Paradise Lost
We were created for perfection. For life. To live endlessly. To live wholly. Without disease. Without pain. Without knowing death. In perfect relationship with our Creator. To enjoy His company. Created to walk and talk with Him in the Garden. To enjoy all of creation. To partner with Him in taking care of it. To find fulfillment in work.
Insert one devious being into a perfect Garden of Eden. A being bent on corrupting and destroying perfect creation. The sworn enemy of the Creator seeking to undermine the master he once served and failed to overthrow. He sneaks into Eden masquerading as part of creation.
What we are left with, is the result – corruption. Paradise lost. Paradise corrupted. Paradise twisted from its perfect original design into flawed, imperfect, corrupted versions of itself. The decay and destruction ultimately leading to death.
As someone who struggles with chronic pain, I’m often asked how a loving Creator could allow evil, pain, and suffering to exist. “If God loves me, why would he allow me to suffer?”
I do not claim to know all the answers by any means, and here are some things I’m mulling over today. Still exploring. Still understanding.
God is not the cause of the evil, pain and suffering we are subjected to in this world. God is good. All the time. Everything He creates is good.
So where does everything that is evil come from? Here are some points to ponder:
We live in a corrupted world. The world we live in is not the perfect, flawless world God originally created for us. Everything He created was beautiful and good. The result of Man’s disobedience in the Garden corrupted, distorted and destroyed the original design our Creator meant for us. Once sin entered the world, its natural consequences began to corrode all that was once good. It’s corroding effect is still seen in all of creation today.
And we are given the gift of choice. Free-will means we get to choose how we think, what we think, what we do. And God lets us do that. Free-will means we can choose love. Love cannot be forced out of anyone but must be freely given. Free-will also means we can choose evil.
Our thoughts and actions have consequences. Much of the evil, pain and suffering we experience is perpetuated by us, human beings! And if God were to wipe out evil today, that would mean wiping out the entire human race. To destroy murder, He has to first destroy out the murderer. To destroy lies, He has to destroy the liar. You get the drift… Our system of assigning value to sin–big sins vs. small sins–is a lie. Sin is sin. That’s the truth.
This corrupted world we live in is meant to last a season. Don’t ask me why – this one still gets me! And as long as that season lasts, the evil that was unleashed on our world will also last. We are promised that this season will not last forever.
And in the meantime, we live as flawed beings in a flawed world. And we are subjected to its corruption. We experience pain. We experience disease. We experience degeneration. We grow old. We die.
All of creation groans, but we endure! We are promised full provision to get through this life. God is our provision and He will restore us to everything we were meant to be in the beginning. We live in expectation and hope.
When this life is over, we will rise again to embrace that original design that was intended for us! And we will live forever in that glorious state. Paradise lost will be paradise regained.
For, it is also true that God loves and pursues everyone, a.k.a His creation, equally. He gives everyone equal opportunity to know Him. The choice is our’s.
Paradise Regained
As Man’s disobedience opened the door for destruction in our world, the Creator did not just stand by 
and do nothing. Being the gracious and compassionate God that he is, he set a plan in place for our redemption – something we have the freedom to receive, or reject.
He banished Man from the Garden to prevent him from eating from the Tree of Life which could have led to him exist forever in his corrupted state. He created a way for Man to be restored to his perfect original design.
Through the ages, the Creator asked for sacrifices. Substitutions for the blood-debt Man owed His Creator. Symbols of expression that communicated remorse, repentance and trust in a God who could be depended upon for forgiveness. Symbols of Man’s need for a restored relationship with His Creator. The way it was meant to be.
These blood sacrifices were a constant reminder of all that had been lost in the Garden–eternal life, communication and relationship with the Creator. The blood of the first animal that was slaughtered to cover Man’s nakedness and shame changed the relationship Man was meant to have with creation. They were a reminder of the painful consequences of sin and the evil that was unleashed in our world as a result.
But no matter how many lambs were sacrificed through the centuries, the need for a perfect sacrifice that would completely satisfy the blood-debt still remained. Only a perfect sacrifice would do. So God sent His only Son to take our place and pay the blood debt.
Easter is where the paradigm shift happens and everything changes!
We are offered the chance to regain all that was lost. Some of it in our lifetime, but everything in the life after. We are offered the choice to know our Creator. We will be resurrected to experience the original design that was intended for us in the first place. That uncorrupted version of our bodies and souls. And we will live forever as we were originally created to do so, in the presence of our Creator. To walk and talk with Him in the Garden once more!
And that is what Easter means for us!
~shini abraham, 2018 © duco divina – contemplative doodling
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