Pick A Place. Location, Location, Location

Continuing on with the “garden series”. Thank you so much for the comments and thought process you have shared. To read others, simply click the “garden” category at the top.

I have talked about the God, who had an idea in a previous article. Not just any idea, but the idea for a garden. An big idea of a garden. And once He had an idea, He needed a place to put it. Now God never had a thought that probably was not at the “beginning” even though God has no beginning and He has no end. He was always there and He was never not. And so God needed a place for the garden that would be the beginning of life. He wanted a place specific for His next move. To see a place where life would begin.

When you decide that you are going to “plant a garden”, you soon come to the next step, which is to determine the place where that garden will be. You may walk around a bit, looking for the best spot. You may pick it for the geography or for the topography or where you can view it from. I think God was a lot like that.

Through out Genesis 1 God created the heavens and the earth. By the end of the chapter, God had put it all together and it was ready. For the garden! It tells us in Genesis 2:5, there had been no shrub and no plant. In verse 8, God “planted a garden in the east, in Eden”. He had created the earth and everything in it and He put a garden in it. A garden. A place of beauty and life. And out of that garden, trees and plants began to grow.

But why did God pick a place? Like this? Why here? Was it the geography or the topography? Was it because it was “close” to where He wanted to “watch” it from? Honestly, I don’t know. But I do know this. It tells us that water from the garden flowed from it. And from that river it was separated in to four headwaters. He liked it! It had value! It had water and it had relevance. It was the cradle of life! The birthplace of creation. And He caused His goodness to move in to the place.

What about the garden that Paul called out in you in the book of 1 Corinthians 3:9? Why you? God chose you to be the place of His existence. You were the place! And out of you flows rivers of living waters (John 7:38)! Just like they did out of Eden. Where God is there is water. Living water. (Revelation 7:17) He chose you as the place for His garden. The place where He would live.

Jesus specifically picked a place for a garden as well. In Ephesians 4, He chose the church to be the garden. And He picked mankind to dwell within. When I look around and I see the local church, I see that God in fact picked a place. A place where living waters come forth and trees and plants(people) flourish.

God has been specific about the church and the placement of it since before the beginnings of time. He wants the church to be where He is and He wants it, it appears to be in place, to “take over” . Where waters will flow. Isaiah 48:8 says “I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.” Where God’s garden is the rivers flow and where His people go, the cities flourish. What was dry and weary is now touched by the gardens from where the rivers flow.

So, think about your life. Once you have an idea for a garden, it is time to pick a place. Where will you sow? Where will you water? Where will you reap? Position is important. As they say in the world of real estate, there are three criteria for real estate…location, location and again, location. Where something is located is important. We could miss out in something for being in the “wrong place”. (Yet, God is always with us, with you.) So, rather than miss out on something, God chose position before anything else. Why in Eden? I am not sure, but I am sure it had to do with location, location and location. God’s Positioning System, GPS, if you will.