Why Ruin the Garden with People?

About what was said at the beginning (see 8-31-12 blog)….  I’ve believed that as a good God, our Father doesn’t “trick” us with temptations and tests to see if we really love Him, etc.  He created a perfect world, then created human beings to populate it so that He might have fellowship with them.

Why would God need fellowship?  He already had His Son and His Holy Spirit for fellowship.  I think the truth is that God didn’t need fellowship with humans, but He wanted fellowship with His creation.  Perhaps He took a look at His incredible Eden and felt that it should be shared.  Like an artist who paints an amazing scene, but there is no one else enjoying it until s/he puts it on display.

I painted when I was younger because I needed to express myself, to put on canvas what was going on inside of me so that, stepping back and looking at it, I could gain insight into my existence, my place in the world, my reason for being.  The feedback that others gave about these creations helped me to refine my personal direction, a sort of compass in a chaotic environment.

I’m sure that God doesn’t need feedback to find His way; He’s not lost like I was.  But I can’t help thinking that when He created the cosmos, when He created our planet and His magnificent Garden, He wanted to show it to someone.  After all, it was awe-inspiring!

Listen to what He tells us in His Word (Genesis chapter 1):

·         He created light, and He “saw that the light was good.”
·         He created the heavens and the earth, the dry ground and the seas, and He “saw that it was good.”
·         He created all of the plants and trees, with their fruit and their seeds, and He “saw that it was good.”
·         He created the seasons, the sun, the moon and the stars, and He “saw that it was good.”
·         He created everything that lived in the sea, and it was good.  He created the animals that lived on the land, and it was good.

Six times before God created mankind, He looked at what He had made and declared that it was good!

Why didn’t He stop there?  The Trinity could have quietly enjoyed this creation forever without creating human beings.  It’s very likely that They’re enjoying other creations about which we know nothing even now… so why did God create us?

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image… and let them rule over… all the creatures…”  God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gen. 1:26- 28)

From a purely logical perspective it seems that God made the earth and all life, then put people in charge of it all so that He could go do something else.  While He may very well be doing something else somewhere else, He never seems to have left us here alone to do as He instructed.  There must be another reason we are here.

It seems that all of scripture speaks of a God of relationship—a God Who cares about His people, supplies their needs, fights their battles, consoles them in times of need, corrects them and leads them toward holiness, toward His presence.  Throughout scripture we hear Him tell us to listen, pray, seek, love, rejoice, find peace.  He heals us; He teaches us how to be like Himself.

God created us so that He could love us!  I love the plants in my garden, the sunsets and sunrises, the magnificence of the skies day and night, and so many wonderful things He continues to create around me.  But those things can’t return my love.  We love God because He first loved us—He created us because He wants to have a loving relationship with us forever.

This is why I can say that I have been created to worship—created to love above all this God of love.  These are conclusions I have reached in my garden.  Even though we are so often difficult to love, His Word declares that He loves us with an everlasting love all the same.

Why ruin the Garden with people?  God’s Garden is a place where love is grown, one heart at a time.  “… and it was very good.”  (Genesis 1:31)

The apostle Paul puts it like this:

“For God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves (Jesus.)   In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.”

(Letter to the Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 4- 12)