There is a motif running through the Bible of a Garden – Paradise.  The Bible addresses the rat race that we humans set ourselves on trying to get into that Garden. We move from place to place, job to job, relationship to relationship, even church to church looking for our own kind of paradise.

Or we build our own paradise through our businesses our homes, our boats and cars and other beautiful things that we gather around ourselves.

But lately, I have been meditating on the Israelites journey through the wilderness. In Exodus, God rescues them from slavery in Egypt and promises to take them to a good place. 

The journey would take some time, and it was mostly desert and wilderness along the way. First, they make the trip to Sinai, where they spend a year getting to know who God is and what kind of God He is. Then they were to set out and it would be about a two week journey to the Promised Land.

But they rebelled. They didn’t trust that God would do for them what He promised, and so God said, “If you still do not believe Me, then you will not go into the land. You will spend the next 40 years in this wilderness.”

The Bible talks about God’s anger, and Moses intercession, and we interpret God’s judgment as punitive, and maybe on the one hand it is.  God does feel the full range of emotions that we do. He is not less than we are in any capacity, though He is self-controlled in ways that we often are not.

But a thought has entered my mind recently that God is not just punishing us, He is disciplining us. He is providing Torah which is instruction. So that we understand the things we clearly did not understand when our faith was tested. 

Sometimes in school we take a test and if we fail it, the door closes, but sometimes if we fail a test we can go back, study some more and re-take it, to see if we can improve.

When the Israelites, turned from Canaan and went back into the wilderness, they were going back out to study again the text they had received during that whole year at Sinai. They were living day by day on the bread that God gave them with His own hand. The water that God gave them by His own word. The light that He provided and the shade that He provided by His own presence. God was a Garden in their midst. He provided all they needed. He even fought their battles, and kept their clothes from wearing out.

We long in our hearts for Paradise. Even in Christian circles we talk about heaven. I’ve found myself many times thinking Lord, just come back! Take us to heaven, I’m weary of the struggles down here.  But I think the “place” that He is trying to lead us to, before He takes us to heaven, is the place where we see the Garden, and experience Paradise in Him, in the knowledge that He is with us every moment, and the bounty and beauty of Paradise goes with us everywhere we go. There is a peace that passes understanding!

He is the Garden, not just the Keeper or the Guide to the garden.