Leaving Eden, Pt. 1: What Is Your Eden?

Brandon Heath is definitely one of my favorite artists of all time. His music is beautiful. His lyrics are genuine. And often times he makes you think about your faith. Recently he tweeted out three questions that were based off the title track of his latest album "Leaving Eden": What is your Eden? What is your apple? And what is your heart?

Today I'll be tackling the first question for myself and I would encourage you to watch his videos and answer them for yourselves! So here we go:

Brandon Heath: What is your Eden? It could be a place, a time or maybe even a person that reminds you of your innocence. It was a time before you knew there was anything wrong in the world... When did you feel most innocent? It was a time before you knew that anything was broken, anything was wrong. That there had ever been a fall. You probably didn't even know about sin. 

I had to really think back for this one. But I think one place that stood out for me would be when my dad and I would go out to the backyard and just play catch when I was a kid. I loved being around the game of baseball and whenever I would play catch with my dad, everything else would just disappear. I remember many times just going outside in the late afternoons with a beautiful sky overhead with blues, yellows, oranges and purples blending together, the sun beginning to drop over the western horizon, a cool refreshing breeze... and that wonderful smell of a leather glove and the rhythmic popping sound of the ball hitting my mitt and my dad's. Everything else just faded away. I was just a kid playing catch with my dad. Not a care in the world. 

I always felt safe in those moments. I always felt comfortable and in those few minutes on those afternoons as a kid, nothing else really mattered. It was almost as if my dad and I created our own sanctuary of sorts, safe from everything else.

God wants that for our lives. He wants us to feel safe in His arms and in His presence. A place that we can run to when we face the storms of life and when we feel like it is too much for us to bear. A place we can go to when we feel we are not good enough or we're filled with guilt or shame. It's crucial to find our Eden, as Brandon described in the video above, because that is where we need to go in those times. Jesus said that we should have a child-like faith. We were made to live in harmony with God before the fall in the garden. We need to get back to that place and reclaim our innocence. We have to get rid of the guilt and the shame that are attached with sin because we are free from it in Jesus Christ. It is D-O-N-E! 

We have a heavenly father who gave His one and only son so that we might have life. So that we can have a relationship with Him and that we would be restored in Him.

What's your place of restoration? What is your Eden?

Brandon Heath: I want to give you permission to go there. It's an important place to be, to rest and I promise you: God will meet you there.

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SCRIPTURE REFERENCE: Psalm 9:9, Psalm 46:1, Psalm 91:2, Lamentations 5:21