Finding God in AdventSample

God Shows Up in the Garden

If God was going to bail, he could have done it a long time ago. In fact, you get only a few pages into the Scriptures before you see his first opportunity to leave.

If you crack open your Bible and start reading from the beginning, you’ll see that this whole story starts off pretty well. God, in his goodness and infinite creativity, starts by taking nothing and turning it into something. 

And this something is good. Really good. We’re talking booming galaxies, complex atoms, wild animals, and oceans as mysterious as space. Things are off to a great start.

And God doesn’t stop there. He creates his most prized possession—humans. And this time he doesn’t just say it’s good; he says it’s very good.

God is thoroughly impressed with his handiwork.

He places these humans, man and woman, in a beautiful garden—the most organic, non-GMO, farm-to-table garden you could imagine. And then he tops it off by telling these naked and sinless humans to make babies and fill the earth.

Adam and Eve are eating perfect food, experiencing no sin, and enjoying perfect relationships with God and each other. This is exactly the way God designed things to be. It’s unimaginably perfect.

And then, only a couple pages into the Bible, things quickly go sideways.

Adam and Eve decide this paradise isn’t quite enough. They believe the lies of the enemy and start to question God and his goodness. In an act of rebellion, they disobey the Creator’s design and turn their backs on him.

In that moment, all of creation starts to fall apart, from the micro to the macro. Everything God created perfectly was no longer good.

God should have bailed. He had every right to leave. The Bible should be one page long: “God creates a perfect world, humans mess it up, and God leaves.” That should be the summary on the back of the book.

But God doesn’t leave. He shows up. On the worst day in human history, as all of his creation is falling apart, God shows up. In fact, amid the chaos, God strolls through the garden, looking for his children.

Here begins the reputation of a God who doesn’t run away from hard things, but dives into them headfirst.

As you prepare your heart for Christmas, ask yourself—are you a man who shows up? Do you run away when things get hard, or do you step into them with courage? Being a dad who shows his family what God is like means being a man who doesn’t run away from the hard things.

Because here is the truth: God shows up. He always shows up.