Eve's Perfect Life Wasn't Enough: Why "Just a Little Bit More" Will Destroy You

She had everything. A perfect marriage. A perfect body. Daily walks with God in paradise. Zero conflict, zero shame, zero struggle. So why did Eve reach for the one thing God said "no" to?

In this raw and convicting episode, Rhonda Stoppe unpacks the devastating moment when the perfect woman made the not-so-perfect choice—and every mom since has been fighting the same battle. Because here's the uncomfortable truth: Satan's strategy with Eve is the exact same strategy he's using on you today.

Rhonda reveals the five fatal steps that led to Eve's fall: she trusted herself, investigated the forbidden, questioned God's goodness, compromised truth, and isolated herself from protection. Sound familiar? Whether you're scrolling Instagram wondering why your life doesn't measure up, questioning whether God really has your best interests at heart, or thinking "just a little bit more" will finally make you happy—you're walking Eve's dangerous path.

But this episode isn't just about Eve's failure. It's about Parenting 101 straight from God Himself. Discover how God approached Adam and Eve after their sin (hint: He didn't bark "Go to your room!") and learn how to shepherd your child's heart toward genuine repentance instead of just regret-because-they-got-caught.

Rhonda vulnerably shares the story of a young man whose "harmless" root beer theft at age 5 became a life of crime by adulthood, and challenges moms to recognize their children's "bent" before sinful patterns become second nature. From lying to meanness to emotional manipulation, the habits you ignore today will define who your children become tomorrow.

Plus: Why that mean woman at church didn't just become mean yesterday (and what you need to teach your daughters about hormones, blame, and marriage). The J.D. Rockefeller quote that explains why "just a little bit more" never satisfies. And the daily practice that will keep you from falling for Satan's half-truths when life gets hard.

Godliness with contentment is great gain. Everything else is just chasing wind.

Watch this and other videos of Rhonda teaching on each chapter of her new book: Moms of the Bible: Life-Changing Lessons from the Fearless, Flawed and Faithful (Pre-Order Now - Releases: March 10, 2026).

Join the conversation at NoRegretsWoman.com—and please, don't isolate yourself!

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"This podcast is for the purpose of mentoring only and is not a replacement for therapy. We suggest you seek out the help of a trained biblical counselor for help with your specific situation.”

