What happens when we upset someone? It creates a distance between us. Perhaps we can heal it, but if we cannot, the distance remains. When Adam and Eve sinned, it separated them from God. That is what sin does: it separates. There can be no friendship between a holy God and those who have turned against Him in sinful rebellion. The first man rebelled. ‘Therefore, the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken’ (Genesis 3:23). This truth, that sin separates from God, is echoed by the prophet Isaiah many years later when he says: ‘Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear’ (Isaiah 59:2). Separation from God is not just the loss of close relationship with the Supreme Being, but a separation from all that is perfectly good. When the first people sinned, God did not just turn away from them and leaven them in Eden to get on with life alone. He moved them out, into an alien environment, where they had to toil to survive. ‘Why would He do that?’ you may ask. Is that a loving thing to do? The account in Genesis gives us the answer. God did it to stop them getting access to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24) because He knew that if, having become dead in sin, they were now to eat of the fruit of the tree of life, they would live forever in their sin, trapped in misery for all time without any hope of redemption! Of course, God banished them from the garden. He banished them because He loved them, and because He loved them, He had already made a plan to rescue them. When it seems that God has forgotten you, remember that He has a plan, a rescue plan! Hold on and do not let go of your faith, for in due season the rescue will come!