Cursed Is The Ground For Our Sake

“Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the seat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground;” (Genesis 3:17-19). Three times the Lord tells Adam that the ground is cursed and there will be sorrow and thorns and thistles and sweat. But you know what? Three times the Lord also told Adam that he shall eat. This is going to be hard but you’re going to survive it. It’s not going to be like the Garden of Eden... at first. There is a lot of work ahead and you’re going to sweat and cry and bleed as you try to make your own little garden, and you’re going to clear out the weeds and they’re going to come back, and you’re going to break up the soil and it’s going to harden again, and sometimes the frost will come early, or the rain will come late, but you are going to eat. God doesn’t tempt us above that we are able. He means for us not only to survive but to thrive. God did not say to Adam “cursed is the ground because you screwed up”, or “cursed is the ground because you deserve to be cursed” or “cursed is the ground because I hate you”. God said “cursed is the ground for thy sake.” The thorns and the thistles, the sweat and the sorrow - those are for our sake. It may give us a lot of grief to raise that tomato plant, or serve in that calling, or repair our relationship with a loved one, or fight off an illness, but the joy that we will have when we finally see the fruits of our labors is going to be so much more heightened than if we could just walk up and grab the fruit with no effort on our part. The more time we spend in our garden, the more we get to know our plants better, and we get to know the world better. If we have turned our little corner of the world into a Garden of Eden, then we need to make our garden bigger. Once we’ve gotten reliably good at spotting and removing thorns and thistles from our own personal life, then we have the time and the energy and the resources to help our family members clear the weeds out of their garden, and once our family has gotten good at clearing out all the weeds, then we can start helping our neighbors and our community. If we have surrounded our gardens with other gardens, then it’s going to be a lot harder for the weeds to reach us. If we want to stop the thorns and thistles, then we have to keep expanding the borders of the garden. When Christ visited the Americas there was peace for over two hundred years because there were no more -ites. There were no more walls between gardens. Everyone helped everyone else to get the thorns and thistles out, to get the fear and the envy and the hatred out. God cursed the ground for our sake. He gave us thorns and thistles to help us remember our gardens, and to work and sweat and sorrow over them, and then to work and sweat and sorrow over the gardens of our neighbors, and one day if we keep working together, then the whole Earth will be as the garden of Eden, and receive its paradisiacal glory.