Paradise Found

The Holy Spirit calls to me this morning.  I realize the clock is ticking and the days are passing too quickly.  I wonder why all the deadlines?  Why do we live in such bondage to the calendar and clock?

Well, that's the way it's always been, except when I was very little and didn't understand the school year or worry about bed time cutting my day of adventure short.  What if I could return to that kind of life?  What a wonderful rich thought to ponder.

Then the Holy One speaks, "That's the way it was in the garden before the fall."  There is so much that is distressing to me about the fall.  All that sinful man and the arch enemy of God the Creator could plot together, in  unrestrained flesh, creative evil, arrows to the heart and poison to the mind.

Don't most of us look around and long for days gone by?  That one Christmas when life, for a sweet moment was just right.  Or that vacation in the mountains, when the silence of the of the world pressing in, permitted the symphony of the forest to be heard.

The Holy One calls to me, "Come away with Me this morning, let's go back to the garden."  What a delightful invitation. I feel huge smile come across my face as I think about all that could mean:

Walking with my God in the cool of the morning,
Surveying the handiwork of the Creator on display.
Feeling the smallness of my being on one hand and the bigness of my value to my Beloved on the other.
Sensing His Presence all around me and the magnitude of His love that I cannot begin to understand.

All the thoughts I had of doing things today or the vexing questions that plague me, even those that focus on my "purpose", seem to melt away.  And then it occurs to me that the most incomprehensible thought in my mind comes to be:  "All is well with my soul."

"Lord, I want to live here in this moment".  He responds, "You can".  One of the greatest blessings that came as a result of the death of our Savior on the Cross of Calvary is the ability  to return to life in the garden before the fall.

Think of it.  Life lived in constant contact with the Creator of the universe.  Constant contact with the Source of all that we know.  Constant contact with the Sovereign Power and Eternal Being who knows everything past, present and future.  Constant contact with the One who gives us our value and purpose and our next breath with which to live it out. 

Jesus came to restore us to the One True God...Himself, and to the life potential that was set before Adam and  Eve to work and take care of the Garden of His Creation and everything in it. 

As a result of the fall, all was lost.  The original glory of man, the original relationship that God Himself ordained, the peace and pace and carefree life in "paradise" that we all long for in our heart of hearts.  But in the amazing plan of our merciful Creator, redemption has come. We have been redeemed, bought back, re-set to reclaim what has been lost and empowered to take back what has been stolen.

We accept that Jesus died for our Eternal Salvation and we know that somehow, on the day of our death here, we will begin our life elsewhere, but there may be many years and a lot of problems to fix between now and then, between here and there. 

The Holy One continues to speak about what the resurrection of My Savior means and brings to my earthly life today. Jesus, when speaking about Himself as the Good Shepherd in John 10:10 said, "I have come that they (His sheep) may have life and have it to the full."

But what does that mean when we have sick babies, empty bank accounts, spouses who have left for greener pastures or a "you're fired" slip on our desk?  The trials of life in a world reeling from the fall 
are a stark reality of what we must deal with.  But the promises of our God are all yes and amen for those of us who believe and trust in the life, death, and resurrection of our Savior.

The Holy One calls us to bring all our burdens to the One who can lift them, the One who can heal them, the One who can replace anything that has been lost or stolen.

The clock and calendar are antagonistic to the sweet life with our Savior and we have been programmed to march to that beat.  We are limited in our time with the Lord in the cool of the morning. We are distracted by the responsibilities we feel to the world system, without realizing we are not to be under it's rule.  We are overwhelmed by the size of our problems, forgetting the One who controls all things. And we are tormented by our lack of value in the eyes of those we share life with, while the love of the One who died for us never gets past our head into our hearts.

I find that unless I am willing to make and take the time for my Beloved, the clock and the calendar will continue to rule my life.  The Spirit is calling me, reminding me that each day I have a choice.  I can join Him in the garden where all is well with my soul, or I can run headlong into the world that beckons me, postponing one of the greatest blessings He died to give me: a life on earth engulfed in His love, with a second chance in the Garden of God.

I choose the garden.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?