Transcript

Rhonda Stoppe [00:00:01]:
Hi, friend. Welcome to Chapter 8 of Moms of the Bible. We're in the flawed mom section. What? I would hate to be the mom that had to be in this section. Although I know that I see myself all through the pages of these flawed mom stories. How about you? Thank God for grace, thank God for redemption, thank God for his kindness. Let's talk about the next chapter. And it is on the mom, Eve, the perfect woman who made a not so perfect chapter choice.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:00:28]:
Ouch. We all know her story. She lived in the garden. She was just happily living her life with her husband, Adam. There was no conflict. They had perfection. They lived the life all of us dreamed of living. God walked with them every day in the cool of the day.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:00:48]:
And I have to tell you, I cannot imagine what Eve could possibly want more than what God had given her. And yet, in Genesis 3:6, the account says, when the woman saw that the tree that she was not allowed to eat was good for food, and that it was delight to her eyes that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of it and ate. She took of its fruit and ate. Wow. And then, if her rebellion wasn't bad enough, she gave it to her husband. And he ate it also. For the first time, their eyes were open. For the first time, this couple that had enjoyed a blissful, carefree life void of sin, void of shame.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:01:30]:
In the next month, literally all hell broke loose on earth. Feeling shame for the first time in their lives, they experienced marital discord. They blamed each other. The serpent they blamed, and even Adam blamed God for their sinful choices. For the first time, Adam passed the buck to Eve, who for the first time felt betrayed and wounded by her spouse. Oh. Oh. Imagine what it would have been like for them.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:01:57]:
Afraid for the first time in their lives. And when God came for his evening walk with them, they were so fearful that they hid from him. Of course, God knew where they were, but he loved them so dearly, he called out, where are you? Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree from which I have commanded you not to eat? Wow. Let's stop for a minute. Parenting 101. Have you ever had a similar experience with your own kids that they're hiding from you because of a sin that they have committed? You can learn from God's example. What a great way to approach these children. When they sin, sometimes it feels easier to bark at them.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:02:33]:
Do you realize how much trouble you're in? You know better than that. Go to your room. But let's look At God's way, he opened a dialogue with Adam and Eve. We should open that dialogue with our children because that will provide us an opportunity to help them recognize and acknowledge their sin and friend. This practice can shepherd your child's heart toward open repentance and really future obedience. Even though Adam and Eve deeply regretted their sin, their remorse did not reverse the effects of what they had done. And in the same way, even when your child regrets their sin, you still want to help them process that there will be consequences asking and probing questions connecting your child to your child's heart. When they express regret.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:03:18]:
This process can help you discern whether they're displaying remote remorse or if their sin is simply something they're regretting because they got caught. There's a big difference between the two. You get to decide and help them comprehend the difference and help them come to a place of godly grief and repentance when they come to that place. Have age appropriate consequences. Not cookie cutter consequences. Have age appropriate consequences. Proverbs 22:6 instructs parents to train up a child according to their bent or in the way they should go. This is a practice that involves recognizing your child's propensities and helping them break sinful habits before they come second nature.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:04:03]:
For example, stealing and lying is never acceptable. When you discipline your children while they are young, they learn that this sin is something that they don't want to become a part of who they are. As a young boy, I met a young man. I knew him, and he was arrested for stealing. He was actually driving a getaway car. And I went to see him in the. Well, he was in jail. And I went to see him and I asked him, you know what, when did you start stealing? Like, he literally drove a getaway car from a robbery.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:04:34]:
And he said, you know what? When I was five years old, I was at school and I stole someone's root beer out of their lunchbox and I got away with it. And from then on, I started taking things that I wanted and I got away with it. And when my mom would catch me, I would lie and I would cry and I would get away with it. And he said, it just became a habit of my life, of who I was and who I am. And stealing just became a part of who I am. Let this story wake us up. That's that little stolen cookie that your child takes. It's not just a funny little thing.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:05:06]:
It's a establishing their bent. Taking something and then being able to look you in the eye and lie to to you. Man, you may think it's just no big deal when they're five or six years old. That's the same child that when you give them the keys to the car and they tell you they're going to the library, and instead they go off and party with their friends, and they can look you in the eye and lie and say that they drove to the library. Well, they might have driven by the library, but that doesn't mean that they stayed there. Man, kids can become so ingrained with lying at a young age. Let's not let that become a part of who they are. And if it's already a part of who your child is, it's time for you to sit that child down and explain to them that you have seen their propensity to be dishonest, to be a liar, to be mean.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:05:50]:
Some. Some girls are just mean girls. Some. Some. Some women I know are still so mean. I had an encounter with a woman, a woman who goes to our church, that was so incredibly mean to me. I cried. I walked away, got into my husband's truck, called him on my phone and said, come take me home.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:06:08]:
I can't recover from the mean things this woman just said to me. That mean woman didn't just become a mean woman that day at that party. She's a mean woman, and she was a mean little girl. And no one ever taught her that meanness is not an acceptable way to treat people. But some people, meanness gives them the upper hand, and it's worked for them, so they'll keep doing it. Wow. We have a responsibility as a mom to observe our children, to raise them up according to their bent. And when they're living in a way that you can see, this is going to become a habit that's going to cost them relationships, that's going to make them out to be someone people will not trust.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:06:46]:
Be careful. Know that it's up to you. When my daughters were in their, you know, younger years, when they started menstruating, and they would be emotional, I can remember Kayla was very emotional. And she'd be crying. And I would say, kayla, here's the thing. You're hormonal. You're crying because your hormonal hormones are out of whack. That's part of being a woman.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:07:05]:
