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Eden’s habitation, fenced in by God’s own hand, held nothing but blessing, inconceivable in its array of good things. While Eve basked in the fragrance of both the garden and God’s Presence, contentment filled her days as joy’s song filled her lips. Paradise loomed before her, and she dwelt gracefully in its abundance.
In full obedience to God’s spoken word, every plant bore fruit in season. Luscious, satisfying fruit – never beyond Eve’s touch, and over and over throughout the days, with longing she reached forth and knew satisfaction’s sweet taste.
How the garden flourished, as did Eve.
But other seeds also resided in Eden, planted not by God in earthen sod, but by a dark presence. Ignored by her heart, this whispering specter planted his own seeds deep in the clay soil of her heart . . . a heart until now having known only the Potter’s touch.
Left within her unattended, nourished by secret whisperings, soon longing’s seeds began to grow, entwining their endless roots throughout her heart, throughout her thoughts, until desire’s fruit burst forth in abundance.
All the while a voice she knew called out to her a warning.
“Sin is crouching at your door, desiring to have you. But you must master it!”
But Eve ignored the Beloved Voice.
Captivated by a new tantalizing fruit, she consumed its juices, until drunk with strange longings, Eve set foot on a stony path, hardening her heart to Love’s ceaseless warnings carried on every breeze. In her drunkenness, thoughts of her own sovereignty drove her onward until she grasped, with delight, knowledge’s fruit, swallowing a bitterness that would never leave her.
Death, birthed that day from sin’s captivating fruit, tasted its own victory.
But longing did not die in Eden’s soil. Its seeds scattered throughout the ages…birthing fruit with bitter juice in each heart. And ceaselessly, Love’s warning borne on every breeze, carried the same message.
“Sin is crouching at your door, desiring to have you. But you must master it!”
Yet without exception the tantalizing fruit’s juice, drunk with deafened ear, left thirst unquenched. Every heart, each shackled to longing’s desire for sovereignty, drank deeply; and always death tasted new victories.
Until another garden.
A garden visited by moonlight. A garden where longing sought the pressing of obedience . . . obedience to the Beloved’s Voice. Where submission’s nectar rested sweetly on lips that would soon taste death’s bitter dregs, vanquishing it forever.
Amidst the soil of fallen leaves and ripened olives kneels a Son, driven by longing. Longing . . .for the removal of a cup . . . for voicing of his own desire. Yet longing, heeding the warning carried on the breeze, submits itself to a deeper desire birthed in heart’s clay. The desire for the Father’s will bears its own wine, as bloodied drops of sweat, battle-born, dampen the soil of obedience’s garden. And the utterance, “Not my will, Father, but Thine be done,” forever fills the air.
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