One of the things I’ve always wondered when contemplating the beginning of Genesis is just what it must have been like to live in original innocence. We forget sometimes that before the Fall Adam and Eve were not “just like us” – they enjoyed several preternatural gifts we can only offer brief glimpses of. But yet, somehow, they fell. God walked with them in the Garden, revealing Himself to them, yet in their moment of trial they fell.
But yet “[t]his revelation was not broken off by our first parents’ sin.” (CCC #55) Despite turning away from the great and many gifts He had given them God did not cease to reveal Himself to His children. Whereas before the Fall He could reveal Himself in a fullness we can’t entirely understand, he now had to slow down and “save humanity part by part.” (CCC #56) “For he wishes to give eternal life to all those who seek salvation by patience in well-doing.”
He had to slow down His revelation of Himself to His children (forgive the weak terminology) because quite simply after the Fall humanity could not have handled anything more. It takes us time to learn lessons, and sometimes those lessons have to be learned the hard way – that goes for everything from how to ride a bike to the nature of God.
If you get frustrated with God seeming to take forever to do what seems obvious, remember two things. First, God doesn’t operate in time the way we do – things will happen precisely when they need to (and not when we want to, no matter how much we may want!) because God sees the whole of the big picture. No matter how sure we are of what “needs to happen” we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next minute – God does. Second, “[w]e know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28)
Trusting God can seem very hard at times, but not trusting Him always works out to be far harder. When that hope just doesn’t seem possible, do what Jesus did and turn to the Psalms; make Ps 42:6 your own prayer: “Hope in God; I will praise him still, my savior and my God.“
“One of the things I’ve always wondered when contemplating the beginning of Genesis is just what it must have been like to live in original innocence. ” No need for Confession. Yes, it is hard, essentially impossible to imagine.