The Misguided Homing Device

            Adam and Eve’s story is not just a “once upon a time” story; it is also the story of every human being. The beginning of all sin—the origin of all that is unloving—is a judgment about God. We embrace a picture of God that is less loving, less beautiful, less full of life, less gracious, and less glorious than the true God really is. From this, everything that attaches to sin, everything that characterizes life “in Adam” (1 Cor. 15:22) and life in “the flesh” (Rom. 7:5; 8:4–8) follows. When our picture of God is distorted, we can no longer trust God to be the source of our life. It is impossible to live in God’s love if we don’t believe God is love.

            This deceptive picture of God in turn leads to sinful, idolatrous behavior. As we have seen, we are created with a nonnegotiable need for the love, worth, significance, and companionship that only the true God can provide. We are created to have the perfect, triune love (that God is) poured into us and flow through us. This is the abundant life we were created to enjoy and which the Enemy wants to steal and destroy (John 10:10). If the deceiving Accuser is successful in distorting our mental picture of God so that God appears incapable or unwilling to give us life, we invariably look elsewhere to find life, and the abundant life God alone can give us is lost.

            We might say that, under the power of a judgment about God, the need-based “homing device” that was intended to drive us to God now drives us to try to fill the God-shaped vacuum in our hearts with other things. Like a starving man imprisoned in a dungeon for whom insects begin to look tantalizing after a while, our hunger for God begins to give other things the illusory appearance of being viable candidates for filling the hole in our soul.

            Believing the serpent’s lie, Eve “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6). Undoubtedly the tree would not have seemed so desirable if Eve had been viewing things accurately. If she had remained yielded to God rather than believing the serpent’s accusation about God, the prospect of disobeying God and eating from the forbidden tree—of going beyond the “No Trespassing” sign—would not have been appealing to her. If she had viewed the tree with a full soul rather than a hungry one, she wouldn't have seen it as “good for food,” a “delight to the eyes,” and “desired to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6). It was only because she was seeing the tree through the filter of her judgment and consequent emptiness that she saw something this life-destroying as life-supplying. In her new perception, violating God’s “No Trespassing” sign seemed to offer her something she did not have.