The true Garden of Eden does exist and that as we come full circle from innocence to sinner back to being saved from sin, we come from the Garden of Eden to the living water of Jesus Christ to our own Garden of Eden, within us all.
But to get to that point we Christians, those of us who follow Christ, must take some action. We must become Christians 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, not just on Sundays, not just at Easter and Christmastime but Christians all the time, in our attitude, in our demeanor, in our expressions everywhere, at work, at home, at play, at school, at prayer.
We must give up the idea that wealth is having a lot of money. There is a quote out there and I can’t find the author. But it goes like this; “To have a garden and a book to read is to be truly rich.”
Now think of what that means. To have a garden means you own your own home…yes you can be a renter, but few renters care deeply for someone else’s property, so I believe this means that you own your own little piece of God’s good Earth. To have a garden means you love, you love plants and trees and the outdoors and the beauty of Mother Nature (which is God giving us color treats for our eyes and our senses!) You love to plant seeds and watch them grow, to nurture along the miracle of life, the true miracle that only comes from God, of putting a dormant seed in the dirt, watering it, and watching it sprout up, to become a home to birds and butterflies and flowers of all colors and pleasant smells.
Pat and I have the most beautiful backyard. It’s small but we’ve got three little waterfalls that I’ve made and the trellis, the one that looks to me like the trellis in my Grandpaw and Grandmaw’s back yard out in Springtown northwest of Fort Worth. So our garden gives me memories of when I was a boy and sitting out there in the cool of the evening many years ago, the men talking the women talking me and my cousins playing.
And then if I have a book it means I have my health and my eyes and my senses and somebody someplace down the line taught me to read. And it means that God gave me this curiosity to find out about the wider world that he has made. Sometimes the devil controls mean people out there, but God made us all and someday all of us will have to answer to God’s own son, Jesus Christ.
God lives in our hearts and in our gardens and in our books, even beyond the Bible God is alive and living in us.
Jesus Christ living in our hearts and souls, as God’s love, gives us the strength and the tranquility to face anything and anyone who is doing the work of the devil. This includes those who would turn our nation into rubble by acts of terrorism and those in our current government who would turn our nation into the dragon we were sent to slay.
I like this quote very much.
If you are unable to find tranquility within yourself, it is useless to seek it somewhere else." - Norm Adams.
If you are unable to find tranquility within yourself, it is useless to seek it somewhere else."
So, if we begin to seek the Garden of Eden in the fountain of youth we are mistaken, aren’t we? If we seek the garden of Eden in the winning of the lottery or the cheating of others to obtain wealth, we are mistaken, aren’t we? If we seek the garden of Eden in exploitation and power over others, we are looking in the wrong place for peace and tranquility. Because the Garden of Eden, no matter where it was in the Bible, where it is today, it is within us.
There are those who believe they have actually found the real Garden of Eden that was in our Bible reading for today.
From the article “Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?” By Dora Jane Hamblin which First appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, Volume 18. No. 2, May 1987
Dr. Juris Zarins, of Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield postulates that the Garden of Eden lies submerged at the Northern head of the Persian Gulf. But he speculates that there were two distinct groups of early humans, hunter-gatherers and those that farmed. To quote Dr. Zarins in the article.
"The whole Garden of Eden story, however, when finally written, could be seen to represent the point of view of the hunter gatherers," Dr. Zarins, reasons. "It was the result of tension between the two groups, the collision of two ways of life. Adam and Eve were heirs to natural bounty. They had everything they needed. But they sinned and were expelled. How did they sin? By challenging God’s very omnipotence. In so doing they represented the agriculturists, the upstarts who insisted on taking matters into their own hands, relying upon their knowledge and their own skills rather than on His bounty.”
That’s Dr. Juris Zarins, of Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield quoted in article from the Smithsonian Magazine written By Dora Jane Hamblin.
If that is true than the Biblical Garden of Eden is at the bottom of the ocean, literally. The bottom of the Persian Gulf. We can’t get back to the Garden of Eden no matter how hard we try. We must begin to realize that the true Garden of Eden is where God is, is within us, is in our hearts, living in our soul, our very being , that’s the real Garden of Eden, our own Eden that place of tranquility and peace.
We must stop in our own private garden wherever that may be and listen to and for God. For as Mahatma Gandhi said
"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth." - Mahatma Gandhi
Psalm 46:10 says Be still, and know that I am God:
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.
11 Jehovah of hosts is with us;
Be still, and know that I am God:
But we must tend to our garden of eden our own Eden each and every day. How?
Jesus tells us.
In Mark 8:34
Jesus Christ said
Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Jesus Christ is saying whoever which means all of us who have becomes followers of Christ. Whoever, that’s everyone in the world now, or who has ever lived or who will ever live. Jesus Christ is telling all of us that we have to deny ourselves, and take up HIS cross, the one on which he died for us, and follow HIM, not our path but his. His path only leads to our own Eden.
35For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.
Jesus Christ is telling us we must begin to live for him, not for ourselves. This cannot happen just on Sundays, but all the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If we are to follow Jesus Christ, we must follow him all the time. To not follow him, even for just a little while is to risk getting lost.
And then Jesus Christ asks us:
36For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?
And then Jesus uses the very best logic that we small humans can understand. What is the net gain for us if we have all the money, all the power, all the sex, all the glory over everything and everyone and we wind up losing our own soul? To lose one’s soul is to lose everything. Houses, cars, money, even jobs can be replaced, but your soul? You can never replace that.
37Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
And so, Jesus asks us, all of us, all of the time, what will we give to keep our soul, to know our own Garden of Eden, to know God and to have Jesus Christ live in us?
38For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
I’ve seen shame of Jesus Christ in history books and in people and even in my own heart. All sinners are ashamed of Jesus, ashamed and afraid that they will look foolish and weak.
No one is stronger and more certain of God’s riches and our own Eden and eternal life than the follower of Christ!
Isn’t that what Jesus Christ said when he told the woman at the well and us “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again. 14But no one who drinks the water I give will ever be thirsty again. The water I give is like a flowing fountain that gives eternal life.”
That flowing fountain that nourishes out own Garden of Eden, giving us eternal life.
