EDEN

Delight is the garden where You are found. The stillness is alive with Your beauty. Surely, this is a fantasy; a dream to wake from? Light ripples and laps at Your feet. A fragrant melody reverberates around You. Each footstep adorns the dew soaked earth with Your splendour. Spring blooms with each breath of Your word. Your thoughts toward me are too lovely to believe. You take my hand with joy, and You invite me to simply ‘be’. Peace and awe mingle as I rest in Your presence. All at once, a deep sigh and a thrill, felt within my being. To be Yours and to call You mine!

Intimacy is the wilderness You call me into. You woo me into the barrenness. My eyes slowly adjust to see reality, when the facade of my slavery falls away. Folly of self-assurance turned to ashes. Naked freedom, raw with potential, remains. The desert furnace purges and refines. How am I to endure? Arid and scorching, with only Your whispers to quench my thirst. Relief found in Your shadow. You Wed me in the oasis of Your promises. In You, there is fullness in the desolate place. Confidence in lack. Hope despite despair. Your song pursues me. Dependence on You is my greatest virtue. The grand unmaking, preparing me for a joy I cannot fathom. The joy is You. You are and always will be, enough.

Sacrifice is the mountaintop where You meet me. The air is thin, the silence is pressing. I wait and long for You. But how can my mind comprehend Your glory? How can my senses bear Your reality? You are where heaven and earth meet. You vow on stone and with Your blood. Glory revealed, in fire, thunder, fury, splintered wood and gnarled thorns. The same Voice that sung all to be, that whispered in the stillness, cried out in agony. The Consuming Fire that would not devour Horeb’s leaf, became flesh and would not bruise a reed. You shed tears, sweat and blood on the high places - where I finally see You. In all Your humble majesty. All in pursuit of my heart.

So I will summit Your holy mountain. Wander the parched wasteland. Bask by sunlit streams and glades. Anywhere with You. For sacrifice has never yielded more, barrenness has never felt so full, and paradise has never been so palpable, as it is with You. Eden is wherever You are, and I was made to dwell with You.