{"id":47,"date":"2014-10-19T16:18:34","date_gmt":"2014-10-19T23:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourinthegarden.com\/?p=47"},"modified":"2016-07-05T20:05:44","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T03:05:44","slug":"a-solitary-adam-without-eve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/a-solitary-adam-without-eve\/","title":{"rendered":"A Solitary Adam, without Eve"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most dramatic detours from the Garden of Eden story is that Four in the Garden<\/em> explores the relationship between one person and God. In the Garden of Eden story, God created a companion for Adam because none of the animals proved to be a suitable companion for him. In the book, Four in the Garden<\/em>, Creator chose to not create a companion for Cherished because He wanted nothing to distract from their relationship. That relationship is the focus of the story and that’s why I made the decision that Cherished would not have a companion or even a pet. So many things distract us from our relationship with God and yet that relationship is so important to God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most dramatic detours from the Garden of Eden story is that Four in the Garden explores the relationship between one person and God. In the Garden of Eden story, God created a companion for Adam because none of the animals proved to be a suitable companion for him. In the book, Four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,6,4,7,8],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Hhvw-L","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":260,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/willfulness\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":0},"title":"Willfulness","date":"March 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In my book, Four in the Garden, I avoided the use of the word \"sin\" because it's such a religiously-loaded and off-putting word. It conjures feelings of shame, guilt, and condemnation. Rather than driving us to God, it generally has the opposite effect. Sin is often used to describe \"bad\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/an-intimate-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":1},"title":"An Intimate God","date":"September 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"When we think of emotional intimacy, we rarely think of God. Yet, God created intimacy. Not only that, but God is capable of deep intimacy. Some people were put off by the intimacy Creator showed the main character, Cherished, in my book, Four in the Garden. Why is it so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":318,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/when-god-disappoints-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":2},"title":"When God Disappoints Us","date":"January 30, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Have you ever trusted God and been disappointed? You placed your trust in God and He let you down. After many such disappointments, we can lose hope. When we lose hope, we are tempted to despair or walk away from God. If we manage our expectations at the start, we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trust"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/removing-the-trappings-that-trip-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":3},"title":"Removing the Trappings that Trip Us","date":"September 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Four in the Garden takes place in a primordial world, before rules and before religion. There is no church, no organized system of worship, no predefined code of conduct. Just God. I found this the ideal\u00a0setting to depict God because I could describe a relationship with God without all the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/god-and-brussels-sprouts\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":4},"title":"God and Brussels Sprouts","date":"August 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"People seem to either love or hate Brussels sprouts. People who hate them made that determination because they have tried them at least once in their lives. Then you have those people who have spurned God because they tried that once, too, and they didn't like it or it didn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":272,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/when-god-feels-far-away\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":5},"title":"When God Feels Far Away","date":"July 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In my book, Four in the Garden, the protagonist, Cherished, loses his connection to Creator. Because of this loss, Cherished feels as though Creator has abandoned him. In the story, I had neglected to show that Creator stayed close. I recently revised my book and added this missing scene. In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trust"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}