-by Pastor Mike Middaugh

“Dear Sir: Regarding your article ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ I am. Yours truly,”
-G.K Chesterton

The Bible begins and ends with a story of a garden. In the beginning the garden exists in the midst of the great wide open, the birthplace of life and beauty and love. In the end it is surrounded by a heavenly city, the wondrous, brilliant hope of all that has ever been. These two gardens share in common their creator, the Lord who resides within.

But in between these two gardens is the life we live now. The beauty, the perfection and the joy first created are scarce and hard to find. We feel the weight of a broken system, a world that seems off balance. We hear stories of lives ending early, of dictators ruling unfairly, of shooters who act inexplicably. We see forces that are beyond our control and disasters that could not be averted.The Bible begins and ends with a story of a garden. In the beginning it exists in the midst of the great wide open, the birthplace of life and beauty and love. In the end it is surrounded by a heavenly city, the wondrous, brilliant hope of all that has ever been. These two gardens share in common their creator, the Lord who resides within.

But the hardest part is that this evil is not the result of some impersonal force. The most difficult thing to cope with is the fact that the enemy is actually us. We each have our weaknesses. We each have our shortcomings. We have moments of our lives when we do not live up to even our own self-made standards.

All of these burdens place weight on our shoulders. Our lives are spent repairing that which is broken and cleaning what has become dirty. In the busiest of times we long for rest, or even escape. We wish for another to carry our load.

But the Bible speaks of hope.

In the first garden we see perfection, it is made by God for us to enjoy. But somehow the final garden is even better. Our good and loving God never desired us to know sin, but all the challenges, the pain, and the toil, will have made us to appreciate Him and the Savior, all the more.

P.S. For something on a whole different subject, check out this article that appeared on The Huffington Post. I hope our families know how glad we are to have them.

“Dear Parents with Young Children in Church” by Jamie Bruesehoff