Beyond Eden

We’re just into the new year, and I feel a bit like I’ve awoken in another world. Not a new one necessarily, but an old and ancient one that is new in the sense of its current unfolding. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be given an insider view into the throneroom of heaven? I’m watching “The Crown” right now and thinking of the red leather box that holds daily files, the most tedious at the bottom. God doesn’t need a box, but I’m imagining all the details He is keeping up with in the unfolding of His Kingdom, the meticulous moves in gently revealing Himself. Where do we fit in that Kingdom? Are we really just waiting for heaven to get clued in? What about the fact that our spirits have been made alive with Him NOW? What about – in the present, we carry timeless eternity inside of time? Aren’t we supposed to be getting clued in NOW? Here in a world that actually needs intervention? In heaven, alot of the battles will be a thing of the past, so to speak. Aren’t those battles now? “Walk by the Spirit” – what does that actually mean – today?

Is the point of the whole thing that we end up back in Eden? I’ve been thinking alot about this. My own desires for my Adam, a peaceful garden to tend, walking with God “in the cool of the day” (whatever that means). Sounds like a heaven of sorts, right? Like being a Hobbit, perhaps. All green, loaded with fruit, and graced with innocence. I’ve personally felt like God has recently been walking me down some of the Eden trails. But I’m aware that, as much as I have dreamed of living there, the spiritual DNA in me wants way more. Not just a refuge, but an adventure and an overcoming.

With that in mind, I realize there is a landscape of unredeemed I must journey THROUGH. There is a promised land still full of giants. The cushy desire for Eden doesn’t always serve me well. It’s imperative that I get a look out over my inheritance, currently full of evils I have no idea how to face. From that vantage point, a willingness, no – more than that, a fueled hunger for training and strength and holy sharpening emerges. A sobriety mixed with determined hope firmly trumps the naive fancy of sterile idealism. This is about REDEMPTION, people! This is about MORE than Eden!

Here’s a snippet from my journal:
Among all the keys You took back,
It seems I see You’ve unlocked Eden;
And not as a destination,
But as a place to retrace
And pass through
On the return.

At the new beginning of this year, I want to throw out words of holy imagination. I want our eyes to open. I want us to learn to see spiritual realities as they really are. And not for the purpose of wow or fantasmic experience. No. I want to be alive in the truest reality of a Kingdom that is in the process of coming. Who we are in that unfolding was secured in the heart of Jesus before time. He rescued us to join Him. Now.