“To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.’”
—Genesis 3:17 NIV

We live in a world that celebrates the maxim: “you can be whoever you want to be.”

Now, I agree with this concept in the sense that we shouldn’t let other people dictate our goals and aspirations or tell us who we are or who we are not.

However, core to the biblical worldview is the teaching that God created each of us with an identity and plan in mind.

He defines that.

If we look at Genesis 3, the story about the first or “original” sin, we will see that when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were essentially saying: “God, we no longer want to take your word for it; we want to define good and evil for ourselves.”

Today, we see this at play all the time.

We want to be our own God. We want to replace him on his throne.

And the end result? Cursed ground.

When we try to become our own God and redefine good and evil for ourselves, we end up stepping outside of the blessing that comes with following God’s word.

Here is a simple prayer to carry with you today:

Breathe in: God,
Breathe out: Help me trust you.