I believe God created earth and its environment for the crown of His creation to inhabit with carefree joy and childlike abandon. With the advent of disobedience, we find ourselves still in the same place but with a few unalterable truths: hard work and toiling the land replaced carefree abandonment.
The places God created for us are varied and wonderful and we can choose to live from the hottest desert to the most arctic of regions; most of us prefer the comfortable zone in the middle. Due to modern politics our choices are sometimes limited by the place of our birth, and sometimes then we ‘import’ exotic reminders into our homes of places we dream about - enter the interior decorators!
We spend enormous amounts of money and time on finding the right spot for just the perfect home, to be decorated with the ideal balance of furniture and decorations. Sometimes we are even found to be bragging about stuff that will rot away after we're gone. But industries and careers are built around our pursuit of geographical and comfort perfection.
Jesus ignores all of this and spends an enormous amount of time on mountainsides, on the lake of Galilee, and walking the streets of Israel sleeping wherever He can find a place. His apparent disregard finds expression when He declares that He is going to prepare another place for us, since this earth is bound for destruction. Talk about a different perspective!
Solomon in all his experience and wisdom declares that in the house of the righteous there is much treasure, but what exactly was he referring to? Was he actually speaking about the hand-woven Persian rugs and gold plated carvings, or was he referring to a treasure bound up in the heart of man? If our house is full of treasure and God's house is a place of prayer, is there a parallel to be found? If God inhabits the praises of His people, where do we find ourselves as inhabitants? Paul refers to us as aliens, not even of this world! How then are we to redefine geography and redraw the maps of our understanding? Are we still able to experience God through nature, see Him in the gentleness of a sunrise, hear Him on the whisper of the wind, feel His power in a storm and sense His presence from the spray off the surf?
So the questions keep coming at us from many different perspectives, and with them those glorious debates that good times with friends are made of. We can either over-spiritualize our life's experience, or we can totally neglect the importance of spirituality. Either way we are in trouble, but if we can maintain the status quo set forth by the lifestyle of Jesus Christ we are safe.
