(Gen 2:8 KJV) And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
I’ve never understood why this fundamental statement in the Bible seems to be ignored by so many… “God planted a garden”.
Men did not create plants, men did not create flowers, fruits or seed… so right there in the Bible, we need to STOP! We then need to understand that like a bee, without flowers, pollen, nectar and honey… our life, ceases to have meaning without the “garden”.
The biblical truth is… without understanding our purpose in the “garden” we are lost and worse still, without the “garden” our situation is hopeless…And so… as we wander all over the earth in search of meaning to our lives, we have stumbled into three basic social structures:
1. Nomadic: hunter gathering on the move following the seasonal produce and life.
2. Local Settlements: growing and farming on small land holdings to meet personal needs.
3. Cities: buying and selling food transported from agricultural areas into central markets.
Each lifestyle has its own set of pros and cons….
1. Nomads have great freedom, seasonal variation and support the sustainable recovery and diversity of natural resources. However, this lifestyle relies heavily on the providence of nature, competing with other creatures and potential conflict with trespassing inadvertently on other claimed tribal territories, settlers and cities.
2. Settlers have a self made freedom, less seasonal variation and are less able to support sustainability or diversity on restrictive parcels of land. This lifestyle relies heavily on the providence of man’s labour of ploughing, sowing and reaping. On the exploitation and exclusion of other creatures in paddocks with fences. And as families outgrow their plots, it leads inevitably to conflict and war with neighbours.
3. City Dwellers have a delusional freedom with great seasonal variation and apparent on tap natural resources. However, this lifestyle is heavily dependent on corporations of men, vast networks of transport and the mass production of food from outlying agricultural regions. Lastly it requires a place to live and a job in the city to earn money and pay for a place and the available city bread, fruit and meat from the farmer provided grain fields, orchards and captive livestock.
Whatever the lifestyle you have inherited or chosen… ultimately, the garden is the most important aspect… without which we will all starve. Unfortunately in our quest for health, wealth and ‘heaven’, this invisible ‘garden’ is the one thing that is most often overlooked, taken for granted and abused….
The garden is more than a bunch of resources to be exploited and eaten…. the garden remains one of the most beautiful and peaceful places to be and to behold…..Ultimately… the garden is paradise, heaven on earth, the very nature of the kingdom of God.
(Luke 13:18-19 KJV) Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.
SOCIAL