God tells Adam: "Eat freely from any and all trees in the garden. I only require that you abstain from eating the fruit of one tree - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Beware - the day you eat the fruit of this tree, you will certainly die." Out of all of creation, one single tree is denied to Adam and Eve. Life is granted abundantly. The knowledge of evil and death are kept from them.
Until a new character enters the story in chapter 3: the serpent.
"God doesn't love you," the serpent tells Eve. "Why would God keep something from you? He won't provide for you. He is keeping the best things for Himself. On top of that, He lied to you about the consequences of eating the fruit. It won't kill you. It will make you like God."
Where before there was trust, the serpent introduces doubt. He uses this doubt to cause Eve to question God's goodness. Does God really love me? Why would He keep something from me that looks so good? Eve gives into this doubt. She stops trusting God. She stops believing in her identity as a woman made in the image of God. She does not have to do anything to be like God. Instead of trusting the value God has given her, she believes she needs something more, that she has to do something more. She believes the serpent.
So even before she bites into the fruit, everything has changed. Her relationship with God is damaged in a way she can never repair. Doubt and suspicion replace trust and openness. Let's not forget Adam in all of this either. He stands next to her, silent. I imagine him secretly wanting Eve to taste the fruit first, to take the bite he also wanted but was a too afraid to take.
Verse 7 tells us that the change is immediate. At the very moment they eat the fruit, their eyes are opened and they realize they are naked. Unknowingly, they change their own relationship as well. For the first time, they feel ashamed, not before God but before each other. After they hide their bodies from each other, they hear God approaching, so they hide from Him too. They hide from their Creator, from the One who has give them all they have ever known.
"Adam, where are you?"
Of course, God knows where they are. He does not have to ask. God knows what they have done. He knows what it means. Why has He come back to them? Adam and Eve rejected Him, yet He comes searching for them.
"Where are you?"
The rest of chapter 3 outlines the consequnces of Adam and Eve's rejection of God. Man is cursed in his work - the very ground created to bring forth abundance and life will now produce weeds and thorns. The joy of the work of creation is replaced with frustration and toil as the earth itself fights against him. Woman is cursed in her body - the joy of bringing forth life is dulled by pain of childbirth and the sorrow of seeing her children experience pain and death.
The earth that was created for them, now fights against them. Their intimacy with each other is lost. They are banished from the garden. Their relationship with their Creator is broken. Where there was life, now there is death.
It isn't supposed to be like this. Life shouldn't be this hard. My marriage shouldn't be this difficult. No matter how much work I do, it never seems to be enough. I want more than this. There is a reason that we feel this way. We were not created to live in the world we know today. We were made for something better. Growing numb to this pain is not the answer. We, as Christians, should feel the pain of this broken world more than anyone else because we know this is not how it is supposed to be.
Even in this terrible moment, God gives them hope. It will not always be this way. In Genesis 3:15, God promises a Savior will come from the children of Eve. This man will crush the serpent's head.
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