homesick for Eden's happiness

My wife and I are enjoying Randy Alcorn's updated book of "Seeing the Unseen" devotions. It's wonderful to find books that we both like reading together. It's a great way to start the day, reading aloud to each other.

Here's one highlight from Day 63, "Homesick for Eden's Happiness"

When we separate God from happiness and from our longing for happiness, we undermine the Christian worldview...

Were we merely the product of natural selection and survival of the fittest, we’d have no grounds for believing any ancient happiness existed. But even those who have never been taught about the Fall and the Curse intuitively know that something has gone seriously wrong. Why else would we long for happiness and sense what a utopian society should look like if we’ve never seen one? We are nostalgic for an Eden we’ve only heard echoes of. What if God made us for happiness, and therefore our desire to be happy is inseparable from our longing for God? What if He wired His image bearers for happiness before sin entered the world, and what if that wiring can be properly directed at Him and all He wants for us?

~ Randy Alcorn, Seeing the Unseen, Expanded Edition: A 90-Day Devotional to Set Your Mind on Eternity (Multnomah, 2017)

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