As Adam Livingstone wandered into the warm, moonlit night, more was going through his mind at a deeper level than in any other recent period of reflection.

Throughout his life, until recently, he had not considered himself an introspective man. Thoughtful, perhaps, but not given to much personal analysis. Rarely did he ruminate pensively about matters of the soul.           

He prided himself on being a practical intellectual.

Now everything was changed for Adam Livingstone. He had nearly succeeded in making the discovery for which he had longed all his life.       He was on the threshold of arriving at the theoretical synthesis to which he had dedicated his efforts.

Yet suddenly his brain was filled with the personal, private, and deeply spiritual implications of his search. The entire focus of the quest had shifted. Nothing mattered now half so much as what was stirring and rousing to wakefulness in his own heart.

The arrivals of Rocky and Juliet in his life could not have been accidental. Both had contributed toward the gradual discovery, over the past several months, of his spiritual self. Now he found himself in a brand-new quandary. The stark and visible reality of the biblical Genesis account now stared him in the face with a thousand very pointed implications. 

He had long used the Bible as a historical document, as one of many such documents, no more than half believing it. The Hebrew account gave intriguing glimpses into Middle Eastern antiquity. But he had scarcely stopped to ask himself what he thought of its spiritual content.

Until that day he set foot in the ark.

It all began to change from that moment -- when he suddenly began to realize that the Genesis account of creation could be historically true. Even though he had spoken of that very thing since, somehow the overwhelming reality of it had not struck rock bottom in his own heart . . . until now.

He was on the threshold of discovering proof, to his satisfaction, that the early Genesis account of the Garden was factually true as well, earlier than the ark . . . all the way back to the beginning.

What an astounding claim!

Would anyone believe him if he put forward such an astonishing thesis? Suddenly it no longer mattered. It only mattered for one person -- it only mattered whether he himself believed that Genesis was true. At last he realized he did believe it! He knew it was true.

And if the foundation was solid, did that not speak volumes about the veracity of the rest? If Genesis was true, did not that fact indicate the truth of the entire Bible?  

Then followed the most significant and vital question of all: What did such a conclusion imply . . . for him? What were the personal implications?

At last Adam realized that to the honest heart, to the true truth seeker, truth and revelation demanded a response. There were consequences to looking for truth. It could not be ignored. Something was required of you if you discovered it.

If God really was God, suddenly Adam realized, the knowledge of that astounding and universe-shaking truth placed an incumbency -- not upon some vast impersonal cosmos, but upon him as a created being of that God. It was an incumbency to acknowledge, not merely to that Being's existence, but to his primacy, his authority, his complete sovereignty over all of life . . . most of all, over him -- Adam Livingstone himself.

Adam had trained himself for years in cause-and-effect thinking. Now he found himself up against the most thunderous cause-and-effect question of all:

If God is the causing originator of life, then what is the requisite effect upon the man or woman who recognizes that causative Truth?

If the discovery lying before them was the fantastic revelation he was certain it was going to be, then that "causing origination," that divine beginning of the universe, was not one any honest man could ignore.

At this moment Adam Livingstone had never felt more alone, more vulnerable, more naked to the vast yet personal creation he had given his life to study. His past, his future, his relationships, his discovery, what to do with it all -- everything had risen to a culmination at this moment of time as he walked in the quiet African moonlight.

His very personhood was at stake -- the most vital question every man or woman must ultimately face: 

Who am I? Am I my own . . . or do I belong to another?

Slowly Adam looked up. He knew God was not really up there, in the sky, among the stars, in the literal heavens. He was everywhere -- beside, him, around him . . . within him. The upward glance was a sign of respect, a human response to the awareness that there was a divine Creator-Father above, seeking intimate relationship . . . with him.

There comes a moment in the lives of all humans when distinction between themselves and the lower creatures is more evident than at any other.            Not creativity nor thought nor artistry nor genius nor spiritual yearning makes men or women most fully themselves. The pinnacle of personhood is reached not by climbing high but by stooping low. Humans are the only creatures endowed with the capacity to yield themselves by willing abandonment into the higher life of their Creator.

When people relinquish claim as master of their own lives, at that moment they step into the highest calling to which their humanness can lead them. Then are they ready and capable of walking with their Creator, their Lord, their Father, in the cool of the Garden.         

In abandonment of self, life is born.

Adam Livingstone was prepared to relinquish his claim of sovereignty over himself. He had pondered the meaning of his first name in recent months, feeling a gradually deepening kinship with that Adam of old. But now the implications of his family name began to penetrate more deeply as well.  

Thus was he at last ready to step into the full meaning of that name and become a living stone.

Adam gazed upward again, then drew in a deep breath.

And there, in the quiet night on the African plain where archaeologists came from the world over to seek and to study that which was dead and gone,        

he knelt down and offered himself in humble acknowledgment to the Creator of men and women, past and present, to the Lord of eons gone by and eons yet to come . . . to one who was living and present with him at that moment.

"God," Adam prayed in a barely audible whisper, "I am ready at last to make you my own personal God. I hardly yet know what that means. But I realize I can do nothing else. Such a decision is one I must make, one I want to make. I now know that you are God. You are the God of Genesis 1 -- no life force, no impersonal cosmos, but a personal Creator who reached down into the dust of the very earth of your making and fashioned a man, an Adam, in your own image. You breathed life into him. And now, God, I ask you to breathe life into me.

