That’s God’s intention for Creation and it’s His plan for you and for me. Over and over again, He shares this dream with us as He shares His heart for us in His spoken word put down in His written Word, the Bible (He put it in writing to bind Himself to His promises and remind us of those promises when life is hard and our circumstances try to paint a different reality).
God created human beings to be His family, sons and daughters made in His image to be loved by Him, to walk with Him, to become like Him and to work alongside of Him in creating and cultivating beauty. This beautiful universe we find ourselves in, God made it to fill us with wonder and delight. He made it to be our home with Him. And when He finished creating the home and the children, He saw that it was very good, everything was set for our flourishing with Him.
We get a glimpse of this flourishing life when we discover in the opening chapters of the first book in the Bible that God would come looking to gather up His children for a walk together in the garden He made for them. It was their daily rhythm of life, the children holding hands with God as they went for a leisurely walk, delighting in the Father’s love, in their love for one another, and in the beauty all around them.
God also set up a weekly family rhythm, a whole day to spend together, no work, just being with each other, eating meals together, sharing hearts and minds with one another, laughing, playing, exploring life together.
We all know about the Fall, how Adam and Eve traded this “With God Life” for what they were deceived to believe would be better life, a life where they could go it alone and call their own shots, to become the masters of their own destiny. It turns out that going it alone is lonely, and calling your own shots has devastating consequences, and being the master of your own destiny is a myth. A “Without God Life” is a broken life.
But God has never given up on His good intentions for a family and His good plans for us self-made orphans. He would come after us. He would pay the price for our rebellion. He would make a way back home and rescue us from our own fatal choices and from the enemy who deceived and enslaved us. He would exchange His beauty for our brokenness.
But He would have to come in the flesh to do it. This is where Jesus enters the story. Jesus is God in the flesh come to save us. Listen to what he declared as His life’s mission at the very beginning of His public ministry as He read Isaiah 61:1-3:
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”
Isaiah 61:1-3 NIV
If that’s not God for you, I don’t know what is. If that’s not a God who is all out for your flourishing, I don’t know what is. If that’s not a God Who you can trust with your life and how you live it and where it is headed, I don’t know what is.
He wants to bind up your broken heart and set you free to walk in love with Him, every day, for the rest of your life and forever, one step at a time. Beauty for brokenness, that’s what God wants for you and what His Son, Jesus came to offer you. And get this: when you say yes to Jesus, when you entrust your life to Him and take His hand, He fills you with His own Spirit, the Holy Spirit to enable you to keep IN STEP WITH HIM!