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Pride, greed, and lust never have enough. This is one of many lessons we learn from Adam and Eve’s fall into sin.

In Genesis 2:9, God creates “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” The Creator gifts Adam and Eve a garden filled with beautiful fruit-bearing trees. These trees are a sight to behold, with fruit to dazzle your tastebuds and satisfy your hunger.

But once Eve began caving to the crafty temptations of the evil one, she couldn’t see God’s garden of gifts the same way. Through the distorted lens of her newfound discontentment, these satisfying trees now seemed deficient, lacking, not enough.

Suddenly, only the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—the forbidden tree—could satisfy her. Without it, life felt deficient. In her greed, Eve forgot that the first two qualities of the forbidden tree were shared by all the trees God had already given her to enjoy: “The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and a delight to the eyes” (Gen 3:6). In other words, as Eve lost herself, she started ignoring the good features of the other trees and hyper-focusing on the one tree she felt she couldn’t live without.

Shared Qualities of Trees
in Genesis 2:9 and 3:6

2:9	given	good for food
3:6	forbidden	good for food
2:9	given	pleasant to the sight
3:6	forbidden	delight to the eyes

Eve bought the half-truth that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had one game-changing feature: “it was desirable to make one wise” (Gen 3:6). She believed the lie, pride and greed activated discontentment, and evil was born in the human heart.

Life can be hard. Good things seem to fade. We have to work hard, we’re often stretched thin, and it’s tempting to feel like we need just a little more. But God is good, and if we have the basics, we have enough. And if we will be grateful, we will be safe.

But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction (1 Timothy 6:6–9).