As I begin this series of blogs about God-given dreams, I want to start at the beginning with our ancestors, Adam and Eve. God had created His dream. In six days, He created this dream world in which we live. Finally, He had everything prepared for His ultimate creation–people. 

God had spoken everything into existence and “saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:10,12,18,21,25). But with man, He would take a more hands-on approach. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’” (Genesis 1:26). “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:7). The creation of man completed the creation of all God planned, and “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

God then planted a garden in Eden, placed man in it, and gave him his instructions (Genesis 2:8). Genesis 1:28 records the first words God spoke to mankind—“And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.’” These instructions were to fulfill God’s dream of making a family for Himself.

One reason God created mankind was to have children to love. He started with Adam and Eve and instructed them to multiply. God planned to show the vastness of His love by loving a vast number of people. Adam and Eve were tasked with this God-given mission to multiply and fill the earth with children for God to love.

God’s plan was fellowship. The Garden of Eden must have been the most beautiful place on Earth. Imagine it. A garden planted by the Creator Himself, fully displaying the majesty of His artistry—Filled with fruit trees sufficient to feed man and animal. Flowers of all colors. Every kind of animal, gentle to pet and play with. Birds singing. Fish swimming. Perfect temperatures. Beautiful skies—Paradise!

But what truly made this garden paradise was the presence of its Creator. Genesis 3:8 mentions “the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” in such a way that we surmise that this was the norm, not the exception. God often came to His garden to fellowship with Adam and Eve.

Unfortunately on this day, as the Lord came, Adam and Eve hid themselves “from the presence of the LORD God” (Genesis 3:8). Since the last time God came to walk among them, Adam and Eve had encountered the Enemy in serpent form and fell prey to his evil plan to separate them from God. Choosing to disobey God and eat of the forbidden fruit, the one thing God had said was off limits, ushered sin and death into paradise (Genesis 3).

When God came that day to the garden, Adam and Eve hid, not wanting to face the consequences of their disobedience. Genesis 3:14-19 delineates the punishment for their sin, which included pain in childbirth for the woman, toilsome work for the man, and the introduction of physical aging that would culminate in death. But the worst punishment is laid out in Genesis 3:23-24: “Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”

Driven from paradise, the dream was lost! Or was it? Had the all-knowing Creator God foreseen man’s disobedience and provided a contingency plan? Yes, He had. God always has a plan. Even when we mess up, we can trust that God has pre-planned for our failure and will provide a way to restore us to fellowship. For Adam and Eve, and for all of mankind, Jesus is the plan to restore paradise and fulfill God’s dream to make Himself a family. 

As God pronounced the curse for sin, He introduced the idea of a Savior as He spoke to the serpent: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15, NKJV). Jesus is the Seed who will bruise the head of Satan—destroying him along with death (see 1 Corinthians 15:55-57). 

Jesus has been and always will be the way. He is not an afterthought that God devised when man messed up His perfect plan. God knew what would happen, and He had already planned to provide a way to keep the dream from being destroyed. 

First Peter 1:18-20 speaks of us as being redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ … He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world.” And Revelation 13:8 calls Jesus “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” God didn’t panic when sin threatened His dream. He had already planned and provided a way to continue the creation of His family. 

Ephesians 1:4-6 declares, “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” 

Fellow dreamer, God chose you before the creation of the world to be His. He loved you, chose you, and adopted you as His child. You are accepted in the Beloved, Jesus. If you fear you have messed up your dream through sin or anything else, remind yourself that God is your Dream-giver. He created you and gave you a purpose. He can fulfill His purpose through us just as He did through Adam and Eve. God has received many children through the multiplying of creation that He originally planned through them and through the work of the Seed, Jesus, who died for us on Calvary.  Through Jesus, we can walk in His presence as His child, serving Him as He has determined, and fulfill your God-given dream to bring your Father the glory He deserves.

When have you felt that you broke fellowship with God?

How did He restore you to fellowship?

*All Scriptures are quoted from ESV unless otherwise noted