A Paradise for Pigs

A few years ago Vietnamese potbellied pigs became the craze as exotic pets.

Unfortunately, the pigs didn’t live up to their “perfect pet” reputation.

The pigs could balloon to one hundred and ten pounds and often became aggressive. Suddenly scores of people began asking, “What do I do with an unwanted pig?”

Then some people discovered a solution. They could give their pig to Dale Riffle.

Dale had been one of the first to jump on the potbellied-pig bandwagon. He owned an animal named Rufus. But like so many of these pigs, Rufus had soon become a nuisance, refusing to use his litter box and developing a craving for carpet, wallpaper, and drywall.

But Dale loved Rufus too much to get rid of him. So he sold his suburban home and bought a five-acre farm in West Virginia to accommodate Rufus. Before long dozens of people had unloaded their pet pigs on the farm, and Dale found himself living in hog heaven.

According to U.S. News & World Report, Rufus has been joined by 180 other pigs that snooze on beds of pine shavings, soak in plastic swimming pools, and listen to piped-in classical music.

Dale told a reporter, “I think we’re all put on earth for some reason, and I guess pigs are my lot in life.”

It’s hard to imagine how anybody could make pet pigs the center of their lives. It is an amazing thing! But even more amazing is how much God loves us, even with all of our shortcomings! That is ASTOUNDING love!

As we learned in Guide 1, in the beginning God created a perfect world. There was no pain, death, or sin. It sure isn’t like that today! Let’s face it: we don’t follow God’s original plan for our world or our lives. Some lie, cheat, steal, and say mean things to people. We do lots of other things we are not supposed to do. We have rebelled.

How did this rebellion against God get started? Let’s figure out what happened.

God loved Adam and Eve. They were His friends, and He was their Friend. He talked to His friends face to face. To give Adam and Eve a chance to show their love by obeying Him, God placed a tree in the garden. This was not an ordinary tree. It had special meaning. It was called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:17). Picture Adam and Eve walking through the garden. Suddenly they come upon this special tree. It is loaded with delicious looking fruit. As they admire the tree, God comes along and tells them about it.

Unfortunately, Adam and Eve went ahead and ate the fruit anyway. That’s called sin—disobeying God. Because of their wrong choice, death and all the other bad effects of sin got started in our world.

But sin really began even before the Garden of Eden. The problem started in outer space.