And it's. It's hard. But don't look for reasons to blame others on why you're crying or why you're upset. Just know you're having a weepy day and it's no one's fault. You just, just have to get a handle on knowing your body and knowing when you need to pull in and be quiet and get through a weepy day. If you don't teach them that they're going to get married, they're going to have a weepy day and they're going to have to figure out why they're so weepy and they're going to blame their husband and they're going to blame him why they're not happy and they're going to blame him and they're going to blame him and they're going to blame him and it's going to destroy the unity and love in their marriage. We have so much work to do while our children are young and while they are at home. So why did Eve fall? Number one? She trusted in herself.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:07:48]:
She thought she could handle just gazing at a tree that she'd been told not to touch. And then she investigated the forbidden fruit. She went over and just kind of looked it over and saw that it was good. Then she questioned God's goodness. Remember that? The serpent said, God doesn't want you to be like him. Once Eve took the bait, the enemy of her soul sat back to observe the effect of his work. As Eve pondered whether God's intentions toward her were good. Why doesn't he want me to be like him? Why doesn't he want me to know good and evil? Maybe God doesn't want us to be like him.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:08:22]:
She questioned God's motives. And the enemy's strategy does the same for us. Once he plants seeds of doubt in our minds, he begins to drag us down to a slippery slope of sinful actions that we will soon come to regret. I'm the no regrets woman. I want to help you build a no regrets life. I want to help you recognize Satan's schemes. The Bible says, do not be naive of his schemes. He is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:08:50]:
And he knows how to give just a little half truth to seduce you to believe that maybe God doesn't love you. Maybe that God's allowed this painful circumstance in your life because he's not truly a good God. Remember the word. God's ways are above ours. His thoughts are above ours, as high as the heavens are above the earth. So God's ways are above ours. I've been chanting that scripture to myself repeatedly as I've gone through a season where I'm wondering, God, are you paying attention to this God, are you seeing the evil people that are getting an upper hand in this situation? And they are not being exposed. Lord, are you paying attention? Are you going to get involved? Are you going to bring it to right? And I have to just step back and say, I don't know what this evil is about, but what they intend for evil, God will use for good.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:09:39]:
And when you have those scriptures implanted in your heart and mind, you can preach truth to yourself so that you don't believe the lies that Satan wants you to believe that God is not good. He's always good. And even when people are not good and they're not, even when people will let you down and they will, you know that God is the one who will make it better. At some point in a situation that you never would have dreamed he could have taken such pain and used it for his glory and for your good. The next point is she compromised truth and then she desired knowledge. She desired knowledge, not God. She wanted to be like God. Knowledge for knowledge sake puffs up, but love edifies.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:10:19]:
You can look up 1 Corinthians 8:1 to see that. See, reading the Bible is more about just accumulating knowledge. Scripture warns that Christians who follow false teachers that prey on women to pursue knowledge rather than God of knowledge. Among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, always learning and never able to arrive at the knowledge of truth. That's second Timothy three, six, seven. Friend, be warned. Not only was Eve susceptible to Satan's seductive ploys, you and I are too. She knew God better than any of us ever will, and yet she fell into Satan's schemes.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:10:59]:
Before she bought Satan's life, she enjoyed intimate fellowship with God in the garden. When it comes to avoiding sin, you cannot rely on past good times with the Lord, friend. You daily must draw near to him and he promises to draw near to you. James 4, 8. So what can you do? Abide in Christ. Be humble. Inspire others to observe. I'm sorry.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:11:22]:
When others observe how you rest in Christ your children, others will be inspired to learn how to rest in him too. Determine, resolve to meditate on memorizing Scripture so you will remain steadfast in your walk and then endure life's trials with your eyes fixed on Jesus. God is for you. Don't forget this. You have to know that God is for you. Learn just how much he is for you. This knowledge will bring an assurance and a confidence and a trust in God that will keep you from being deceived. Listen to this JI Packer.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:11:56]:
He's the author of the book Knowing God. He said the declaration, God is for me is the hinge on which everything turns. Reading the Bible without pressing into knowing God in a deeper way can amount to nothing more than just chasing after knowledge. Mama, we have to study the Bible with our kids. We have to let them hear us asking God to help us know him better. We have to let them see us studying Scripture, going to Women's Bible Studies. We have to have an understanding that the word of God is what will chart our path. And it is, will be a light for our children.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:12:33]:
Our children, if they don't see us living by the bread which Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. If they don't see us hanging on God's every word for our bread of life, why do you think that they would ever want to do that? Jesus said, the student becomes like his teacher. Not like his teacher teaches him to be like his teacher is. Let it be said of us, let your children see you and me. Observe us hanging on God's word, memorizing Scripture, singing songs that have scripture put to music, knowing that the word of God is the light lamp to our feet and a light to our path. And then Eve isolated herself. Don't isolate yourself. Satan knows when he can get you isolated, that he can get you to fall.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:13:21]:
Eve's story breaks my heart in here. There's a quote in that chapter. I tell a quote about J. Rockefeller. And he said, someone asked him, he's the wealthiest man. And someone asked him, how much is enough? Because he kept pursuing more and more. And he said, just a little bit more. I want just a little bit more.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:13:37]:
And isn't that what happened with Eve and Adam? They had everything, and yet their longing was for a little bit more. I want knowledge. I want to be like God. Be content. The Bible says godliness with contentment is great gain. Having a little bit more is not going to make you happy. I've shared with you before. My sister was a multimillionaire.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:13:57]:
And the more money that she obtained, the more. The more miserable I saw her become. A little bit more is not what's going to make you happy. It's living in the center of God's will. It's godliness with contentment is great gain. It's seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness. And knowing that if you walk so near to God, draw near to him and he will draw near to you that you will be able to recognize Satan's schemes. Because your mind is washed with the water of the Word.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:14:24]:
And when you live like that. That becomes normal. That's how your children will learn to conduct themselves. Also the children. Your children will become like their teacher. Not like you preach at them to be like they see you be. So, friend, let's press in. Let's be content.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:14:41]:
And let's love God more than life itself. Thanks so much for joining me. I will see you in chapter nine.