A garden, a tree, and a good life?

There’s a voice sometimes I hear that says, you’re 45 and starting over, or you’re 45 and what do you have to show for it. Or that your best days are in the rearview mirror. See the world wants to judge you by outward appearance and success and whether we can determine whether our lives are good or bad. Sounds kind of familiar huh? Almost everything can be traced backed to that story in the garden of Eden and a question of whether you will eat the fruit. Eat it and you will be able to judge between good and evil, and be like god. And so I look at my life and I can think….this is not good, this is bad, sad, and make a wrong assumption that my life isn’t reflective of god, not like him. But I’d be wrong.

He started over with Adam and Eve

….and with Noah

….and with Abraham and Sarah

…and with Isaac and Rebecca

…with Jacob

…with Joseph

…with Miriam and Moses, and Joshua and Caleb

…with David, then Solomon

…with Ruth, and Deborah

…with Elijah, then Elisha

….with Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah

…with Elizabeth and Mary

…with JESUS

…with Peter, James, and John

…with Paul

When I think of all those people I’m not so sure if he started over or if he led them back to who he made them originally. See he doesn’t make junk. And he’s always leading us back. Back to that garden. And we always have a decision to make, to eat from the tree and judge whether we are good or evil, whether we’ve done good or bad, whether we are right or wrong, in or out. And we think if we do good we are more like god and if we fall short we have missed the mark and aren’t like him. But all those people whisper a different story of the steadfast march of a faithful love independent of whether we succeed or fail in this life.

In some lights I’ve failed. And in some I’ve succeeded. But neither determines my standing before him nor really my standing in this life. If I grab for the fruit, then I’m left thinking failure, despair, and rejection of who I am. But if I leave it on the tree, I stand in the garden not knowing good and evil but knowing that I am loved, I am blessed, I make him happy, joyful and proud. Whether my life looks like this or looks like that. I’m left knowing that no height nor depth, nothing in all of creation, no success and no failure, can impact how I’m loved of him.

Put the fruit down with me…we’ve been grasping after it for far too long. The best is always yet to come when you realize that nothing you do, say, accomplish or fail to do, say or accomplish changes how wholly you are loved, viewed, and thought about. And that’s the whole of it I think. We can grasp and reach to know and prove we are good enough or rest in the love of a creator that doesn’t make bad things. When the path and trajectory of our lives is removed from the equation of determining how well we are doing we can find rest and peace regardless of how things appear, look, feel or seem. Life is good, not because of how it goes but simply because he made it good and each day we have to be fully present to it, good and bad, success and failure, is a day we can call good too. And for that I’ll be forever grateful.