Home | Devotionals
Foreword A piece of Eden resides in each of us, just as a piece of God’s image, fanned by His breath, is planted in the soil of our heart. Like a story unfinished, it beckons. It is my story. It is your story. And though it began without us, it contains all we are – all we were meant to be. An echo carried in whispering breezes stirs a remembrance, stirs a longing, awakens a slumbering ache deep within our being that restively searches for a home we never knew, yet are ever seeking. Faithfully it calls to us, and for those who will listen, echoes of Eden beckon. i “My soul clings to the dust…” Psalm 119:25 Footprints lingered in the quiet of the evening, testifying of His presence, bearing proof He had passed, inspecting the burgeoning garden that lay before Him. Eden, a new kingdom, birthed with the simple utterance of his will. Surveying all He beheld, He knew it to be good, to be ready, charged with anticipation. Everything awaited this final phase to which all that came before pointed. But this work called for more than a word; it called for an intimacy not present before this moment. Stooping, He laid hold of Eden’s sod, fertile with promise, clay calling for an Artisan’s touch. With tenderest care the hands worked, pressing, forming, shaping, molding, until perfection, bearing the prints of its Maker, lay in stillness amid the dust of this place. Yet despite its perfection, the masterpiece lay heartbreakingly empty, void, nothing more than a breathtaking shell. Bending closer, eyes fixed steadfastly upon the form over which He had labored with such loving intensity, the Master Artisan paused, reflecting on unseen vistas of eternity to come. A strange expression passed across His countenance, yet, undeterred, the Artisan bent closer still, until Maker and creation were face to face. And at just the precise moment of promise, He released the gentlest of breath into the nostrils of the still, earthen form lying before Him. Not a word was spoken. Just the passing of life to death. The still, clay vessel shuttered. Then quickened. And the breath that entered filled earthen chambers, replicating over and over, until what had been empty and void, only a promise, stirred with life. Opening his eyes for the first time, man beheld His maker - meeting Divine Intimacy face-to-face. * * * * * * * Intimacy! Not an accident, but a divine plan. God’s fingerprint lingers throughout your being because His love longed to share Himself with you. While God spoke day and night into existence, where with a single word He separated waters from dry ground, though the stars were strewn across the great expanse of the heavens with the utterance Let there be, for you the Eternal Existing One came in person. This home designed for you with such loving, careful provision knew His presence, for He came in the evening and walked the soil from which you were formed. Was it just before evening when the earth first felt its Maker’s footsteps? When God stooped, reached deep into the soil for the clay from which you would be fashioned, was dusk ready to fall? When dust mixed with Heaven’s breath and the soul of man first held the eyes of his God was twilight the cloak of promise? Down the eons of man’s story echoes of this moment of birthing ring inside another garden at eventide. When Divine knees tented in humanity pressed deep into the soil of Gethsemane, and the Son’s eyes hungered for sight of the Father, intimacy’s cry Not my will, but thine be done bore fruit as heaven responded, imparting strength and hope for the journey up Golgotha’s rocky hillside. Footsteps again bore evidence of Heaven’s presence…footsteps mingling blood with the dust that had birthed us. They led upward, where a tree torn from a garden waited…twisted…fashioned, not by a loving Creator’s hands, but by hands of clay having lost touch with the breath that had instilled its life. Just before evening, on this lone, barren, wind-swept hill, a cross-bearing garden sprouted. Here between two thieves, Heaven’s Son, looking into Intimacy’s heart, birthed anew. Dust released its Divine breath back into heaven’s keeping and death gave way to life. * * * * * * * Almighty Eternal God, Your perfect love cries out to me for intimacy. But ‘dust’ builds a barrier where Your very breath, imparting Your own life within the chambers of my earthen form, longs to take up sole residence. The psalmist’s cry, O Lord, echoes my own, for so much that defines who I am...my life, my soul, my desires, my emotions, my passions, my mind, my inner being...finds it so hard to break free from the ‘dust’ of which I’m created. It clings to me, covering me, entombing me in layer upon layer of lifelessness. And just as tenaciously, I cling to it. But, Lord, Gethsemane’s garden, and all it birthed on my behalf, whispers its promise to my deepest longing. Its message clear…meeting that echoed yearning to be joined to You, my Creator – to cast off the mean things of life – to be filled, completely, with Your Spirit…to see with Your eye…to love with Your heart…to be immersed in a oneness that gives wings to my being. Break me free from the dust that holds me back from You. O most precious Lord, make me alive through the very breath of You. Breathe into me Your hunger for intimacy and may it find its fulfillment only in Your presence…looking into Your face.
Article Source: http://christian-topics.info
faithwriters.com/member-profile.php?id=9447
Please Rate this Article
5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5
# of Ratings = 1 | Rating = 5/5
