The Chair

The ideal picture is great until "break out of it," leave our imaginations, and look at ourselves.  Our reality doesn't match the perfect picture enjoyed by the first people in the original garden.  No we live in a world that is much different than then.  Our lives are much different from that.

At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. (Genesis 3:7 NLT)

When we see where our lives don't align, we look for ways to cover it up.  We may try to change the picture, saying God really didn't design things that way.  We may try to point to others or circumstances, hoping to escape the blame.  We may admit our part of the shortfall, but try to cover it up.

And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21 ESV)

When our lives fall short of the ideal, God knows.  God sees it.  God understands.  Not only that, God will take care of covering our shame at being naked.  God is the only one who can do this sufficiently.

I am overwhelmed with joy in the LORD my God! For He has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit or a bride with her jewels. (Isaiah 61:10 NLT)

God can make right what was wrong in your life.  God can clothe you with righteousness again.  When God does this, we return to the ideal picture again.  We can have nothing hidden and nothing to hide before God.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. (Galatians 3:26-27 NIV)

All of our shame is removed.  All of our sin had been covered.  All of our penalty has been paid.  When God clothes us in Christ, we are returned to the Garden.  We can, once again, walk together with God.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-13 NIV)

Returning to God in this way, though, does not erase the memory of our failings.  It does not change our habits.  It does not remove the temptations that caused us to fall in the first place.  Returning to the garden can happen in an instant.  Experiencing the fullness of the garden will take a lifetime.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. (Ephesians 4:14 NIV)

This takes time.  It is a process.  It is a path.  It is a walk.  As we walk toward God's ideal picture, we will draw near to God.  As we walk toward this picture, we will draw near to one another.

Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. (Ephesians 4:15 NIV)

Picture a room full of people  with a single chair in the middle of the room.  Now imagine everyone walking toward that chair.  This is what happens to us as we walk toward God's picture for our lives.  Christ is at the center of that picture.  Christ is the chair.

From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Ephesians 4:16 NIV)

The process is good.

How about you?  Do you see God's process for restoring us to a garden walk?  Have you been clothed again?  Are you walking toward the chair?