Lent day 2

Genesis 2:16-17New International Version (NIV)

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Ch 3   4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side[a] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

We've read this, heard this, known this for ever - it is hard to get anything new from the story of the fall.  Well, hard for me anyway.   Chapman in his book Forty Days of Grace  talks about the sense of guilt and shame experienced by Adam and Eve the moment they realised that they had done wrong.  They have a conscience and it is fully activated at the moment of the fall - because they have eaten of the tree of knowledge and now they know exactly what they have done.  They are aware of their own sin.  They are aware of the disappointment and sadness and anger of God.  They know they are naked and they are ashamed.  They discover how to lay blame on someone else and shift responsibility.  They quickly work out how to hide.  

And I'm no different.

Isn't it a good thing that we have the capacity to feel guilt?  To know when we have stepped over the line of righteousness into unrighteousness.  Regardless of whether we have a relationship with God or not, everyone who is not a psychopath has a conscience.  God has seen fit to furnish us with a still small voice which makes us feel bad when we go wrong.  Why?  So that we can repent.  So that we can make amends, be sorry, learn from our mistakes.  Imagine what it would be like if we did not have that capacity??   It's never comfortable to feel guilty or ashamed.  It's never easy to say sorry or to make recompense for wrongdoing.  But how much worse would our world be there was no such thing as a conscience?