The Long Journey Home: Walking or wandering

“You (Cain) will be a restless wanderer on the earth”....”Enoch walked with God; then he was not there because God took him.” (Genesis 4:19 & 5:24)
God’s beautiful design for humanity (you and me) was to live in relationship with him. The quintessential picture of this intimate union between the creator and his creation is  sketched in rudimentary form for observant  readers in Genesis 3:8. It’s here that we read that Adam hides from God as He comes and walks in the garden in the cool of the early evening. Inferred in this verse is that up until this point, God and Adam and Eve had regularly met and walked together through the garden.
We can only imagine what this experience would have been like. The creator God of the universe would take on a recognizable form and spend the cool hours of the early evening with Adam and Eve. We can speculate on what they might have talked about as they strolled through the lush vegetation and paused to greet and pet one of the many creatures. They would visit about the happenings of the day, Adam would ask questions about a plant or animal, marveling at a fascinating detail he had noticed…looking for insight into how he could maximize its potential. God would explain its design and how it was meant to grow and work. They would talk over options and plans for maximizing yields and expanding the garden beyond its current boundaries.
But after chapter 3 and the devastating effects that sin had on man’s relationship with God, one another and the creation…man who was designed to “walk with God” is relegated to wandering. The image of the wanderer is one who moves about, restlessly looking for something that cannot be found. Outside of the protective confines of a settled home he is forever on the move. Where peace and security once shaped his experience, now dangers abound and he fights to get and maintain whatever he can find or create. And this becomes the tension…the unfolding story of humanity as they desperately try to do for themselves what only God could do and had done. The wanderers live seeking to find and do life on their own, and those who “walked with God”  live trusting in His promise and provision.
And down through history these categories still remain. My question is which one are you? The soul of everyone is destined to wander restlessly unless it finds its rest in a restored relationship with the one who created it and made it possible to walk with Him…through the sacrifice of His Son who came and walked among us and died for us.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” — Augustine of Hippo
(Aaron Gesch is pastor of Basin First Baptist Church.)