GREEN

It was magnificent.  All He’d made was utter perfection.  Not the least, His final labour was poured fully into a form unlike any prior – a body, a face, an expression of Himself.  Man.  Flawlessness. 

It is good!  Now I rest.  Six days of work.  It is time to rest.  Not because I am tired, but because I can now enjoy the company of Adam together in this paradise.  I rest today, with him – my greatest obsession.  I love him. 

I dedicate a day entirely to being with him. 
I initiate rest in this precious heart of dust.

And when there were two, one of each, man and woman, I walked with them daily, in the cool of the evening.  We conversed, we laughed, we thrived.  

But they soon forgot how to rest. 
Still they have not remembered how to rest.

They hid from me. 

It was that time of day, and I could not find them.  They heard me looking for them.  They were hiding, afraid, ashamed, lied to, confused.  Filled on substances inferior to what they’d known.  Counterfeits and placebos. Still to this day, counterfeits and placebos.

They became restless. 
Still, generations on, that is what they are – restless.

Bucket lists, travel plans, hobbies and spiritual retreats. 
They’re not wrong, but they’re also not rest.  

There is no rest for a soul who does not know who he is. 

There is only rest in a place of identity, and identity is rooted in origin.  A creature in communion with its creator – that is a restful being indeed. A creature relating with other creations may find empathy, but not meaning, not identity, not rest. 

And this is what they do, still, look to the left and to the right instead of looking to me. 

I’m still here. 
Waiting for you. 
Jealous for your time, your attention. 

I love you.  I know you.

Centuries later, increasing in number and gathering at the foot of a mountain they asked me for laws. 

Why would they prefer to dot i’s and cross t’s than simply live in communion with me?

They told the man they’d prefer to hear my word through him rather than to speak directly with me.  So he ascend that mountain and I obliged.  I wrote out a law on tablets of stone and he recited it to them, to their hearts of stone. 

In an attempt to keep them close I legislated rest and communion in the first four of the ten.

Please don’t forget me. 
Please don’t replace me. 

Please!  Let’s meet again, regularly.  
Come and rest like we did in paradise. 

But they didn’t.  They replaced my covenant of rest with a law of works.  They turned 10 commandments into 613 laws.  They insisted on leaders, kings, judges and middlemen.  Why?! 

Why would they complicate it?  Why do they look in every other place for rest?  Why does there need to be a mediator between us?  I am just here.  I always have been.

Eventually a mediator was all that could reach them.   So I sent my Son to them.  He remembered.  He stole away to be with me regularly.  He withdrew when he needed to prepare, when he grieved, when he celebrated, when he grew weary. 

I met him in the quiet places he carved out for me. 

We talked.  He brought me his struggles.  I gave him my strength.  I spoke promise over him.  I reminded him of the plan, the victory, the prize.  He did not forget.  And when he was shaken he would steal away and we would rest together in the truth again. 

He did not shrink away. 
He knew who he was. 
He knew who I was. 

He also accepted the ultimate moment of separation from me so that no other Adam after him would have to again. 

I liberated rest through a heart of flesh. 

Eden’s invitation still stands.  I am searching for you.  Can you hear me? 

Where are you hiding son of Adam? 
Daughter of Eve? 

You are my greatest longing and I am your rest.  It’s that time of the day again.  Please come; steal away with me.