You did it again. You pushed the snooze button one too many times, or maybe two or three and you are running late, really late.
The Bible is laying on the night table, or maybe pushed off to the side somewhere gathering dust, but how can I take the time to read it now, you wail inwardly. I cracked it open last night and managed to sleepily half focus on a couple verses. Surely that counts for something. As you shower, dress and grab a bite to eat that niggling feeling haunts you, but you can’t, can’t do anything about it, not now. Soon you fly down the lane to catch the bus, subway or whatever rips you away from the place you dwell, but that guilty feeling, that emptiness won’t go away even though you stash it beneath a multitude of other seemingly more important demands.
Come ye apart and rest awhile. How did that thought come swirling into my busy day? How can I rest, relax when I have a million things to do, a million demands. Shall I enumerate? Even the thought of it nearly drives me crazy. How can I appease a God in the midst of my hectic schedule? Must He be so demanding that I have to dutifully read my Bible every single day?
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In the cool of the day, He came and walked with them. He was there God, yes, but He was and is, so much more. He was their father, their Daddy. How He enjoyed listening to them tell about their day and everything else that was on their mind. He knew they were busy but wanted to unobtrusively come along with them wherever they went, giving them a sense of security and deep settled peace. He’s the same God today.
He wants us also to have that In the Garden experience. There is no way that He wants us to feel we have to appease Him by following a certain ritual. Jesus said, “Come unto me and I will give you rest.” It’s nice if we can spend time each day in the privacy of our bedroom or some other quiet place but it doesn’t always work out. Yes, I admit it is partly because we are human and don’t take the time we ‘ought’ to fellowship with Him, but He understands. After all, He is our Daddy. There’s another Eden we can cultivate. Think of it as the enclosed garden in a Roman mansion, the central part walled in on all sides by the rest of the house. Think of it as your heart.
Open your heart to let Him in, close it to keep the world out, but don’t fret if ‘they’, who whatever ‘they’ are peer in at the window to accuse you of being less than perfect. Tell Him about it, tell Him about everything, and you know what, you will feel so blessed, so much calmer in your spirit. Take time to thank Him, praise Him and before you know it you’ll feel like spending more time just being in His presence. Maybe you’ll even crack open that old dusty Bible and find out that He is speaking to you through that also.
Don’t think of the Heavenly Father only as your God. He is, yes, but He’s ever so much more. He’s your Daddy, a good, good Daddy that cares about every aspect of your life.
Okay, let’s go find our own Garden of Eden.
