Love Week1

 Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.   Genesis 1.29

A primary evidence of love is giving. Can there be a surer index of love? Shakespeare said, ‘They do not love that do not show their love.’ In this Genesis passage, no sooner are Adam and Eve created than their loving Creator says, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth. . .They will be yours for food.’ Human beings are barely created when they receive from God a gift, the earth itself.

One can only imagine, ‘Mr. and Mrs. First Folks' saying ‘No God, it is too much! All this for us?’

God might have replied, ‘Yes, it is all for you. You must learn in receiving this gift from me that I love you. And while your descendants may someday think that they can give without loving, no one can ever love without giving. Here on the first day of your existence, receive this present, this planet, as evidence that I am God, and God is love. Then you will know that you were made and given this world as an evidence of my love. My desire toward my children is to keep on showing them my love forever.’

In the next chapters of Genesis, an  unthinkable pageant unfolds. Adam and Eve disobey. Having been loved to the level of paradise, they abandon God’s love for the plastic pleasures of all God has forbidden.  The first sin is not only bad because it’s first, it’s bad because it takes the holy, pure love of heaven and refuses to honour it. As a result of such reprehensible treatment of God’s love, the gates of Eden slam shut. Adam and Eve’s exile was not only their punishment, it was the prequel to all those who see the love of God and turn their backs on it.

The seeds of human desperation lie at every refusal to cherish the most valuable treasure in the world, the love of God.