God Is Not Enough

In the beginning, after God had created the first human being, Adam, he commented, “it is not good for the man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18)

That is profound. Adam was in paradise; he had direct contact with God—and God said that he was alone and that being in that condition was not good. Until that moment, at each step of the creation narrative, the comment had always been “and it was good.” But after creating a single man, alone in paradise, even though he had God, God said for the first time ever that something was NOT good.

When facing problems and when facing just life, good and bad, being alone really isn’t good. Not having someone, some human being, to be there for us is devastating. Adam had God, but he needed Eve. Moses had God, but he needed Aaron and Hur to hold up his arms.(Numbers 17:12)

We need people around us when we cry, we need people around us when something wonderful happens; we need to share our triumphs and disasters: to tell another person what is troubling us, or what has made us happy. It is not healthy, it is not good, to be alone. It is not good to have only God. God does not think he is enough for us. He thinks we need other humans around us. If other humans aren’t around, he says that we are alone, even when we have him—and he says it isn’t good; it isn’t what he knows we need. God simply is not enough.