Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, † knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Something that’s puzzled me for a long time, about twenty years, is why God told Adam not to eat from that one tree in the garden - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why would God want to keep us from knowledge of any kind, but especially, why would God want to keep us from knowledge of good and evil?

A breakthrough came for me when I learned that the Hebrew for “good and evil” might also be translated, or even better translated, “good and bad.” The idea isn’t that God wanted to prevent Adam from knowing the difference between right and wrong, or from having moral discernment. Rather, the tree in question is the tree of awareness of good and bad, desirable and undesirable, pleasure and pain, having enough and having too little.

God was saying to Adam, when you eat from this tree, you will become acutely aware that your life could be different than the way your life is. Your life could be better. You could have more food and better tasting food. Instead of getting water from the stream, which dries up from time to time, you could have a well to give you more than enough water. Instead of sleeping on the ground, you could have a nice bed. You could be more secure. You could have less work. You could have easier work. All this comes under the heading “knowledge of what is good.”

On the other hand, your life could be worse. You could be cold and hungry. You could run out of water. You could be sick. Things could go wrong. This all comes under the heading “knowledge of what is bad.”

So, why would God warn Adam about this knowledge? What’s wrong with it? Imagining a better life is a good thing, isn’t it? This is where human progress comes from. This is what leads to technology - planting crops, raising animals, making metal tools, practicing medicine. One of the first things Adam and Eve do after eating this fruit is to make clothes for themselves. Isn’t that an improvement? Clothes protect us, and keep us warm. “Why would God warn us against this knowledge that our lives could be better?”

There’s a price to pay for this knowledge. As soon as we imagine our lives better or worse, as soon as we focus our attention on how our lives might be, we’re not content with our lives as they are. We’re not at peace. We become either envious, or anxious, or both. The text says that, as soon as Adam and Eve ate the fruit, their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked, and they made clothes for themselves. This is often seen as sexual modesty, or inhibitions, or neurotic guilt. But there’s a more basic issue here. They were ashamed of their nakedness because they were ashamed of what they lacked. Once clothes become a possibility, not having them becomes a form of deprivation.

And this is the human condition today. This is what the “knowledge of good and bad” is like. With all we have, we’re still not content. Isn’t that amazing, and sad? We’re not content because we see how much more we could have. And we worry about losing what we do have. Either way, we’re caught up in the future, and we forget to live right now. We overlook this moment, as if it were worthless, in favor of some abstract reverie about the future that never arrives.

We all wish life were easier. We wish we had made different choices in the past. We wish we’d made more of ourselves. We wish we were luckier. We wish we’d gotten the breaks that some other people got. We wish our jobs were more glamorous. We wish we got more recognition. We wish we were richer. We wish we could to travel to Europe. If we’re traveled enough in Europe, we’d like to go to Africa, or the Far East. We’d like nice clothes. We wish our bodies fit the clothes we buy better. We wish we had nicer furniture. We’d like to have a better house, a bigger one, with a water view. If we have a big house with a water view, we’d like other things, a weedless lawn, or a bigger dock, or a bigger boat. We wish our marriages and relationships were more like the ideal that we imagine.

These are the most common thoughts in the world. We don’t have to hang our heads in shame for having them. They can bring progress and actual improvement, but they can also bring a lot of misery.

Don’t miss your life by wishing it would hurry up and get better. Don’t miss your life by wishing you could trade it for someone else’s life. Don’t overlook the moment of life in front of you by dreaming about how your life could be. Your life is a beautiful life, even with all its struggle, imperfections, mistakes, and all the uncertainty; no matter what the future holds.

This is the gospel at ground level. Jesus came not to condemn our lives but to help us live our lives - to have our eyes opened in a different way than Adam’s and Eve’s eyes were opened. We will all plan for the future in some ways. We should plan. Planning and providing for the future has its proper place.

But we could all pay less attention to the way our lives could be different. We could pay more attention to the lives we have, the lives right in front of us, right here, now, at this moment. If we do that, our eyes really will be opened, and your lives really will improve, immediately.