A Bad Choice

In the beginning, when God made the world, he made the first mommy and daddy, Adam and Eve.  He made a garden to be their home.  God told them to be the boss of all the animals.  Can you imagine telling the lions it was time to go to sleep now?  Or telling the rabbits to come close so you could pet them?  God told them to take care of the plants in the garden, too.  There was fruit growing on the trees, and Adam and Eve could eat whatever they wanted, except for one tree in the middle of the garden.  That tree was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told them if they ate from that tree, they would die. God didn't want us to die, so he warned us.  Every day when it was cool, God came and walked in the garden with Adam and Eve and talked with them.  Adam and Eve didn't have a mom and dad, but God was a father to them.  Their hearts were connected to God's heart.  But there was a very sneaky animal in the garden who did not love Adam and Eve.  Or God.  It was a snake.  One day the snake made trouble come to the garden.  He said to Eve, "Did God really say not to eat from every tree in the garden?"  Eve answered,"God said you shall not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, because you will die."  The snake said to Eve, "You will not die."  He said that God was telling a lie.  Do you think that God would lie?  No, God is good, and He tells us the truth.  But the snake said, "God doesn't want you to eat that fruit because if you eat it you will be smart like God, and you will be able to make your own choices about what is good and what is bad."  He was telling Eve that God wasn't a good Father, and that she should disobey him.  Oh no, now Eve was going to make her own choice.  Should she obey God?  Or would she obey the snake?  If the snake was right, then she wasn't going to die, she was going to be smart!  She decided to stop letting God be the boss of her.  She took some of the fruit and gave some to her husband, too.  When they had eaten the fruit, their hearts were no longer connected to God.  They knew there was something wrong with them, and they were sad and afraid.  They looked at each other and wanted to hide.  So they made clothes out of leaves to cover themselves up.  Then they heard God coming, so they hid behind some trees.  God called out, "Adam, where are you?"  Adam answered God and told him he was afraid, because he wasn't dressed, and that he was hiding.  God said, "Is there something wrong with you now?  Did you disobey me and eat from that tree?"  Adam pointed his finger at Eve and said "The woman that you gave me, Eve, - she gave me fruit from that tree."  Adam was telling on her!  So God asked Eve what she had done, and she told on the snake!  She said, "The snake lied to me, and so I ate."  God was upset with the snake, and he told the snake that from now on he would have to crawl on his belly and eat dust.  He said because the snake had been bad that from now on people and snakes would be enemies.  He also said that the woman was wrong. From now on her husband was going to be the boss over her, and now she was going to have extra pain when she had babies.  When we do something wrong, there is a punishment, isn't there?  Sometimes we get a spanking, sometimes there is a time out.  There was a consequence for Adam, too.  God would have to send them out of the garden.  From now on, the man would have to work very hard and it wouldn't be easy.  Because the man had disobeyed God, the ground was going to grow weeds and stickers, and the man would get really sweaty.  And the worst thing of all was that death now had come into the world. Before they ate from that tree, the man and the woman were never sick and they wouldn't die.  But now, because they disobeyed, the man and the woman were going to die at the end of their lives instead of staying with God.  This is a sad story.  We want to obey and be connected to God.  God wants to be close to us, too.  If you have disobeyed God, or your mom and dad, tell them you are sorry and ask them to forgive you.