Here’s a thought for the new year: Take away all your trouble, all the hardship in your life, and you’d invent new trouble on your own.

Eden was a perfect garden. It lacked no plant that was “pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Gen. 2:9), and then man came along to ruin it.

When Abram told Lot they should separate their clans, Lot looked at the well hydrated Jordan Valley, “like the garden of the Lord,” and took his people into it (Gen 13:10). In that beautiful valley nestled Sodom and Gomorrah.

If you’re inclined to blame your environment over the coming year for your indiscretion, peevishness, overaction, or pride, remember the environment in which sin first entered the world and remember you brought it with you when you came in.

Photo by Emiel Molenaar on Unsplash