friendship with God

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Although this is a different kind of a moment, you can see here what it had been… they were in the habit of walking together in the garden in the cool of the day.  Can you imagine this was some rigid reporting of the employees to the boss?  I can’t!  The wording evokes visions of three friends walking together and discussing the beauty of the garden, the color of the sunset, or the way the young antelope punch their mother’s udder with their nose when they nurse.

We were created for friendship with God.

“Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food…”

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. “

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”

What I see here is a giving God who created us to be giving.  Taking was not necessary in this scenario.  We literally only had to turn when we were hungry and pick a leaf or a fruit!  Rather, he gave us the job of nurturing, our work was to give of ourselves for the good of others, in this case the living things in the garden.

We are created for participation in the kingdom by giving ourselves to nurture others thus bringing order to the chaos of the world and maintaining it.

“He (Jesus) was going around in the whole of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and making a public proclamation of the good news regarding the kingdom , and healing all chronic and serious disease and all occasional illness among the people.  And the report concerning Him went off into the whole of Syria.  And they brought to Him all those who were in a miserable condition physically, suffering with various kinds of chronic and serious ailments and acute pains, and those who were demonized and epileptic and paralytic, and He healed them. And there followed with Him great multitudes from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judaea and beyond the Jordan.”

“…I (Jesus) am saying to you, stop worrying about your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, and about your body, with what you will clothe yourself…  But be seeking first the kingdom and His righteousness, and these things, all of them, shall be added to you.”

So what kind of place is the kingdom Jesus proclaimed?  It is the kind of place where He worked to care for and nurture all who came to him for help, giving of himself for others.

and what is His promise?

if we will seek this kingdom…

His kingdom…

it will be as in the garden…

we will have no need unfulfilled!

not only so but

“If anyone as a habit loves me with a divine and self-sacrificial love, my word he will keep, and my Father will love him, and to him we shall come, and an abiding place with him we shall make for ourselves.“

we will again walk the garden with our Father…

in the cool of the day!

Father’s intentions for us have never changed…

Advertisement