Back to the Garden

Since my last update, I have felt a big change. God has provided, comforted and strengthened. LIV has started feeling like home, and the team has become like family. I think it was the Enemy's ploy to get me so distracted by my discomfort that I'd focus too much on myself and miss what God was doing both on the Village and in my heart. But by His grace He met me where I was and opened the eyes of my heart to His beautiful and powerful presence. This past week I have felt as though I have been living in answered prayer, and I can testify: His grace is more than sufficient.

Our days are condensed with teaching, Bible study, interacting with each other, being with the children, praying, and getting involved in the staff life on the Village. (Oh, how I wish I could bottle these moments and replay them for you so that you can experience them firsthand, too!). Everyday we have been seeing God move in big and small ways, and we have been hearing Him in a loud voice and in soft whispers. One afternoon, while we were cooking lunch in the kitchen, Jess and I were wondering why we have been hearing His voice and encountering His presence so prominently, like we’ve never known before. Is it because of the program? Is it because of the Village? This made me think: Imagine everyday of our lives was like this—not living on “old manna”, but on fresh revelation of the power of the gospel? (After all, His mercies are new every morning).

In Back to the Gospel (a book prescribed to us as part of our discipleship program), Peter K. Louis is concerned with how the gospel shapes our daily walk with God—how we can stand daily in it, and genuinely live in the salvation it offers. What does the gospel mean for our everyday lives? His argument is that the gospel has been tampered with, and as a result, the “beautiful and simple message of salvation offered through Jesus Christ has been diluted”. So we must go back to it, dive into His Word, and learn what we are saved from and what we are saved into. Louis shares what God said to Him when he asked Him why his heart was numb to the gospel: “Knowing what Jesus did for you will not change you until it is coupled with a deep understanding of why He did it”.

In the last 2 weeks, Jono (who heads up LIV Durban with his wife, Carita) has facilitated teachings with us on Genesis. “We have to understand what was lost to understand the redemption story,” he said, “And when we understand what was lost, we’ll know the heart of God.” So, we go back to the why—the beginning. And in the beginning (in Genesis) we get a picture of God’s Original Design for His creation.

This is the theme of our discipleship school. But I take a personal walk back to the Garden, myself. Which means going "back to basics", like the fact that I have been "saved by grace through faith". (what did that even mean to me anymore?). This, I realize, is a journey that begins with my question to Jesus: "What does the gospel mean for me? Why did You die for me?". And one evening He responded, with a picture. A picture about my striving spirit and God's pursuing heart. Here's a poem I wrote describing it:

In a green meadow

I first found You.

Through a sheet of white Light

I beheld Your beauty.

With no reservations I drew closer

knowing this to be all that my soul has ever longed for.

Perfectly timed and intentionally placed,

an encounter You authored before I was born.

But there is a tower in my heart

where I think You wait for me.

So up I climb,

gripping bricks of striving and self-sufficiency.

At each window I pull myself up to

I am met with thorns, fire and crumbling rock.

My hopes of climbing closer to You are deferred

with every entry blocked.

I was so sure this was the way

to the Life in Full for which I yearned.

Surely like everything else in this world

the Father's goodness and kindness must be earned?

Heart and hands weak and worn,

I come to see this tower is manmade on fear and pride.

But You loved me first and Your pursuit never stops,

for "Go back to the beginning,"

You graciously guide.

The beginning -

Where Your Spirit

over the waters rested

and by the sound of Your voice

the heavens and earth in vast array were created.

You pulled back the draping of darkness

with a blue sky of light,

and a new day You deemed

by morning and night.

Along gathered ground

seeds from plants were borne.

Across the vault of the sky

winged birds soared.

In seas,

creatures teemed.

At night,

stars beamed.

And a Garden

nestled in the nucleus of all this wonder

homed the crown of Your Creation:

humankind, that You call Son and Daughter.

This is the portrait

of humanity fully alive.

Your Original Design,

absent of any need to strive.

Abundant life

You provided.

Intimate communion with us

You simply desired.

Now I see -

In place of that tower

this Garden in my heart You now tend

and with You all-sufficient grace,

my striving spirit You gently mend.

For it is only by grace through faith

that I have been saved.

It is only through rest and surrender

that I find the Freedom I have long craved.

So in the restored Garden of my heart

I now find You.

And through Your Son, Jesus Christ,

I live in a Love

that is undeserved, unconditional and eternally true.

When I go back to the Garden, I (re)discover what it means to be saved by grace through faith.