Longing for Eden

What a wonderful place was Eden. All was right with the world there. The lion lay down with the lamb. Corruption had not yet spawned sickness and death. Hunger was satisfied, thirst quenched. Human purpose was found through partnership with God in tending Eden. Humanity lived at peace with itself, with the world, with God.

Idyllic it was. Perhaps that is why so many long to move back to Eden. No, not the literal place where humankind emerged. But the place of memory when life was simpler. Somewhere in the midst of the past we recall a time when life was better than today. “Oh that it might return,” we pray.

It might be the couple recalling the struggles of early marriage. Life was hard. There wasn’t much money. But today that couple may look back to recall a time when life seemed more complete. “We were happier then,” one might say to the other.

It might be a church looking back to glory days gone by. The days when people lived in the houses that now lie abandoned along country roads. The days when the church was full every Sunday morning and every Sunday night. The days when the church was the center of community life. “If only we did now what we did then,” some whisper.

It might be a person of any age who looks back wistfully at what used to be. The teenager longs for the carefree days of childhood before the acne, before the questions about life’s vocation, before the battles with parents over value boundaries.

The 30-something remembers the Friday night football games from half a life ago and wonders whatever happened to that hero on the playing field.

Now no one cares about the feats that used to make people cheer and call your name.
The senior citizen recalls with desire those early days when a career was starting. There were mountains to climb and victories to win and energy for both. Now it is not so easy.

If only one could go back to Eden. If only the past could be recaptured. We would plop down in the past like it were an oversize stuffed chair and take our ease. Then, once again, all would be right with the world.

Or would it? Does the past look better than it really was? Is the Eden of the past more desirable only because it is not here?

Longing for Eden takes some into the future. The positive, can-do attitude confidently asserts there is no time like the future. The future is going to be better than the present. Certainly it will be better than the past.  A future of success and achievement awaits. Health and wealth in the days ahead seem one’s birthright.  Eden is just around the corner.

A couple slaves and scrapes and saves for the future. A church blinks at the needs of 100 or so senior adults in the congregation but lavishes resources on the 15 young people in the church because “the young people are the future of our church.” Eden is coming.

Corporations focus on tomorrow. So do individuals. Life is in the future. Fulfillment is in the future. Eden is in the future. But the future is unknown, unsure. “Who has assurance of tomorrow,” the Scriptures ask. No one. The Bible plainly says, “No man knows what is to be” (Eccles. 10:14).

In His wisdom, God placed us in the present. We do not live in the Eden of Adam and Eve. We will not know paradise until we are transported into the presence of God forever and ever. Yet, from the past eternal truths are learned. God is faithful. God is caring. God is love. And the future, unknown to mankind, is in the hands of a God made known most clearly through Jesus Christ.  Fear is cast out because we know the kind of God we serve. Confidence and courage take its place.

The challenge one faces is to value the days between the Eden of the past and the Eden of the future, one writer says. The days between those two mileposts are the only days one has.  Perhaps that is why the psalmist declared, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps. 118:24).

The God who created Eden in the first place is the God who will unite His children in the paradise of the future. He is the same God who grants us today and allows us to live it in gratitude for His continuing presence with us through faith in Jesus Christ.