
But what about the time before the apple eating fiasco? In the eyes of everyone, everything was perfect. After the fall, God cursed the world, basically, as a consequence and punishment for their actions (our God is a loving God flowing of grace and mercy [Jesus Christ, case and point], but He is also a just God). But its not like God created new acts and scenarios, and then cursed those things (stick with me here). The things God cursed were already occurring in the world, just in a pure sense. Sin caused a curse of pain and toil and suffering to enter into areas of life where things were…well, perfect.
It’s mindboggling to think of life before the fall, because that’d be life before the curses. God cursed the women with ‘greatly increase[d] pain in childbearing’ and the ‘desire [to] be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’ And to Adam, he went all out, telling him that he now has to toil the earth painfully in order to find food to eat for the rest of his life, and the plants and things that do spring up will now be covered with thorns and thistles as well (look at previous post of “The Rose”). These curses weren’t about new things, but just a new consequence for them. Meaning, before the fall, childbearing would have been alot less painful, maybe even painless. Can you imagine that? I mean, I still don’t think it’s as bad as people say, but painless? That’d be crazy. (Females, my apologies…I truly have no idea what childbirth feels like…I’m sure it’s like the worst pain ever). Also, before the fall, even if you were to be married, your desire would still purely be for God. you could be married to someone and still have a sole desire for God and God alone. That’d be amazing.
But with every consequence God has given us thus far (up until the final judgment) we have grace to carry us through. Although there is pain in childbirth, there is still joy in the family life. Even though we must work hard to survive here on earth, we receive temporary satisfaction in meeting those accomplishments. And even though sin has forced the greatest separation between man and God, God gave us Jesus Christ to be the bridge. We live in a world of pain and struggle, but for rest of eternity we have the option of choosing paradise. God is so good. It’s the golden lining to everything.