May 12, 2026:

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“To Adam He said, ‘Because you listened to the woman and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you must not eat, I tell you- cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.’”

(Genesis 3.17)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Hear this, mighty ones of God, “From dust you came and to dust you shall return.” It is to easy a thing to consider that what is intended in this verse (Genesis 3.19) is simply about the cycle of life which passes into death. It is far more complex than that as the full cycle of life is about repentance, consequences, discipline and restoration. Adam confessed (though he included Eve as the fault and thus included the Serpent, and rightly so.) The consequences was God’s displeasure for their disobedience: first, Adam, and then Eve. Their sign of accountability were the animal skins which God procured through the sacrifice of innocent lambs. These were the first deaths of the world now thrown into chaos by their sin which God now had to restore. Their discipline was clear. They would have to leave the Garden and enter into the world to be witnesses of God’s forgiveness, mercy, grace and restoration back into the fold. Their penance was to experience life as it was not intended to be. Theirs was a seeking of righteousness expressed in their works. For Eve, it would be in painful childbearing and child raising experiencing the heart aches and inner conflicts with bringing life into the world. Adam did not experience this when God put him to sleep and surgically removed a rib from his side with which He would bring forth woman. She was wholly part of him: bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. In a way, it was a type of Caesarian birth that Eve came into the world and Adam was the “womb” from which she had been delivered. Now she, in turn, would be the vehicle of life delivery except this would come by man and not by God.

For Adam, there was a far different story: “For out of dust he came and back to dust he would return.” Adam was committed to work the soil out of which he came at God’s command. His life would be filled with duty and obligation. His family would be dependent on him for sustenance and guidance. Sadly, his failure would cost the life of a son because he did not explain the situation as well as he should. It was not much different than when he didn’t intervene between Satan and Eve. They didn’t physically die and what the Serpent said was in part true. Yet, they did die. They lost their innocence and purity and holiness. Their lives and those of their descendants would forever walk a path in the world that could never get back to what it once was. There was and is a price to pay for not trusting and believing God and following His direction even if we don’t and especially when we don’t understand it. It isn’t about knowing everything we are to know. It is about keeping the relationship strong with the One who does.

TODAY’S PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.