Trust

He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?'...You will surely not die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.  And the eyes of both were opened...
Genesis 3:1, 4-7

The first lie that the Serpent, who is Satan the father of lies (see Revelation 12:9, 20:2; John 8:44), ever told a human being about God is that God can't be trusted.  Whereas before the serpent spoke, man and woman woke up each morning with the reality that God was sovereignly good and that He cared for and loved them, the serpent implants into the woman's mind the idea that God wasn't as good as she originally thought.  The woman's sin and the man's subsequent sin is NOT the serpent's fault.  But it certainly is his voice that they're listening to when they rebel into unbelief.  Further, it should be noted that they never stopped believing in God or in His power--they believed in Him enough that when He comes back around the garden, they're hiding because a) they know He's there (He exists), and b) they know that He can deal with them accordingly as He sees fit (He's powerful).  Their struggle is with whether or not He's actually good.  It's easy to believe He's real and powerful, but it's apparently much more difficult to believe He's good.

Why is it so easy for Eve to believe that God is not so good as to speak truly when He says not to eat from the tree?  Why is it that His Word (don't eat from the tree, you'll die) seems to pale in comparison to the serpent's words (you'll not die--God just doesn't want you to be like Him)?  Man has always had an innate desire for understanding and wisdom--but before, he never doubted that God would give it to him in the right time.  The serpent speaks and tells man that what they want, God won't give...so go get it!  Man's trust in God's goodness is now on it's head--in that moment, man begins to view God from man's own perspective, and he begins to trust in his own understanding instead of in God's goodness and love and HIS understanding (see Proverbs 3:5-6, 1 Corinthians 1:22-25).  It's the very nature of desire that was born in that moment.  Before, Adam and Eve hadn't wanted anything.  They had everything.  But the seed is implanted that maybe there's more than this.  If man feels that there's more than this, he'll invariably reach out and attempt to secure it, not trusting God has given him all he needs and will continue to. 

It's easy for us to understand where Adam and Eve are coming from because now we operate from our own perspective.  Before the Fall, humans didn't have perspective.  And it was better this way!  How could that be? you may ask.  Before and after, God was the Judge.  But BEFORE, humans not only knew and accepted this, but this was all they knew, so the idea of anything different wasn't even a thought; and now, AFTER, humans only operate from a singular perspective of 'my mind-->this world'.  Since we only know sin and corruption (see Genesis 6:5, 12; 8:21; Psalm 14, 53), God is only understood through that lens as well.  Of course, most of us wouldn't admit that we struggle with trusting God's goodness in His sovereignty--but the shadows prove it clearly if you look closely enough:  Anxiety and worry in general; fear of...ANYTHING, etc.  We know we struggle with things like this and that we shouldn't, but instead of throwing ourselves on God's grace in Christ and accepting the gift, we remain hostile towards Him for setting the bar so high that we can't seem to reach it ourselves (Romans 8:7, 1 Cor. 1:14). 
Let's probe deeper:  Man's constant railing against the truly and clearly Biblical doctrines of God's sovereignty over salvation.  If man's hostility is ever shown truly for what it is, it's in this area.  It's in the idea that God "chooses", "forces", and "keeps".  The only reason man rails against this is because culture defines 'choosing' and 'forcing' and so man projects those understandings on God.  And Christians hate the idea of 'keeping' because they constantly feel the need to have to work for it (get to that in a minute).

What we fail to remember is that "no one is righteous, not even one...no one seeks for God" and "the intentions of man's heart is only evil continually" (see passages is previous paragraph).  If God doesn't call me and give me the faith to choose to follow Him, I'll never come to Him in the first place.  Why?  Because I'm evil. 
It's only within an understanding of and acceptance of this that God's choosing, forcing, and keeping are seen as delights instead of burdens: 
--choosing means that He's calling a remnant back to Himself in grace (notice Romans 8-9 is all about His sovereignty over salvation, and 10 says 'all who call on the Name of the Lord will be saved'.  The point?--even though God's sovereign from HIS perspective, from our perspective, ANYONE can call on Him and be saved; as Packer has said, these ideas are not at odds, or else Scripture wouldn't contain them, let alone side-by-side)
--forcing doesn't mean 'forcing' in the traditional sense, where He drags me kicking and screaming, against my will; rather, when He calls me my situation is in such a way that I'm forced to ask the question "what other option is there, and why would I want it?", and it's because God's called "at just the right time".    Therefore, God is getting me, THROUGH His calling and my choosing (sovereign the whole way).
--keeping means that I continually am brought to the place where I'm force to ask again "what other option is there?..."  Better yet, Peter's words, "Where else are we going to go--you have the words of eternal life!  And we've come to believe that you are the Holy One of God" (to which Jesus interestingly replies, "Did I not choose you?").

