Seeking the Garden

In certain denominations, there’s an image of the wilderness vs. the city, where the wilderness is a place of immature childhood and learning the rules and the city is a place of maturity where application of those rules is tested. But in this illustration, there can sometimes arise too stark a dichotomy. We forget about the garden.

The wilderness and the city come from the Old Testament, and especially Exodus, where the children of Israel are given the law in the wilderness and in the next generation they’re brought into the cities of the Canaanites and must learn to abide by the law they’ve been given in the midst of temptation and outside influence.

But before all this, there was a garden. A place of perfection, peace, and prosperity. And a place, I believe, that bridges the gap between wilderness and city.

In the garden, God’s creation is clearly visible. Man’s purpose is to defend and maintain this creation and to enhance it for God’s glory with the creativity that is itself an outpouring of God’s own creativity. It is the perfect illustration of man’s dominion with God, of man’s submission to God’s authority and perfect help to glorify that authority. It’s the very relationship that marriage illustrates in our present world, and which it illustrated for a time in the garden itself.

Problems in the Wilderness

The wilderness is a place of immaturity and irresponsibility. In the wilderness, man’s surroundings are either left unkempt or there’s nothing to tend in the first place; the wilderness is barren and unfruitful.

When we shun the city and run to the opposite ditch–the wilderness–we neglect the gathering together of the saints. We take ourselves out of the world because it feels easier than being “in the world, not of it.” But there is no fruit in that. There is no fellowship, no edification, and no furtherance of God’s Kingdom–according to either the Dominion Mandate or the Great Commission. When we run to the wilderness, we are not “filling the earth and subduing it” and we are not “making disciples of all the nations”; we are hiding our light under a bushel and defeating the whole purpose for which we were created and brought into communion with Christ.

The wilderness was a place of teaching for the Israelites, but they were never meant to stay there. Their wanderings were a curse, a punishment for their lack of faith. Do we stay in the wilderness because we, like Jonah, lack faith that God can redeem the fallen cities of the world or because we fear that His teaching has not been sufficient to equip us for the work He has called us to?

We learn in the wilderness so that we might go out and tame it according to God’s call.

Problems in the City

When we see the problems with the wilderness and forget the garden, we idealize the city. After all, it is the place of maturity. It is where God sends us out to stand firm in what He’s taught us, to share the law with others, and to learn how to apply it in practical ways.

And all of this is good. But the city is imbalanced, just as the wilderness is. Just as the wilderness reveals a lack of mankind’s dominion, growing wild and unkempt, the city reveals an overexertion of man’s authority. The city shows us what happens when man leans too heavily on his own creativity, forgetting that God is its source, and overruns God’s creation, over-tends it, with his own creations and sense of order.

Now, this is not to say that the city is all fallen. There is wisdom and blessing to be gained from the city. Cities are where people gather, they are where trade is conducted, they are places of order–simply an order sometimes separate from God’s own and thus imperfect and imbalanced. Cities are–or should be–reflections of the Church. God’s people gather, they trade and share among themselves, building one another up and providing for one another, and fellowship is built.

The difference between the Church and the city is that the Church’s fellowship and commerce is motivated by love while the city’s is built upon commerce itself and a desire for personal gain. As the city’s commerce runs, so does its structure as a whole, operating and growing out of love for self instead of love for God–thus cities that overrun God’s creation with man’s own.

Returning to the Garden

The garden is a place of balance. In the garden, community, commerce, construction are all based upon love for God first and fellow man second. We are, ourselves, served naturally by this, but our self is not our focus. It has no need to be. When we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness–when we build His kingdom and His Body and His Temple in the way He has instructed–all our needs are supplied. When we tend to His Body, we tend to ourselves for we are part of that Body. But the Body is His, and should be strengthened in the way He directs and commands.

In the garden, we see that creation is tended. It is kept in order. It is nurtured. It is helped by man to flourish as God intends. It does not grow wild, like the wilderness. But neither is creation constricted in the garden as in the city.

In the garden, there is space for communion with both God and man. Man is near enough to fellowship with, to work alongside, to share with, but neither man’s presence nor man’s creation is so overbearing as to distract from the God’s creation or God’s own presence. When you look up, the stars are visible. When you look around, there are trees to be seen; they haven’t been torn down or hidden by towering buildings of stark lines and concrete. There is shelter and there is order, but it reflects God’s design rather than hindering appreciation of it. Man’s design in the garden directs your eye and heart back toward God’s own; it does not seek attention for its own sake.

I will be the last to tell you that invention or creativity are inherently problematic. I believe strongly in the value of art and beauty and of reflecting God’s creativity, and man’s invention has led to many amazing and healthful things. But man is fallen and thus, by nature, his creativity honors self instead of honoring the God who is its source. It is only by God’s grace, by actively pursuing His will, and by close communion with Him that our creativity is redeemed and we create in a way that honors Him and turns attention to Him as it ought.

This is the kind of communion that we find in the garden. In the garden, God walked with Adam and Eve and He instructed them in their work. Until the Fall, they tended the garden according to His instruction. They had fellowship with Him and understood His intent for the resources that had been placed under their care.

Since the Fall, of course this same kind of closeness and collaboration is not possible until creation has been fully redeemed and remade–man with it. But still we should see that the city, while good, is not the ideal; rather, the garden is the ideal that we should be striving to emulate as best we can in our fallen state.

Even the Israelites after their escape from Egypt had no cities of their own, but overtook the cities of the pagans. When they were taken into captivity and told to make homes amongst the pagans, what were they instructed? To build houses and to plant gardens (Jer. 29:4-7)! In fact, this is the emphasis in many of the prophecies regarding Israel’s cities: They will take wells and homes that they did not build, vineyards, trees, and gardens that they did not plant; and those which they do construct and tend of themselves, they will keep (Deut. 6:10-12, Ez. 28:26, Amos 9:14, Is. 65:21-22). Even here, their shelter is assured and all else speaks of tending God-given plants for provision, shade, and communion (for where are the Israelites told they will invite their neighbors in Zechariah 3:10? Under the shade of their vines and fig trees).

So then, how may we apply this to our own modern lives? How can we seek to live as in the garden?

Live in close communion with God, thinking of and speaking to Him in every context. “Pray without ceasing.” – 1 Thess. 5:17

Pursue God’s will with regard to creativity, invention, and beautification.

Plant physical gardens. Tend to the plants around your home. Inasmuch as it is within your power, further their flourishing and make them beautiful.

Teach your children the importance of God’s creation and of our creativity reflecting His. Teach them to value what He has made and instruct them, too, in the care of your garden.

Make your home beautiful. Shape it to reflect the beauty God has designed and to point toward Him in its keep and decoration, as well as you are able.

Raise your children in the pursuit of Christ. Tend to them and their spiritual growth. Nurture and encourage them in truth and beauty.

Live according to God’s law, with spiritual maturity and discernment.

Foster edifying fellowship with those around you, caring for and sharing with those you can, especially in the Church. Be hospitable with both your home and your time and encourage those you have been given the opportunity to engage with.

Ultimately, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” in all that you do, and shape your practice of that principle according to the needs of your family and your community, and according to the gifts which God has given you and the work to which He has called you.