With Great Longing

The first three chapters of Genesis reveal the Creation and Fall of mankind. It always takes me a few minutes to get beyond the first four words of the Bible: “in the beginning God...” (emphasis mine). What a beautiful statement. What a powerful statement. In the beginning God was and still is. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8). Jesus was there in the beginning (Jn 1). He was there when God called the waters to wait with expectancy in one place so the land could see, or rather be seen (Gen 1:9). Isn’t that a great picture? Even the water watched with expectancy and made room for land to watch as well as God created and called things into existence. His very voice brought forth life. “The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is majestic” (Ps 29:3-4).

The birds sing with excitement, the waters roar with expectancy, the wind waits with halted breath as God creates something in His own image, something so set apart from His previous creations. God blows breath into man and his eyes open for the first time. His heart springs to life with a steady rhythm. His chest rises and falls as he breaths in the newly created oxygen. Imagine the excitement of the moment. He runs for the first time, falls down for the first time, is held by God for the first time. What a glorious moment.

Then God creates a wife for this man. He blesses them telling them to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it...” (Gen 1:28). Together, they got to discover more about their bodies and about the rest of creation God made. They got to watch the newly created fish swim through the water, the freshly designed sunrises and sunsets color the sky, the bright glimmering stars dance across the sky as the Earth’s rotation brought new stars into sight. All of creation was full of life, and all of creation worshiped God with their every movement and thought.

It is then, in this perfect paradise, that Satan enters as a serpent. He sows deceit into the pure sanctuary and brings forth death. As a result, all of creation is cursed. As God comes to walk with His children in the paradise He created for them and for His glory, sin covers the man and woman in shame. They cannot face God and hide. I hear deep, heartbroken sorrow in God’s voice as He curses all of creation.

However, it is at this bitter moment that God brings a promise of redemption made clear by the appearance of His Son. God makes a “garment of skin” to cover his cursed children (Gen 3:21). Imagine this moment. The first physical death occurs as God kills an animal because of the couple’s sin. The blood pours out of this sacrifice, and the skin is removed to cover the two. This dead thing covers their shame.

Fast-forward to the New Testament where Jesus is finally introduced to the story. So many signs point to the fact that He is the Saviour, the one who comes to wipe away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29). He becomes the ultimate sacrifice for mankind. He brings true redemption. The relationship between man and God is now restored through Jesus taking the covenant curses so we could have the covenant blessings. Because Jesus became that sacrifice, our sin was not covered, it was removed; we are no longer under shame but under the freedom of Christ (Jn 10:10, Ro 6, 2 Cor 3:17). The Saviour who died comes to life as the firstborn of the dead (Col 1:18). He conquered sin and death and fear (2 Ti 1:8-10)!

All God has created has been affected by humanity’s sin. Creation was no longer able to worship God as it had on the day it was created. It waited with expectancy for God to create man then waited with greater expectancy for God’s Son and children to be revealed.

Ever since the Fall, “creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from the bondage to decay and brought into glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Ro 8:19-23).

We as believers have this longing deep within us. We know deep down that we were not created for this world. The closer I get to God the rawer this longing is for God, the deeper my realization is that I was not created for life here on this earth. I was created for life eternally with God. My soul yearns and cries out for home. I continually seek home here on this earth but will not find it. I find temporary ones, but they are not as satisfying as my first breath in heaven will be. When I open my eyes for the first time and see the glorious light of God shining all around me, when I see my Saviour face-to-face, when I hear Him call my name and when I dance with Him in a field by the ocean as all of creation joins this perfectly timed dance of pure and holy worship of our Creator Father God, then I will be home.

Oh how my heart yearns. Words cannot even begin to describe.

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 

— 2 Corinthians 5:1-5