I Need My Own Faith

    I was reading Genesis 3, the fall of man, last Sunday evening. I had read Genesis 1 and 2 earlier, and after God blessed and taught me things from chapter 1, I wanted to continue. He started revealing things to me again in chapter 3.

    In chapter 3, the serpent tricks Eve and then Adam into eating from the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 2:9. Down in verse 16 and 17 'And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."

    Down in chapter 3, the serpent goes over and talks to Eve, twists God's words, and convinces Eve that she will not die if she eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So she takes it and sees that it's yummy, and then gives some to Adam, who was also hanging out. The way it lines up in the text, Eve is the first to sin, and then Adam follows after. For a time, someone had suggested that they both sinned at the same time because if Adam had been leading his family aka his wife, to the Lord, like any good godly man does, then he would have spoken up and redirected Eve away from the serpent and the tree of life. Assuming that she would have listened. I don’t always listen to hubby when he is trying to lead me. But he didn't speak up. He was there just hanging out, and then when Eve offered him some fruit, he took it and ate. I admit that for a while I liked this view point. I suspect that was during my more feminist days. I now call myself a recovering feminist. Because being a feminist is not what God wants for His daughters. But that is a post for another day. Anyways, I enjoyed blaming Adam instead of Eve for a while.

    Well, while I was reading Sunday evening, God revealed this passage to me in a new and fresh way. In a beautiful way that I needed to hear. He reminded me that I needed to have my own faith and relationship with Him outside of my relationship with God that I share with my husband. Our marriage has a relationship with God, but we also have to have individual relationships with Him as well. It was a beautiful, gentle reminder to seek God for myself and not to simply follow my husband. I am to submit to my husband, but my relationship with God is supposed to be my own. I knew He was right and have been working on strengthening that relationship ever since.

    I then told hubby about the revolution that God gave me. He reminded me that he had said the same thing several times recently. He was right, he had said that exact thing a couple of times in the last few weeks. I knew he was right then, but I guess I wasn't ready to hear it then. I apologized to him for not listening to him earlier. Understandably, I think he was a little upset that I didn't listen to him sooner, but at the end of the day, he simply wants me to get closer to God, which is what I'm working on now.

    I suggested to him that it was a 'right person at the right time' situation. Meaning that someone, usually your spouse, can say something and you don't believe them, and then someone outside of your family says the same thing later on, and you listen to the second person. This results in your spouse feeling a little hurt.  Hubby isn't in it for the glory or anything, of course, he simply just wants me to grow closer to God. He wants to make sure that when the time comes, we are both going to heaven.

    So, I have been digging into The Word more and asking the Holy Spirit to bring The Scripture alive in a fresh way to me, and deepening my prayer life.

    I pray this encourages you to deepen your relationship with God and not rely on your spouse or other family members' relationships with God to be your relationship with God.

God Bless

~Hannah