A short time before Kathy, an older woman in our church, passed away, she told a friend she wouldn’t be worried about her children any longer. She felt she had fulfilled her purpose, that God was pleased, and now she could rest.
After God had created a bunch of amazing things like planets, the fireball of a sun, a moon for a nightlight, oceans and mountains, you’d think he’d be ready for time off, too. But unlike my friend nearing the end of her life, God wasn’t done with his work. He wanted a garden.
God’s great works
“When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
“And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’
“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him’ ” (Genesis 2:5-18 ESV).
He gave us an assignment
I hadn’t seen it before, but the scripture says that God made the man, then planted the garden and put him in it. It’s apparent Adam watched God work and learned from him how to care for the garden. This is consistent with what we understand of God as a good Father, teaching his children to do well in work and in life, and to avoid the hazards along the way.
And isn’t it interesting that God demonstrated a work ethic and gave humans tasks to do before there was hunger or lack. The fall into sin, and subsequently the separation from our Creator, hadn’t occurred yet. Work was good, and relational, and mirrored the power of the Maker of all things.
Can you imagine God lounging on the patio with a cool drink, Adam and Eve on either side of him, surveying the outcome of their week’s work? Maybe that’s what my friend Kathy is enjoying right now.
by Kathy Sheldon Davis
kathysheldondavis.com 