Broken

I watched a documentary recently on a couple of basketball players, Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic, called “Once Brothers.” If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it on YouTube.

It documents the friendship between these two men and how it was broken during the civil war in Yugoslavia. Divac said in the documentary, “To build a friendship takes years. But to destroy it, it takes one second.”

As I read Genesis 3, it brought those words to mind. We don’t know how many years Adam and Eve spent in the garden of Eden before the fall, but during that time, they had a wonderful relationship of openness, honesty, love, and acceptance with each other and with God.

So many people long for the perfect marriage. That’s exactly what Adam and Eve had. So many people long for a close relationship with God. That’s exactly what Adam and Eve had.

Day after day, Adam and Eve worked in the garden with each other, perhaps went for hikes when their work was done, enjoyed the great food God had provided, and in general just enjoyed each others’ company throughout the day.

And when evening came, and God came into the garden for a visit, they enjoyed sweet fellowship with him too.

I’m sure God enjoyed hearing about their activities and adventures throughout the day. He probably answered a lot of the questions they had as they learned more about the world he had created just for them.

For years, perhaps, they enjoyed building their relationship with each other. But then in an instant, it was gone.

You know the story. Adam and Eve ate the fruit God had forbidden them to eat. As soon as they did, shame and insecurity came into their relationship. They tried to hide their bodies from each other by making clothes from fig leaves.

Gone was the openness that they had previously had in their relationship. Instead questions like, “Can he accept me?” and “Can she really love me?” started to pop up in their minds.

And when God walked into the garden, instead of racing out to meet him, they ran away. They hid.

When God confronted them, the brokenness in the relationship between Adam and Eve and in their relationship with God became even more evident.

“God! It’s not my fault I ate. It was this woman! It’s her fault! I never asked for her! YOU gave her to me!”

How must Eve have felt when she heard those words from Adam’s lips? Condemnation. Rejection.

How must God have felt? “Not only have you rejected me, but you have rejected this precious gift I made especially for you.”

All those years of sweet fellowship…broken in a moment.

And yet…from the moment that fellowship was broken, God started working to restore that fellowship.

He made clothes for them, and in doing so, he showed the way that fellowship would be restored.

Death came into the world for the first time, as God killed an animal and used it to make clothes to cover their shame. And in the same way, thousands of years later, God would send his Son, and through his death on the cross, our sin and shame would be covered for all time.

Our relationships are a struggle now. We struggle with each other. I’d be lying if I said my marriage is perfect. There are times my wife and I fight. There are times we let each other down.

I struggle in my relationship with God. I really wish I could be closer to him, as Adam and Eve once were. I wish I could hear his voice more clearly. I wish I could enjoy sweet fellowship with him every day. But I don’t.

And yet, the way to restoration has already been established in Christ. Pursue it.

It’s easy to throw relationships away. Don’t do it. Pursue your relationship with God and with each other.

It takes effort, and it takes humility.

But by God’s grace and power, that which is broken can be restored.

God did it with Adam and Eve.

He can do it with you.