Work and Our Purpose
The Following is the Script for this Video:
What could be more aimless than a fly buzzing a room? A lot of movement, but what’s the mission? Plenty of noise, but for what purpose? An aimless fly is one thing. An aimless human being is infinitely worse. But because God made us for a purpose, we need to know why we’re here.
Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and neurologist, wrote: “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” If Frankl is right, then a great many people are finding life intolerable.
A 2023 study from the Harvard Graduate School of Education found that “Nearly 3 in 5 young adults (58%) reported that they lacked ‘meaning or purpose’ in their lives in the previous month. Half of young adults reported that their mental health was negatively influenced by ‘not knowing what to do with my life.’”
To discover our purpose, we need to look outside the normal sources for finding answers. Science is good at revealing “how,” “what,” “when,” and “where.” But science cannot tell us “why?” How, then, can we—young or old—discover our purpose?
Suppose you purchase a home from an inventor. After moving in, you discover this strange machine in the attic. Puzzled, you wonder, “What’s it for? What is it meant to do?” What is its purpose? How would you go about finding the answer? You’d go back to the maker and ask.
We can be grateful that our Maker has already told us why he made us. In conversing within himself, God made clear his purpose in creating us: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’”
Here, then, is the heart of God’s purpose for us: “Let us make man . . . and let them rule.”
Two verses later, God expands on that word “rule.” He gives his instructions to his newly created human race: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth, and subdue it.” So God’s human creatures were to populate the earth and “subdue” it.
In English, both “rule” and “subdue” might come across as abrasive or harsh. However, after carefully studying the two Hebrew words translated as rule and subdue, Andrew Basden has concluded that “the role of humanity . . . is one of having authority for the sake of the rest of creation, for its own development.”
This meaning of “rule” and “subdue” gets confirmed in Genesis 2:15. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” So through our work, we would carry out our rule-and-subdue role. By assigning him to work the Garden, God was giving Adam authority to decide and to act for its well-being and to bring out its built-in worth.
Even after he had banished his human creatures from the Garden, the whole earth outside it still belonged to God. So his assignment to “work the ground” continued. Now the whole earth had to be ruled and subdued. Human property managers needed to look after it and release its many potentials.
At Creation, then, God revealed his purpose for us. Although the whole earth was his, he shared the privilege and responsibility of ruling it with us. He placed us on what we might call the “ruling road.” He intended that we travel that road, doing the good work for the benefit of his earth and its life. This is the good work he had prepared for us to do.
But we all know what happens in Genesis 3. Humans allow sin to invade planet earth. Suddenly, we plunge into a pothole along the ruling road. We hand our earth-ruling authority over to the spirit behind the serpent. So that during his time on earth, Jesus would call the devil “the prince of this world.” But in spite of sin’s pothole, God does not give up on us or on his plan for having us rule and subdue his earth.
So he sends his Son, Jesus, to live among us and rescue us. Jesus offers up his life on the cross, removing our sin by taking it into his own body. On day three, he rises from death’s grip. Now, joined to Jesus in both his death and resurrection, we are able to return to doing the good work God designed us to do. As Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:10, “God has created us in King Jesus for the good works that he prepared, ahead of time, as the road we must travel.” And so, God has placed us back on the ruling road for the benefit of his Creation.
In your work, whether paid or unpaid, you have a wonderful opportunity. You may now ask God to make you able—within the sphere of your influence—to reflect him and to rule for him. Made in his image, you are to reflect his light and love. Made to rule, you can seek to see his will done through what you decide and what you do.
Answering these two questions may help you connect your faith and your work:
1. What products or services does my work produce through which God provides and cares for his world?
2. How does my work create opportunities to reflect God and his love in my work circle?
Today, as we work, we are awaiting God’s renewed creation. In their present form, our mortal bodies limit both the amount and effectiveness of our work. But the day is coming when—in our resurrected and transformed bodies—we will rule God’s renewed earth forever. Revelation 22:5 promises, “And they will rule with him age after age after age.”
No more aimless wandering. In spite of sin’s pothole, God has made it possible for us to hit the mark of his purpose after all!
The WHY Question
Fifty-eight percent of young adults say they lack meaning or purpose.
