March is the month of Eve, a month where Seele is looking at the first woman from 6 angles, over a period of 6 weeks. We’ve looked at: Eve, A Unique Woman; Eve, The First Dressmaker; Eve, the Strength and Power to Her Husband; Eve, the First to hear About Jesus. Though Eve made a costly mistake by listening to the serpent, she is still significant, fascinating and there’s a lot that we can learn from her and apply to our lives.

This week we will look at “Eve, the Completion of Relationship.”

When we look at God: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we see three distinct persons, and each of the three persons is fully and entirely One. When we read Genesis 1, we see that the 3 always existed from creation until this very moment that we are in now.

But what I am trying to get at is that the 3 are and have been in relationship with one another- always. God is relationship, He is about relationships, and He created us to be in relationship. He created us to share in a relationship with Him, to not be independent, but dependent, in the sense that relationship (what He is with Himself) would play out in the lives of humans. Not by force, but by choice.

But in choosing to carry on a conversation with the serpent in Genesis 3:1, Eve, with Adam right there watching the whole thing, decided to break in their relationship with God. In doing this, Eve and her husband decided to be independent.

Remember when I wrote above that God created us to be in relationships? God created Adam first, but Adam was lonely and unfulfilled with only animals (Genesis 2:22)- he longed for a companion like him. Eve was hidden within Adam and formed from his rib. So at the right time when Adam was ready for marriage and its commitment, God removed Eve from within Adam. Eve was purposed from the beginning, but was only brought out of Adam when he was mature and ready for her.

Also remember when I wrote last week: “by her [Eve] creation as female, creation was complete?” When Eve was created, what God was doing was creating what He is essentially Himself: relationship. And God gave the gift of relationship to man. As so wonderfully put by the character of Jesus in the book: The Shack: “She, out of him, and not all the males, including me, birthed through her, and all originating, or birthed, from God.”

Because God purposed us to live in relationship, like He is, but Eve and her husband decided to break from this. They chose independence and we see that in the selfishness of mankind today. We, like our first parents want our independence, but get angry with God who loves us enough to give it to us. As a result of our first parents wanting independence, we get murder, stealing and injustice.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit could have scrapped all of creation after Eve’s choice to listen to the serpent, which led to the fall of us all. But God being the “real man” that He is, rolled up his sleeves, and entered into our mess. We see this in what Jesus did.

I assume that if Eve would have seen the whole picture, knowing that she was the completion of creation, a representation of the relationship that in God has within Himself, that she would have walked past the serpent in Genesis 3:1. She wouldn’t have even stopped to listen to his sales pitch to eat the forbidden fruit. But, it is what it is, and one thing that we can take away from all this is that God truly wants us to strive to live in community with one another. This means caring for others, helping those who help themselves (and sometimes others who don’t), it means offering our gifts and talents to the world, and bearing one another’s burdens within reason.

What are ways that you, and I can live in relationship with others, the way God designed us to?

Happy Friday!