But since man will continually operate from his own perspective (which is tainted because of the Fall), he will continually think the idea of God calling, choosing, forcing, keeping, etc. is unfair.  And this is because man knows that if he himself were to be doing the calling and choosing, it would be unfair.  But God is not like man.  "For my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and thoughts higher than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9). 
In fact, Scripture tells us a lot about God's transcendent character over us:
Deuteronomy 32:39--"See now that I, even I, am he, and there's no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand."
1 Chronicles 29:10-12--"Blessed are you God forever; yours is the greatness and power and glory and victory and majesty, for all that is in the heavens and earth are yours...In your hand is power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and give strength to all."
Job 34:10--"Far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should do wrong" (see Gen. 18:25--'shall the Judge of the earth do what is just?', and also Romans 3:5-6, where Paul says in effect "is there injustice on God's part?  By no means, for then how could He judge the world?!" It's God's very NATURE to be perfect and righteous and holy--he could never be wrong, or else He wouldn't be God).
Daniel 4:34-35--"His dominion is everlasting, and all the earth's inhabitants are counted as nothing, and He does according to His will in the counsel of heaven...and none can stay his hand or say 'what have you done?'"
We could continue on for a while, but the point is this:  God absolutely transcends humanity--your sense of justice and fairness is nothing compared to His.  At the Fall humanity changed, but God didn't. 

So when He decrees that "one day" He'll send a Savior/Messiah/Servant who will be the new and better Adam but will be without sin (see Romans 5)...who, instead of using his freedom for personal gain and doubt of God's goodness, and will cling with all he has to the fact that God is good and his own life is a gift from God, and will live with such a complete surrender to God's will that he will be murdered on a cross to atone for the sins of the many whom God is going to save...when God says this will happen, God has one objective in mind:  To restore that which was lost in the Fall.  Back then, God was the Law, and man was a man subject to God.  At the Fall, man became his own law, and God became a defendant "pleading his case" before man the judge.
Of course, this was never the reality--it was a delusion in man's mind.  God was always judge, but man though he was.  But in Christ, God would put an end to the delusion, by putting an end to sin and rebellion and corruption, and draw many back to Himself.  The 'many' would not think about and consider God from their own perspective anymore, but from Christ's perspective.  Whereas it's delusional to trust a serpent's words over the Words of the God who is the Creator, now they're learning more to listen to God's voice first, because they're coming to Him through Christ, since He came to them through Christ. 

I can't work for this.  Instead I trust that God's coming to me through the Word of Christ, in sovereign power and grace, has done all that's necessary.  The whole paradigm changes to that which it was in the garden pre-Fall.  God is my reality, and I trust that even in this chair I sit in, at this desk, I'm accepted and saved by God, because of Christ.  Of course, I want to give all I have to Him and for Him, and I will--but it doesn't save me.  Rather, Christ saves me.  And I trust that this is all that's needed for me to be a child of God.  In this, that which was lost is restored--the serpent still slithers around speaking words of doubt (or rather, "prowls around" like Peter says), but even if there are times I do give in to listening, I'm always and consistently drawn back to the God who has saved me, because Christ clings me to Himself, as I cling myself to Him (see Jude 21, 24).

Christians hate the idea of God keeping Christians Christians.  But they don't understand the differences between the covenants in Scripture--in the garden, man could listen to the serpent and COMPLETELY lose his innocence (and he did).  In the covenant with Israel, man's whole duty was to keep the commandments and pull his self to God (which never worked, because they always fell away).  But in this present covenant, if it's a real conversion, I will persistently and consistently be drawn back to God, by grace (like it was in the first place).  If I'm a true child of God, I will be saved "from all my sinful backslidings" (Ezekiel 37:23).  Man doesn't want to accept this, because he wants to be a law to himself still--he still wants to work for his salvation and thinks others should, too (since HE-or she-has to).  But those that are in Christ rejoice and delight in the fact that a) God called me, b) God empowered me, and c) God keeps calling me and empowering me.  If I'm in sin, I'm convicted (either by the Spirit in me or by the Spirit in others) and I repent, and this is God's way of sanctifying me. 
If I'm alone, I'll fall away.  But I'm not alone--Christ is in me.  "It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me". 
Perhaps the best Scripture that speaks to this is Philippians 2:12-13:  "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."  From where I'm sitting, I work it out by consistently surrendering and seeking the Lord.  But Scripture is God's Word from God's perspective, and He's telling me that He's working in me.

So as regards being a saved child of God, who am I to trust?  The serpent?  Myself?  Or God?  The serpent will tell me God can't be trusted.  I'll tell me I'm the only one who can be trusted.  But God will tell me the truth--the serpent is a liar, and I'm evil, "so trust ME because I'm the only One who can be trusted".  And since He has a proven record eternity long, I'll gladly do that.  What about you?  Who are YOU a child of?