With Us // God in the Garden

Life hasn’t exactly turned out like I would have expected it to.  But in all the grief and loss I have experienced the last few years, there is one truth about God’s character that seems to jump off the pages of the Bible repeatedly to me, without me even trying to find it – God’s nearness.  From Genesis to Revelation, the theme of God being with his people is woven throughout.  This aspect of God’s character has given me comfort, changed my perspective on my circumstances, and drawn me to him in ways I have never imagined. Because I can’t help but find these nuggets of “God with us” all throughout His Word, I thought I’d share some of those with you, here, in the form of short, regular devotionals.  Start off your week with the assurance that God is with you – and see how that changes things, no matter what you’re going through or where you are in life.  Ask God, “Meet me here” – after all, that’s the very thing he's asking you.

Genesis 2:5-9, 15-22, 3:8-10

Genesis 2:

⁵ When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, ⁶ and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— ⁷ then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. ⁸ And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹ And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…

¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” ¹⁹ Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.²² And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man…

Genesis 3: 

⁸ And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden...”

Context

Here’s the story of God’s care in creation of the first people – Adam and Eve.  How tenderly he makes them – breathing life into their lungs! In Genesis 2, God has created them, and has commanded them to work the garden, but not to eat of a certain tree. Adam and Eve eventually do that, and that’s where we pick the story up again in chapter 3.  Their awareness of God’s presence – “and they heard the sound of the Lord walking…” (v 8) and “I heard the sound of you in the garden…” (v 10) jump out at me. Even though this scene comes after they have sinned, when they are hiding in shame from God, they recognize his walk.They must know the sound of him walking because he’s previously walked with them.  God hand-made them. And then he walked with them.  We (people) were created to walk with God.  Beautiful.

Questions to Consider

1. Consider how God creates Adam and Eve with such tenderness and care.  How do you feel, or what thoughts come to mind, when you consider his intentionality and nearness even in their creation?
2. He must have guided Adam and Eve through the Garden (I’m just assuming here – as the Bible doesn’t explicitly state this). The same is true for you – God still wants to walk with you, to guide you.  What are those areas for your life where you’re desperately in need of him to walk you through? Ask him to be near. 
3. Adam and Eve recognized the walk of their Father. They knew his footsteps, and the sound of his movement – and it was unlike the animals in the garden, or the sounds of the weather.  Where are you today, with God? Would you recognize his footsteps? Do you know the sound of his voice?  Come back to him.

God, thank you that you are our Creator, our Father.  You created us to walk with you, and you delight to do that. We trust your nearness because of how you’ve saved us.  Even while we were still sinners, you sent your Son to be here, with us, and the to die on the cross in our place.  He rose again three days later, defeating sin and death. In this, he made a way where there was no way so that we could walk with you for eternity. Would you take the heaviness of this world from us, and walk with us init?  We need you today.

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Find all of the devotionals, including the introductory explanation post, here.