A great friend of mine asked me a very simple question the other day that has totally changed my view of the world.
“Why did Adam and Eve get kicked out of the Garden of Eden?”
Most of us know the story. God tells Adam and Eve “hey, you can do literally whatever you want, but don’t eat an apple from that one particular tree.” Sadly, the temptation proves to be too great, and Eve takes a bite from one of the apples after the devil tells her she should. She then takes the apple to Adam, and boom, both of them have now done the one thing they were told not to do.
My initial response to my friend’s question was “they couldn’t handle the temptation,” but that’s just one small part of the story.
Chronologically, God told Adam not to eat the fruit prior to forming Eve. Biblically, it is never mentioned whether or not Adam told Eve of the tree, but nonetheless she was the one first tempted by Satan.
Then, without even questioning her, Adam FOLLOWED along with what Eve had suggested. There was no thinking on his part, only doing.
In Genesis 3:17 God says to Adam, “You listened to your wife’s suggestion. You ate fruit from the tree I warned you about. I said, ‘You must not eat its fruit.’”
See, Adam, like myself, had initially blamed Eve for “the fall”, but nothing could be further from the truth. God explicitly punishes Adam for “following”, and not leading. The fall of man is a story of man’s failure to lead.
The theme continues throughout the “Good Book”, as King David saw a plague fall on Israel due to his failures as a leader.
After disobeying God by not trusting His word, David’s Kingdom was punished for his failure to lead.
10 David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.”
11 Before David got up the next morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: 12 “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’”
13 So Gad went to David and said to him, “Shall there come on you three[b] years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me.”
14 David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into human hands.”
15 So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. 16 When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
17 When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the Lord, “I have sinned; I, the shepherd,[c] have done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall on me and my family.”
-2 Samuel 24:10-17
The flock is destroyed when the shepherd fails to keep them safe.
These stories serve a purpose. They aren’t just tales to entertain kids.
We may live in the most “knowledgable” times, but it’s evident that we as a society lack wisdom.
Knowledge is learning from an experience. Wisdom is taking someone else’s knowledge, and avoiding the mistakes they made to attain it. Nobody’s problems are unique, but too few of us have been exposed to that truth, and are left to feel hopeless and alone.
We clearly have not learned the lessons of the past, as we continue to make the same mistakes in regards to failing to lead, and now the world is the way it is.
Today’s generation of young men are, as a whole, soft. A lot of them would rather be led than take the lead. There’s a reason conservative married couples report the highest levels of personal satisfaction of all measured groups. They “get it”.
Men, in another example of failing to lead, will BLAME feminism for many of the problems we are in, but that’s such an Adam move. Men have failed to lead, and women have been left to find leadership in other forms. There’s the sexual revolution, and the insistence that women be equally represented in all occupations. Some women brag about playing “God” by having the ability to terminate life in the womb. This isn’t a new thing. It’s been going on since the dawn of time, it just manifests in different forms.
Now, we are at a point in time where men in positions of leadership is considered a bad thing. It’s “the patriarchy,” and “sexist”, and a list of other negative things. Women who have children, and stay with their husbands are somehow considered to be on the same level as “slaves” by many. All of this is the fault of men failing to lead throughout history.
Until we as men take ownership, and actually start leading, things are only going to get worse.
Now, we can’t lead blindly. That is one of the biggest problems with our leadership over time. We lead without the knowledge and tools to lead properly. A blind leader will lead you off a cliff. A blind leader will encourage children to tolerate sin as acceptable behavior. A blind leader will accept behavior that is displeasing to God.
At the end of the day, we as men have to be better. We have to take our God given purpose seriously. We are priests, protectors, and providers. The world falls apart when we fail to do good.
Conservative Daily Update 