Edenic Delight

God’s presence is a never-ending flow of Edenic delight that can fully satisfy every human’s craving, yet cannot be fully tasted by mere human senses, no more than any human could fully drink a river dry.

This week I enjoyed Memorial Day camping and hiking with my family.  The little hiking trail ascended for about 3/4^th of a mile along a river bed to where it descended from a 60-80-foot cliff forming the beautiful Bash-Bish water falls.  It was a peaceful site to take in.  Perhaps the Lord made gravity just so we could enjoy the magnificence of trillions of little water drops descending in perfect unorganized beauty.  Thank you Lord for your creative genius!

With the backdrop of that experience, this morning I meditated on Psalm 36:8.  So much to drink in this verse!

They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house;

And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights (Psalm 36:8).

The delight is in God and His things.  It is God’s house; it is God’s delights that are our drink.  What a shame to come to God just for the things He gives.  Even most toddlers are more mature than enjoying the stuff parents give more than their parents.  We do not come to our Father just for a crayon or two which He gives for us to use down here below.  We come to our heavenly Father to enjoy our heavenly Father.  Some Christians are stuck in the diaper/infant stage way too long.

The delight is abundant Edenic delight.  I loved the word delight here in the Hebrew.  It is from the word Eden.  The Garden of Eden still is available for the man and woman who have been forgiven by God based on the sacrifice of His Son.  These are welcomed back to that fellowship of walking calmly in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the morning too enjoy intimate fellowship with God in His Word.

The delight is tasted, yet not fully.  What really caught my meditation, is that it is a river of Edenic delights.  We can take a taste of a mountain spring but have to watch most of the water pass along.  So too are God’s delights.  They are tasted, but far too great, too bountiful to ever be fully drunk dry.  They are eternally springing from His presence.  They are as “the river that makes glad the city of God.”  For it is the river of the delight of God’s presence which is “fullness of joy.”

“O Christ, He is the fountain,

The deep sweet well of love!

The streams on earth I’ve tasted

More deep I’ll drink above:

There to an ocean fullness

His mercy doth expand,

And glory, glory dwelleth

in Emmanuel’s land.”

Cousins/Rutherford