The Snake's Reasoning

"What do you want more than anything else in life?" I asked. "God's choices or your own?"

"God's of course."

"What if He should choose for you [something you don't want]?"

"Oh, but He wouldn't!"

"Why not?"

"Because He loves me..."

.... "So if you don't get [what you want], will that prove God doesn't love you?"

The blue eyes filled with tears. "Doesn't He want me to be happy?"
(I thought I heard an echo of Eve in Eden.)

"He wants you most to be holy....
He wanted Adam and Ever to be happy, but He didn't give them everything they wanted. He knew it would be the death of them. So they got mad and decided He was being stingy when He told them not to touch the fruit. How could He love them if He didn't let them have it? They put more stock in the snake's reasoning than in God's."

Elisabeth Elliot,
Passion and Purity, chapter 6 - "The Snake's Reasoning