Back To The Garden

Here we go back to the very beginning of the story of God in relationship with the people that He created. I am particularly impressed as I look at the things that we see and hear on the evening news and I realize that no longer do we live in a perfect world. Yet, God clearly created the world to be perfect and I often wonder how this perfect world got so terribly out of control. The simple and short answer is that

sin entered the world due to human disobedience to God’s divine intention for his creation. But I think that perhaps the more profound question is "why can we not return to the original intention for God’s creation?” That is, why do people still have to live in sin and brokenness and endure the suffering of the sin of humanity? The answer to that question is "I don’t know". However, this should not give us license to continue to live in and thrive upon the brokenness of the world. Rather, because Christ has come to us, we can rise above our brokenness and pursue a life of power in the presence of God. We can in many senses “return to the Garden”.

Perhaps the most common problem I hear voiced

regarding the brokenness of the world is when I hear people talking about dissatisfaction in their work or career. I know from personal experience that when one is merely seeking a paycheck that one is not fully living up to what God is calling them to be.

How many of you have heard people complaining about the job that they are forced to do? I know that this is the case in many people’s lives. More than any place I have ever worked, and there have been a few, When I was working at the prison in Hillsboro, I was constantly in touch with people who did not feel that their work provided for a completeness or sense of fulfillment that they thought should be provided by employment. In many ways the guards and other staff

didn’t want to be there any more than the inmates did. The result was that many of my co-workers were bitter and hateful people who were just doing the job so that they could buy the things that made them happy during the other 16 hours a day that they were not forced to be at work. I am not pretending for a moment that I was any different than any of my co-workers, at least for a while. However, after I saw what God wanted me to do with my life by serving him in

Christian ministry I began to see that God could also use me in my present situation while at the same time, that situation could provide for me the financial backing to accomplish my goal of getting back to school to gain the education necessary to devote myself to full time Christian ministry. It is amazing, the transition that took place in y own attitude when this realization came across me. I was then able to carry a positive attitude with me on a daily basis and the world became for me a much more pleasant place to be.

The simple fact of the matter was this. I was blinded, as are many of the people that I worked with there, to the fact that God can use us and make nearly any situation into a garden of Eden in our lives. Several facts about the garden of Eden might be helpful for us to consider at this point:

1) It was perfect and without sin...

2) God lived in perfect communion with the creation...

3) People were intended to live in communion with God and with the earth...

4) The work that was set before humanity was to be the most fulfilling task on the planet making them more complete as individuals and more complete in their

relationship with God...

So, where did it all go wrong? It all went wrong when Satan, the tempter, came to them and talked them into breaking the one simple rule that God had given them to live by. The rule was very simple and not at all difficult to follow, but Satan was able to convince them to break it anyway. I have heard people question as to why it was so important that they not eat the fruit of the tree that God forbade them to eat. And what was such a big deal anyway about eating a piece of fruit? I don’t think it was the fruit, or even the apparent insignificance of the sin that was at stake in this situation that mattered at all. Rather, what mattered was that God had made known to them that there were certain rules that they were expected to live by in order to live in the garden that God had created for them. And they broke those