"No longer do I want to be an incomplete man, living but not apprehending what it truly means to be a man. No longer do I want to exist outside the garden of your presence. Bring me back, God. What Juliet told me about your Son's making that possible now makes sense, about the cross being the bridge across the gulf between you and your creation.

"Close the rift in my heart, God. I cannot be answerable for the rift on the globe's crust. I cannot undo the rift that the first Adam caused between yourself and him when he did not obey you and you had to send him from the Garden. But I can ask you to heal the separation within me, within this one man, this one Adam. Make me one with you, God, my own personal Creator, so that I may walk with you in the cool of the day in my own personal Eden.

"Even if I never set foot in a place on this earth where Adam and Eve actually trod, I see now that you have led me on this quest, not to find that literal Eden, wherever it might be, but to find you, Lord God, at the center of it . . . at the center of all things . . . at the center of my own being. It wasn't the Garden or the trees you gave to that first Adam -- it was you, yourself. And you are offering that to me now as well."

Adam rose. His spirit was quiet and at peace. He was Adam Livingstone,     

 a man now fully alive.

. . ."

When Adam returned to camp two hours after having wandered off, the others had already bedded down for the night.

As he'd turned and headed back, his thoughts had shifted to someone nearer at hand than the heavens. Her face had continued to intrude more and more regularly into his mind. And strangely, now at this moment, the only person he wanted to see was Juliet Halsay.

He walked slowly to the tent where the two young women slept. He wasn't sure if this was the right thing to do or how she might respond. But he had to talk to somebody.

No, Adam corrected himself. It wasn't just anybody he wanted to see -- 

he wanted to talk to her.

"Miss Halsay," he whispered just loud enough to rouse her. "Miss Halsay . . .

Juliet."

A moment later he heard a stirring inside.

"Yes . . . yes, what is it?" said her voice.

"It's Adam. Would you mind coming out? I'd . . . I'd like to talk to you."

"I'll be right there."

Adam backed away from the tent and walked a short distance away.

A minute or two later he heard the tent flap open behind him.                

Footsteps approached. He turned.

"I'm sorry," he said, smiling. "Were you asleep?"

"Not quite," Juliet replied with a smile. "I don't mind. But what is it?"

she asked, the smile disappearing.

"Nothing serious," said Adam, seeing the anxious look on her face.                   

"I wanted someone to talk to. I found myself wanting to talk to you."

They began walking slowly away from the camp. Pale moonlight shone over the landscape, casting an eerie gray glow over the rocky brown terrain.    

They continued on for two or three minutes in silence. Now that he had her at his side, Adam found himself at a loss.

"Do you remember that day," he began at length, "when you told me about God's being personal? You said he had to be personal."

"I remember," replied Juliet softly.

"I finally understand what you were saying. I've been a bit thick-headed.        

But now I see that you were exactly right in what you said way back at Sevenoaks: 

God is no impersonal creative force -- he is a very personal Creator. Isn't that what our whole research is about, in a way? Isn't that the meaning of the Garden of Eden?"

"I hadn't really thought of that exactly. But I suppose you are right."

"If Eden existed, as a real place, I mean, with real people, a real man and woman . . . if it's more than mere myth, then the one thing it was above all else was personal -- God and man living and walking and talking together. You said it earlier this morning when you told me about asking God to live in your heart -- that it had begun a new intimacy between you and him. Isn't that what it must have been like in the Garden -- that same kind of intimacy between Adam and Eve as God's newly created son and daughter? 

Genesis is a pretty remarkable account when you stop and think about it."

Juliet nodded but found herself unable to speak. Her heart had begun to climb into her throat.

"Yes, well, at any rate," Adam went on, "I believe I have you to thank for setting my feet down the road of thinking about God as personal. And that's what I wanted to say. So, Juliet Halsay . . . thank you. I appreciate your telling me how you prayed. Your openness meant a great deal to me. It helped me realize that I wanted to be God's son, too, and that I desired to experience that same Garden intimacy."

Adam paused, turned, and looked down into her face. Their eyes met.

Only for a moment did they hold the gaze. Juliet glanced away. She brought her hand to her heart as if its beating was strange and unexpected.

"I'm sorry if I embarrassed you," said Adam, now also suspecting something rising within his own heart. He felt like a schoolboy.

"No . . . that's all right," floundered Juliet. "I . . . I mean --"

She didn't know what she meant and could say nothing more. Too many thoughts and feelings were rushing through her. She couldn't think straight! 

Did she care more about this man than she had allowed herself to admit?

"Will you . . . walk with me awhile longer, Juliet?" It was the first time he had spoken her name aloud to her face.

Adam led the way. She followed at his side. For a few moments neither said more. Their hearts were too full.

Gradually as they walked both found their tongues again. They continued to speak of many things, all the former invisible barriers between them gone as if they had never existed. 

They felt they had known one another all their lives.

Michael and Judy Phillips email and website:

macdonaldphillips@sbcglobal.net            www.FatherOfTheInklings.com

With this recounting of the Divine Romance -- preparing and enabling the human romance 

between Adam Livingstone and Juliet Halsay, we at

Lindsay House Publishing pray the same blessings for you, 

by God's will and in His perfect time.

But of course, A Rift in Time by Michael Phillips is just a novel . . .

OR IS IT ?