Human Response 2: Dress and Keep the Garden

Genesis 2:15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.

God created the garden of Eden, a perfectly beautiful Paradise, and put man into it to enjoy God and live with Him forever. The intended human response to God’s gracious action was: Work! Adam praised and thanked and enjoyed the Lord God by working the Garden and keeping it. Work is the proper and God-given response for people to whom the Lord has given gifts and blessings. Work was designed to be pleasant, fulfilling, and enjoyable as our thankful response to God’ grace and goodness.

However, because of the Fall into Sin, the blessing of work became the curse of toil, hard work. Our Sin turned the blessing into a curse. All work, whatever it may be, is now filled with ”thorns and thistles,” stresses and strains, problems and obstacles. Life is hard now because work is cursed. Life is tough because work is rough. And it is our own sin that is the cause (we can’t just blame Adam).

Although the curse remains, Christ has redeemed us from the curse. And although work is still hard, it is ameliorated by believing and living and working in Christ. Each Christian has a particular calling, or vocation, that when lived out by faith, makes life and work meaningful and fulfilling. So, work is still our happy response to God’s gifts and blessings. On the other hand, laziness is a deadly sin, for it thwarts God’s good purposes for our abundant life.