Dear John,

I have not yet found my voice in the men's Monday morning bible study - I almost did today. Even though I did not speak up, I feel the motivation to share with you my thoughts on today's topic.

 
 

I have one discovery and a one perspective. I did not realize we have a natural instinct to pass blame to another, it started with Adam and Eve. One of my personal frustrations with myself and our society in general is the lack of taking responsibility for our actions, behaviors and thoughts. I notice in the news, blame is looked for in the cause of anything bad which might of happened. We want to get to the root of the problem…

 
 

More so, here is what I had in my mind this morning:

 
 

It seems to me the essence of sin is doubt. In other words, we doubt God's word, as Adam and Eve did, thus we give in to temptation. God is our heavenly father, he told his children not to eat from a particular tree, Satin was able to instill doubt into Eve and thus Adam.

 
 

I thought of myself as a parent and how often I will tell my children something similar to what God told Adam and Eve; yet they do it anyway. The difference between myself and Adam and Eve is I know the outcome if my children do not trust my word, Adam and Even did not know the consequences of their actions until after they sinned.

 
 

It seems to be innate for us to "have to learn it ourselves", we see this as parents and one of the toughest parts of being a parent is to quit trying to protect them and trust 'we' did a good job of teaching them to make the right decisions, to get themselves out of the jams from their decisions.

 
 

I believe Jesus Christ's emphasis on Faith is so strong because it means belief, trust, the same way we would want our children to have faith and trust in us.

 
 

My thinking we don't have the faith in our own parents as children rides on the fact, firstly; we are not taught about faith at a young enough age. Secondly; like Satin did with Eve, we hear in the back of our minds, our parents don't want us to do this because then we will be equal with them. And unfortunately; this is often too true. Parents don't want to be outdone by their children; like the older brother does not want to be outdone by the younger one.

 
 

So in one sentence; it seems as though we let doubt outweigh Faith; thus temptation pulls so strongly.

 
 

Thanks for your time to read this and I sure I will find my voice in the bible study soon!