As I mentioned in my last post, The Intimate Love of God, God loves each of us in a profound, meaningful, specific way. I recently heard someone say, “Religion is something to lean on;” and while I can understand that, rather, I see God as Someone to lean on. The relationship is more personal, maybe than we’ve ever considered before. I shared in my last post how God spoke to me through my appreciation for the beauty of a flower, but odds are that’s not the way God would speak meaningfully to your heart. Maybe you’re wondering what it might look like. Maybe you’ve yet to experience it, or maybe it’s been a while.
Thankfully, we can all rest in the truth that God meets us right where we are. When He speaks to us in ways that resonate at our core, His meaning often can just hit us right between the eyes. And in my experience, that’s often when I’m not really looking! When God speaks, His meaning can rush upon us all at once, without any need to analyze (but honestly, we probably do anyway). In speaking to us profoundly, God actually reflects back to us how we see, showing each of us in different and diverse ways that He not only knows us, but He understands how we understand, and can speak to us powerfully because of it.
Diverse Facets of Seeing*
Maybe for you, you see and appreciate integrity and rightness above pretty much everything else. Virtue and wholeness speak to your soul in a special way. You’re always looking for it, often expecting it, and when you don’t see it in the world, you notice. You feel most at ease when things are in balance and when they meet an innate and intuitive standard of goodness.
Or maybe instead, you deeply value love and appreciation. Giving care and being needed is an honor and a privilege that you don’t take lightly. You have a keen awareness of what is needed, and are happy to deliver whenever and for whoever you can. You love in ways that are deeply rooted in genuine care and concern for others.
Perhaps this still doesn’t resonate for you, and instead you appreciate respect for significance, both of yourself and other people. Glory, not in an idolatrous way at all, but in a way that inspires awe, gives you a feeling like nothing else. When something is the best it can be, whether it is an experience, an object, a situation, a relationship, that feels like home to you.
Or maybe like me, you respond to beauty more than most everything else and appreciate how it speaks volumes about the truth. You’ll take the authentic truth above all because honesty and genuine connection requires it. Deep connection is something that fills you up.
Or instead, perhaps endless, perfect knowledge speaks volumes to you. You enjoy having a wealth of knowledge to gain valuable insight into the interconnectedness of all things. You appreciate the wisdom to be had in knowing and understanding as much as possible, including life and vitality itself.
Maybe for you nothing speaks to your heart more than perfect security, total provision, and unwavering supportiveness and faithfulness. You recognize the deep importance of this and try to model your own life in this way, loyally supporting other people.
Or maybe instead, joy and joyful perspective speaks volumes to you. You value experiencing new and exciting things, taking great delight in enjoyment of them. You also see being in a content and satisfied state as something very valuable; you appreciate it when you see it in the world or experience it yourself.
Perhaps instead, deep trust and trustworthiness mean the most to you. You have an innate sense of knowing that strength, power, and justice are extremely valuable, and the role that trust plays in those qualities. You know the need for and want to have strong and steady protective power available for you and those you love.
Finally, maybe instead you place the most value on true peace and stability, especially when it comes to your inner world and the people you know. You feel most at home when and where you can experience real and deep harmony, unity, kindness, and patience for all.
Whichever of these nine ways of seeing resonates the most with you, each one actually values a particular characteristic of God, all of which were available to us in the Garden of Eden. What we value and how we see speaks to God’s original design for us, which was ultimately to thrive in His presence in the Garden of Eden.
In Eden, God intended for us to have the fullness of all of these things that we now “remember” in the unique ways we see: goodness, love, glory, beauty, insight, security, joy, protection, and peace.
Each of these things are things we know deeply are true, right, important, meaningful, and valuable. We can become frustrated when they do not fully materialize in our lives. We are constantly aware of their presence or absence in a given situation, without even trying. It’s as if we “know” the way it is intended to be. We “remember” with our innate intuition what it “should be like” even as we live and go about our days in a fallen world. We just can’t shake it. Do you feel this way too? A piece of Eden, I like to call it a “felt sense” of Eden, stays with us even now. As we reflect God’s design, we also intuitively try to restore the Garden-like state that we see is needed in our lives. Even though we know we’re not in Eden anymore and it’s a fallen world, we still see even the tiny glimpses of that original design.
The Good News is that God is working to restore all that was lost. God is the fullness of all of these conditions in Eden and more. Jesus embodies them all, perfectly. In His presence, we too have the fullness of all nine of these things, not even just the one we favor the most. We were made for His presence in Eden, made to live in a place with the perfect, whole goodness, love, glory, beauty, insight, security, joy, protection, and peace found only in God.
We all have a “felt sense” of at least one aspect of Eden’s paradise.
Eden: where all was good, where perfect love permeated in every relationship, where the glory of God was palpable and reflected from every living thing, where wild beauty sang and soared with meaningful true connection, where insightful understanding was had by all, where all were securely provided for in every way, where delightful joy was in and poured from every heart, where trust held strong, and where unity and peace reigned. That, my friends, is where we belong. That is what God intended for us.
Isn’t that amazing news? And by appreciating these aspects, not only can we better understand how God communicates to us, but in this we can be reminded that we truly do reflect His image. All of humanity was made to appreciate the facets of God uniquely. Even though Eden is gone, God retains these special pathways to see and communicate with Him that He placed in us from the Beginning, and He uses them to speak to our hearts in ways that nothing and no one else can. Friends, even when things feel silent and dark, take heart, all is not lost. Restoration is happening, even now.
May the way you see proclaim the truth of Christ’s fulfillment of our need for Eden to your heart today.
“But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.’–” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
*Language for and aspects of the ways of seeing were incorporated from Your Enneagram Coach and work by Marilyn Vancil.
Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to Life with the King, and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing this blog. Grace and peace.