Joni Mitchell wrote a poem that was made into a song by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. They sang it at Woodstock… “We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden.” Even those who don’t believe in the biblical account of Creation entertain the notion of an idyllic beginning that we have somehow lost… a place of innocence, peace and contentment that we need to get back to. But this notion of returning to the Garden is a sentimental fiction that the Bible puts no stock in.
Actually, there is no idea of going back in Scripture. The God of the Gospel is not a conservative… He is a revolutionary. We are not going back to the Garden. We are being led to a new City, a greater mountain, a new body, and a new earth and heaven! Believers are challenged not look back to what is passing but forward to God’s remaking of all things new.
Every spiritual lesson, experience and encounter has an expiration date. If we try to live too long on the nourishment of yesterday’s encounter or adventure with Jesus, it becomes stale or worse. At the very least it becomes monotonous.
In his last hospitalization, my Dad was served sliced chicken breast and gravy over mashed potatoes every night for the last ten days of his life. It was tasty and encouraging the first night. It was no less nutritious the 10th time than the first, but it no longer sustained the spirit… It was tiresome and even agonizing because it added to the dreadful monotony and tedium of hospital life. He needed something new. God took me out of Minnesota and drove me to Rochester N.Y. for lots of reasons, but one of them was to buy my poor dad a Wendy’s cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate
Frosty! He ate it like it was manna from heaven!
And speaking of manna… the manna in the desert that the children of Israel ate was good only for the day it was gathered… it became worm-infested and rotten if it was held over to another day. We make a huge mistake when we try to live this day on yesterday’s provisions from God. I don’t mean that we should not seek strength and direction from our history with God… The psalmists found great strength and restoration by meditating with thankfulness on God’s past acts of deliverance and provision. But the psalmists always expected that some new experience of deepening and rescue… some divine renewal of Israel’s mission was just around the corner. Remembering God’s past provision was useful because it stirred hope as the psalmist waited for God to provide again.
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come.” 2 Corinthians 5.17
The only way we can survive on yesterday’s provisions from God is if we have refused to accept today’s challenge… today’s adventure… today’s potential from God.
Every now and then God let the Children of Israel get real thirsty before He gave them water. When they screwed up it was not because they complained of thirst but because they lost trust in God to bring them to a new well of fresh water. They acted as if they had no God and no hope. They begged to go back to Egypt and slavery… to what was old and passing away.
We’re not going back, not even to The Garden. At the end of the last book of the Bible, God exclaims, “Behold, I am making all things new!” For those of us who trust and follow God, this new beginning starts in us, and it starts now. And it won’t end until it all comes out new!
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. For February, our contributor is Pastor Dave Harvey, who has served as pastor of Grand Marais Evangelical Free Church since February of 2008.
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