Why Work?

"Then the LORD god took the man and put him in the garden to tend and keep it" (Gen 2:15).

Why didn't God make the Garden so that it didn't need any tending or keeping?

Why not make angels the gardeners, servants of man?

Why did God give man work to do?

Was it just to keep him out of trouble? "Idle hands are the devil's playthings!"

That didn't work.

God gave man work because he was created in the image of God.  He was created to work. He was created with the ability and the desire to work and to be creative.

While we may enjoy a vacation or a day off, even in those times we have a desire to accomplish something. Ask someone who has been bedridden for an extended period.

"I wish I could get up and do something!"

God has created us with the desire to be creative, to work, to accomplish - just like Himself.

So God put man in the Garden and gave him work to do. And that was before the Fall brought about death and the struggle for life.

Adam was placed in a garden that didn't need to be weeded, that had plenty of water and that produced more than he and his wife could eat.

And he didn't have any neighbors to share those bushels of zucchini and tomatoes.

God put Adam in the garden with his desire to create and to work.

Do you get it? God gave Adam the desire to create and to work AND He gave him the means to meet those desires.

God's love and grace does the same for us.

He gives us a desire to be loved and meets that need by giving us His love (Jn 3:16; Rom 5:8).

He gives us a desire to know and to be known and meets that need by knowing us (Psa 139:1-6) and by revealing Himself to us (Rom 1:18).

Every desire that He gives us, He meets much greater than any job, person or event could ever do (Ps 37:4).

Yet we waste so much time and energy trying to meet those desires away from God.

Just like Adam did in Genesis 3.

True joy and satisfaction, the meeting of all our desires, can only be found in God. Anything else is empty.