Each day this month, we will consider key moments in God’s glorious plan to redeem us. We will understand both the overarching story of God and the highlights of all he’s done for us in Christ.

I vividly remember how I felt when I was a child and my favorite toys broke. Do you remember those reactions of frustration, despair, or even anger? 

We had not yet learned to suppress or soothe our pain, and we felt the sting of those losses. As we grew, we learned that not only toys break, but also homes, hopes, and hearts. 

Each of us feels it differently, but we all experience the brokenness of our world. 

As we continue in God’s story, we learn how everything was broken. 

Adam and Eve lived in a pristine world and enjoyed a pure, fulfilling relationship with God and with each other. 

Satan, the enemy of God, slipped into this perfect world in the form of a serpent to wreak havoc.

His strategy feels familiar to anyone who struggles with sin. He slithered in, undermining Eve’s belief in God’s love. He appealed to her pride, conjured a hunger for the forbidden, and, with deceptive half-truths, minimized the consequences of disobeying God. And so, after eating it herself, she offered the forbidden fruit to Adam, and he ate of it.

At that moment, our world broke.

Like a super-virus, sin infected all aspects of humanity’s perfect existence. The environment became harsh, our relationships discordant, and death our common fate. 

Most importantly, that decision doomed us to a gnawing inward emptiness that compels us to look for love and purpose in all the wrong places.

We did not just fall. We leaped from the heights of God’s perfection.

In a way, it’s comforting to know that something is wrong. Your longing for more is not imaginary.

The Fall reminds us we live in a damaged world.

In those ruins, there arises in us a yearning for redemption, renewal, and resurrection. God promises us a place where nothing is broken. I might even find my old toys there.

Lord God, thank you for planning a solution to the problem of sin even before you created the world. Thank you for the grace you showed to Adam and Eve that day by blocking their access to the tree of Life, so that they would not remain sinful forever. Help us see sin as the destructive and hateful thing it truly is. Amen.

Throughout This Day: Reflect on all the ways sin affects your life and that of those around you.

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Tags: God’s Story Daily Devotional Romans 5
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