We all need a home. A home is different from a house. A home is where you feel loved and secure. A home is where you can go anytime and you are always welcome. It is your home and it was made for you to dwell there. A home offers protection from the world and the elements. The storms of this world, whether emotional or physical, can be cold and seem cruel and relentless at times but if you have a home then you have a shelter. We all long for a place where we feel loved and secure that we can call our home. When Adam and Eve sinned they lost their home. Sin and rebellion sometimes does that to us. The devil lies about or minimizes the consequences of sin and the price that we pay for not obeying the Lord. It probably did not occur to Adam and Eve that they would lose their home.
therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. Genesis 3:23
The Lord had to send them out from the garden, where life was a delight, lest they eat of the tree of life and live forever in their sinful state. Love makes a home for the lonely and the Lord began preparing a place for Adam and Eve, where they would be safe and secure and which would never be taken away from them but that home would come later for those who would put their faith in Jesus Christ.
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:1-3
Adam and Eve still had a choice of whether or not they were going to love God or go their own way and do their own thing. However, because of sin, life becomes harder and Adam’s work was harder because the land had weeds and thistles. Work was no longer the delight that it had been before. He could rebel again, and make it even harder for himself, or he could learn to trust and obey the Lord and God’s help would be available for him even in his difficulty.
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:22-24
It was God’s love that sent Adam out of the garden. It is God’s love that gives us a home. If we will not rebel against the Lord but learn to trust Him then He makes a home for the lonely.
God makes a home for the lonely;
He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,
Only the rebellious dwell in a parched land. Psalm 68:6
Instructions To A Young Life 