ODJ: from eden to here
June 10, 2010
Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it (v.28).
READ: Genesis 1:1-28
Recently my 5-year-old son, Seth, came running into the room. “Daddy, you have to teach me a superpower.” Apparently, Seth’s 7-year-old brother Wyatt had convinced Seth that I had already bequeathed to him a superpower—how to be invisible. Now, here Seth stood, waiting for his own bit of the birthright.
Each of us desires to have a unique purpose. We want to make an impact. We want what we do to matter. Good news! All of these things can be realized as we accept God’s invitation to join Him in His redemptive work.
God invited humans into His work of multiplying, filling, and reigning over all He had made (Genesis 1:28). This work to be done by Adam and Eve was pretty straightforward. They would build homes, craft utensils, raise sons and daughters, and enjoy the perfection of God’s creation.
Even when sin darkened Eden, God’s vision for His creation went unabated. God called out a people, Israel, who were to be—by their living and their loving—a “blessing to others” (12:2). As with Adam and Eve, much that God had for Israel to do sounded like simple details—how to butcher their meat, what kind of material to include in their clothes, and what work could be done on what days. These appeared to be unremarkable instructions. But they were precisely the particulars needed to grow a new kind of people in a new kind of world.
It’s the same for us. Paul says we are agents of God’s vision to continue this work of creating a “new people” (Ephesians 2:15). Like Jesus’ first followers, we do this in simple ways. We share meals and build friendships. We work diligently in our areas of industry. We create beauty by our art and passions and laughter. We join God’s work, the work from Eden to here. —Winn Collier
Where does your heart most long for God to create this kind of new world? Where do you sense God inviting you (with your unique passions and desires) into His creative work?
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