Our first parents had one job: gardening. No weeds, no pests, just maintenance on a perfect ecosystem created for them by God. Agriculture at its best. And they get to eat all this wonderful fruit from all the trees, including the Tree of Life, which makes them immortal. Day after day they have perfect health. Day after day they never age.
They also had one rule – only one: don’t eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
It’s not the “tree of knowledge;” God loves knowledge. Knowing God is the beginning of knowledge. This tree was not forbidden because God was anti-education or anti-knowledge, or because God was a killjoy; the tree was forbidden because it would bring the concept of evil into the human consciousness. This fruit – I picture weird shaped fruit with an odd color and fragrance – would give Adam the ability to see evil options, to drink in not just the good, but to conceive bad thoughts, to design wicked plans, and to carry them out. This fruit would bring harm to the human heart, and our souls, infecting people with bad thoughts, words, and deeds, and the fruit would bring brokenness to people and their environment. God forbids the things that harm us, because they hurt us, and ultimately they kill us. One rule: don’t eat the harmful fruit. One job: farming. Simple, right?
Prayer: Give us eyes to see the good You have created, hearts to absorb it, minds to know Your good, and the will to do it. In Jesus’ name, amen.