Unwrapping God’s Earth-Gifts
(The following is the text of the video, “Work as Unwrapping God’s Earth-Gifts,” found HERE.)
Can you guess what you are hearing? Here’s another sample. That was the sound of a package being unwrapped.
By unwrapping a birthday gift, we uncover the treasure hidden in itl. God’s gifts packed inside his earth need to be unwrapped to reveal their benefits. Three times, the second and third chapters of Genesis tell how God intends for human beings to unwrap the treasures found in his earth.
God asks his human creatures “to work the ground” or the Garden. Strange! God’s own work had produced that ground—which he saw as “very good.” Why, then, would he ask his earth-people “to work the ground”?
He asked because “the ground” was packed with potential. But it would take the work of human partners made in God’s image to unpack all the treasures it contained. And, as earth yielded its valuables, those with eyes to see would give him glory again and again.
Do these work-the-ground words of God apply only to farmers, landscapers, and those who work directly in soil? Is it possible that all kinds of legitimate work involve “working the ground.”
All the raw materials for our bodies came from the ground, as do the raw materials available for us to work with. God told Adam: “dust you are.” God remembers that “we are dust,” even though we temporarily appear in our bodies of flesh. So those in health care who work with our bodies of dust are actually “working the ground.”
Jesus worked as a tekton, a Greek word meaning carpenter or builder. So he undoubtedly made things out of wood or stone. If he made a wooden table, he was “working the ground,” because the lumber had come from a tree the ground had produced. The original earth, as created by God, had no wooden tables. If Jesus made them, he unwrapped some of earth’s good gifts.
Think of a few of the good gifts from God’s earth we have come to count on in our everyday lives. Electronic devices: cell phones, computers, monitors, and so on. Making them uses 50 of the 90 elements found in the earth. Clothing: fabric for our clothing comes from what grows on earth or can be mined from it: the wool or skin of animals, petroleum or coal, from flax plants, or caterpillar spit. Electricity: the power to run our appliances, cool, heat, and illuminate our homes, comes from a variety of sources, the largest being coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Windmills and solar panels that generate electricity are made of earth-based materials.
Seeing how our daily work carries out God’s command to work the ground takes some imagination. How, for example, do software developers “work the ground”? First, consider the tools they use. Keyboards made of plastic and metal are made from petroleum and a great variety of ores from the ground. The computer chips inside their machines are made of silica sand—one of the the second-most abundant elements on planet earth. Second, think of what they produce—programs that help other people work the ground more efficiently as they unwrap the potentials in God’s earth.
Think about your work. Are you “working the ground?” What tools do you use as you work—and what are they made of? What raw materials do you work with? Where do they come from? Plants? Animals? Mines? What useful product or service does your work provide?
The manufacturer of a set of “very good” building blocks wants them to be rearranged into countless projects. By calling his newly created earth “very good,” God did not mean it had reached its full potential. Instead, the very-goodness of earth’s treasure chest allows us to make all kinds of things that benefit its people, animals, and plants.
Because earth’s treasure chest is given to us as God’s gift, we must not abuse or plunder it. While working the Garden, Adam was to “take care of it.”
Our religious traditions have separated church from work. It’s as if someone unzipped two parts of God’s Kingdom that should have been kept together. God himself has commanded us to “work the ground.” So all our work is sacred, none “secular.”
What a high privilege! Through your work, you can help unwrap the good gifts hidden within the ground God created. This offers you one more reason to get up and go to work—and to praise God as you do so!
Because earth’s treasure chest is given to us as God’s gift, we must not abuse or plunder it. While working the Garden, Adam was to “take care of it.”
Our religious traditions have separated church from work. It’s as if someone unzipped two parts of God’s Kingdom that should have been kept together. God himself has commanded us to “work the ground.” So all our work is sacred, none “secular.”
What a high privilege! Through your work, you can help unwrap the good gifts hidden within the ground God created. This offers you one more reason to get up and go to work—and to praise God as you do so!
MANAGE GOD’S EARTH
From Chapter 6: “The King of creation has credentialed you to serve him as a ‘governor’ over this or that part of his earth. No matter what the work—paid or not—it involves serving as God’s property manager who exrpesses love for him and others through work.”
