Looking After God’s World
As suggested in an earlier blog, the current exodus from work opens a door for churches. In that article, I briefly described seven Kingdom-of-God reasons for working. This will expand on the third reason: Our work cares for God’s earth and its life.
Starting when I was about 14, Dad put me in charge of a half-acre on his 30-acre farm. “In charge” meant that each spring I plowed, disked, fertilized, and harrowed the soil to prepare it for planting. Then, after making a hundred or more pockets in the ground, I buried in each shallow hole the seeds for Marblehead squash. Summer months meant irrigating, weeding, and dusting for bugs. And when the first frost in the fall flattened the vines, I harvested the whitish-green, pumpkin-like squash—weighing from 15 to 80 pounds—and took them to market.
I could not see it at the time. But my role on Dad’s farm pictured the much larger reality of the human task on God’s earth. The whole farm, including that half acre, belonged to Dad, not to me. But within the boundaries he had marked out, I ruled—took responsibility for, made decisions concerning—that half-acre. And I did so through my work.
Just as Dad had delegated the care of that plot of ground to me, God handed over the rule of his good earth to human beings. “Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground’” (Gen. 1:28, NLT). Govern. Reign. In short, God put his image-bearers in charge of his earth.
What if I had neglected watering the squash plants? A puny harvest or none at all. What if I had let the squash bugs take over? Wilted or dead vines. The well-being of that tiny plot of land and its crop depended on me. The way I ruled—or neglected to rule—had real consequences.
In similar fashion, carrying out or disregarding our earth-care responsibilities brings about either helpful or hurtful outcomes. Speaking of “earth-care” or “ruling God’s earth” might seem to put the task into the hands of specialists. Does ruling require us to join some large-scale environmental movement or seek election to an influential government post? No. While God sends some into those paths, he has distributed the ruling responsibilities throughout the wide-ranging diversity of our day-to-day work.
The Greek word metron—sphere of authority—can help us connect even the most mundane work to our God-given assignment to rule. I am grateful to Jonathan Nowlen, in Managing Your Metron, for calling my attention to this term. “A metron,” he says, is “a portion of creation to which God has commissioned you to influence. . . . Within your metron is found the jurisdiction in which you are to co-labor with God . . . .”
Each of the three work-role descriptions below illustrates various aspects of ruling—managing, controlling, leading, directing, influencing, deciding, overseeing, taking responsibility for, and so on.
Dental Assistant.
Teeth play an important part in God’s creation. So creation-care includes attending to teeth when they become sensitive, ache, break, decay, or otherwise let us down. Dental assistants carry out their ruling roles in many ways. For example, they oversee the preparation of patient-treatment rooms. They preside over X-ray examinations, making certain that they are done in line with safe-practice standards. They partner with dentists in procedures that require four hands. They adopt attitudes and choose words that affect anxious patients.
Truck Mechanic
God’s earth requires transporting things from one location to another. In the first century, camels served as carriers. In the twenty-first century, most of us could not survive without trucks: refrigerated, flatbed, tanker, and so on. The work of truck mechanics puts them in charge of keeping those trucks moving. Mechanics inspect brake systems, engines, steering assemblies, and transmissions. If something is wrong, they decide—a ruling function—what repairs need to be made. Their actions and reactions earn the trust or distrust of customers.
Computer Programmer
Life on God’s earth today depends heavily on the work of computer programmers. If there were no programmers, you could not answer an email on your computer or text someone on your cell phone. Programmers work with code to build applications that let non-technical people tell electronic devices what to do. They rule by using their judgment to maintain software, troubleshooting and debugging it when necessary. They decide how to deal with hackers and other malicious invaders of our computer-filled environment. They take stances that influence other members of their teams.
With these three examples in mind, ask yourself:
How does my work help to make life on God’s earth what it ought to be?
If Jesus were in my position, how would he do the work?
“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” (Ps. 24:1). Jesus has been given all authority, not only in heaven, but also here on the earth. We who are “in Christ,” members of his body, share in his authority. Within our various metrons, we in our work are to seek to see God’s will being done here on his earth as it is in heaven.
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Kingdom Reasons for Working
How can you carry out God’s purposes in your daily work?
