“This was the nerve the serpent had touched in Eden, to make even Paradise appear an insult” (Derek Kidner).
If you ever find yourself thinking, ‘God must be holding something back from me’, you are not alone. God had given the most amazing place to live, and yet, the devil crept up and whispered a lie that sank deep down into Eve’s heart “God doesn’t love you.” Eve had had no reason to doubt God’s love until this point. God had been so good to her and to Adam. But what did Satan do, he caused her to doubt God’s Word and to think that somehow God must not love her.
The results were devastating, sin entered the world, relationships were broken, the creation cursed and death began to march relentlessly so that by the time we reach Genesis 5 we hear the refrain “and he died.”
All this devastation because man and woman were not content to let God be God and to enjoy what He gave them. How we should hate sin! How can we guard ourselves? One way to protect ourselves from the devil’s lies is to keep reading God’s Word so that we know how good God is.
Today’s reading not only covers Genesis 3-5, but also brings us to Mark 2. Here we meet a man devastated by the effects of sin. He can’t walk. I know something of this pain as my son cannot walk, but he has a wheelchair. This man didn’t even have a wheelchair! He had to be carried everywhere. It wasn’t that he was a worse sinner than anyone else, but he was just caught up in the brokenness of this world. When he meets Jesus, we see the goodness and love of God. Jesus deals with the man’s biggest problem first – he forgives his sin! I’m always struck what this teaches about the seriousness of sin, it is more serious to be unforgiven than to be unable to walk for the rest of life. Why? Unforgiven sin will lead to eternal suffering, being unable to walk will only last a lifetime. Yet Jesus is so good, not only does he forgive sin, he restores the man, giving him a wonderful foretaste of how good God’s kingdom is. He deals with the man’s light and momentary trouble and gives him an eternal weight of glory!
Where are you tempted to doubt the love of God? Will you ask for His help to take Him at His Word and trust that He is good? And whenever you fail, come to Jesus, the one who loves us and gave himself for us.
Light and Momentary Troubles 
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