Genesis 2 tells the story of how God created mankind.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 2 vs 7,8
All scripture is God breathed and useful for training. However, if God says something more than once then we are to take extra notice of it…
Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 2 vs 15
Notice where God made man – OUTSIDE of the garden. Picture the scene, the earth has been chaos but God has spoken over it and we have the creation. New, energized, and above all WILD. Wild is good – very good. God is a warrior, wild, as well as a lover, tender and merciful. Adam is created in the midst of this Holy, perfect, wildness (not wilderness – although some scholars tell us that the Gen 2 version of creation implies that is is a wilderness outside of Eden…)
Inside the heart of Adam is something wild, and God says that it is good. And wild goes beyond “Nature” and “Outdoor pursuits”. You can be wild in the city. Wild means not “Tended and kept” in the sense of the garden. Wild is risky. Wild is dangerous.
God then plants a garden, takes man and puts him in it. What’s the difference between a perfect wildness and a perfect garden? There’s a meditation to feed the heart, but in any case Adam has to tend and keep the garden. The wildness doesn’t need tending and keeping like a garden does. I picture Adam working in the garden and also going out to explore the wildness outside Eden, returning again to the garden where he walked with God in the cool of day. I don’t know of course, but I suspect Adam was drawn to the wildness -to the risks, to the danger.
There is something in the heart of God that is wild. And we are made in His image. Because Adam was made in the wildness his sons sense that call in their deepest hearts.
A few verses later we read:
And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 2vs 21,22
And what of Eve and her daughters? How are we to see them in relationship to the wildness that Adam was birthed in? That’s for another day!