I'd be Happy If...

By Sharon James
www.girlfriendsingod.com



"The thief (Satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I (Jesus) have come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly" John 10:10 (DARBY).

I'd be happy if... If you begin a sentence with those words, then beware. Those little words of discontentment are the very words that Satan uses to draw us into his deceitful traps. I'd be happy if I were married. I'd be happy if I had children. I'd be happy if I had a different husband. I'd be happy if I had more money. All these thoughts take our focus away from the blessings that we do have.

And it's nothing new. This is the same old story that began in the Garden of Eden with the same antagonist deceiving the leading lady. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the very beginning.

Five days after time began, the Creator of the Universe gazed at all He had made and was not completely satisfied. Yes, as the sun set on each of the first five days on God's kingdom calendar, He said, "It is good." But there was something missing. Something more. Someone more.

The stage was set for Act 6. The curtain rose. Everything had to be perfect for God's grand finale. The angels gathered round as God announced the final scene on the grand drama of "In the Beginning."

God began with an announcement..."Let us make man in Our own image."
This being will be different from all the rest. With body, soul, and spirit, man will enter into a relationship with the Creator on a personal and intimate level. He will be just a little lower than the angels and rule over the animals that creep on the earth, the fowl that soar in the sky, and the fish that swim in the sea. Man will be God's friend.

So God knelt on the ground and gathered a handful of dirt. He spat on the dust and began forming the most magnificent creation to date. With His very fingertips, God fashioned man's inward parts: capillaries, nerve endings, brain cells, hair follicles, eyelashes, taste buds. Meticulously and deliberately, the Artist created a masterpiece of divine design.

And as the lifeless form lay before the celestial audience, God placed His mouth upon the nostrils of man and breathed life into his waiting lungs. A collective gasp ran through the crowd as man's lungs filled with holy oxygen and he took his first breath. As if God flipped the breaker switch of life, man's heart began beating, the lungs began expanding, and the eyes began fluttering open to see. And the curtain began to fall on this, the sixth day of creation.

"Wait!" the Creator cried. "My work is not done. It is not good for man to be alone! I will create a helper suitable for him. A companion like him, but yet, oh so different."

So, mid-air, the curtain rises to expose the day, and God -- the Us, the Three-In-One, began to fashion the grand finale...woman.

Can't you just see it now? Can't you sense the excitement of the angels as they hovered low? From the very beginning of time, man was set apart. He was uniquely designed for a specific purpose as God's image bearer to rule the earth.

But there was one among the onlookers that day who watched with evil intent. Yes, he was among the created angelic beings, one of the most beautiful, in fact. But he wasn't happy with God's creation. Earlier, this angelic being decided he didn't particularly like his position in the heavenly order. He wanted to elevate himself above God. And while he had been created to be a light-bearer, his rebellion resulted in being thrown to the earth to become known as the Prince of Darkness.

Now there were these...humans...created in God's image. The enemy was not pleased. As soon as Adam and Eve stood on the stage, the Prince of Darkness began to devise their demise. If he was going down, he was going to take as many of these image bearers with him as possible.

Adam and Eve lived in a perfect world. All their needs were cared for. They had perfect communion with God and each other. They were "naked and unashamed." The only restriction placed on them was that they were not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil located in the middle of the Garden. God warned them, "If you eat of it, you will surely die."

As they basked in the light of God's love, darkness slithered into the Garden with his plan to kill, steal and destroy the image bearers. And how did he do it? He did it with the most powerful weapon of all...lies.

"Now the serpent..." The great deceiver clothed himself as a serpent and slithered up to Eve with a game plan to destroy God's prized possession. He didn't come with a sword, or gun, or even a knife for his attack. He simply wielded lies.

The serpent knew Adam and Eve would not buy into a radical flamboyant denial of God, so he slithered into the garden with a twist and a turn of the truth. He began by causing Eve to doubt... "Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?" (Genesis 3:1).

Satan knew exactly what God had said. He was simply trying to confuse Eve. Perhaps he was evaluating just how well she knew the truth. He found out.
"We may eat fruit from the tress in the garden," Eve replied, "but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die'" (Genesis 3:3).

Bingo. She didn't know the truth that well after all. God never mentioned not touching the fruit. That seems like a pretty good idea, but it was not what God said.

Second he denied God and lied about the consequences of disobedience. Satan said, "You will not surely die" (3:4). He didn't even try to disguise the deception. He told a flat-out lie.

Finally, he told her she could be like God: "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). In other words, "God doesn't know what He's talking about. He's holding out on you. You don't need Him. You can be your own god."

Eve rejected the truth and believed the lie. She believed that she could be like God ... in control of her own life. "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" (Genesis 3:6).

And as she sunk her teeth into the forbidden fruit of deception and the lie slid down her delicate throat, the temptation settled in her soul and fermented into shame and condemnation. Her husband, who chose the woman over God, also felt the sickening rot of sin settle in his very soul. Suddenly shame and fear entered the world, and Adam and Eve hid from God like wayward children.

All temptation is an attempt to get us to live our lives independent of God. Satan is not very creative, but he is very effective. And he has been lying to us ever since. Why? Because it works.
Every one of his lies springs from the idea that happiness is just a decision away. Satan wants you to believe God is holding out on you; you can be like God; you can be your own god. Rather than being thankful for what we do have, he points out what we don't have. Think about it. Eve had at her disposal every tree in the garden except one. Every one! That is a smorgasbord of goodness! Rather than being thankful, she bought the lie that the one thing she couldn't have was the one thing that would make her happy. I would be happy if... Is any of this sounding familiar to you? It should. Satan uses the same tactics with us that he used with Eve.

Eve believed the enemy's lie over God's truth. His plan worked. But what the serpent did not know was that God's amazing plan of forgiveness and grace was about to unfold. Satan did not win the battle for man's soul in the garden. Jesus Christ won the war on Calvary's Cross. When Jesus said, "It is finished," and then breathed his last, He made a way for all mankind to regain all that Adam and Eve had lost.

A pearl to string: Your thoughts are not truth just because you think them. If they condemn you in any way they are not from God. You know God is talking to you when tuning towards God and His way rather than feeling guilt ridden crumby becomes the desire of your heart.

"Don't be deceived, my dear brothers (and sisters). Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows" James 1:16, 17 (NIV).


May heaven's blue be in the eyes of your heart,
Lyndi