Working and Keeping the Garden

Labor Day weekend is upon us, and that usually means one last trip to the lake, or one last cookout with family and friends as summer’s last gasp. While the heat will likely be around for a few more weeks this weekend marks the transition into the fall.

However, Labor Day itself has a deeper significance than that. First instituted in the late 19th century, the first Monday of September was set aside by Americans for honoring those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold” - for honoring workers and the work they do.

Genesis 2:15 tells us that after the creation of human beings God placed them in the garden “to work and keep it,” suggesting the work we do is a fundamental part of who we were made to be. Furthermore, this task, working and keeping the garden of God’s creation, is a fundamental part of what it means to bear the image of God as human beings. It is a task for each and every one of us. 

When you complete tasks faithfully and wholeheartedly, no matter how hidden or small, you are revealing the image of God and participating in this primal work. Each of us, in our work as home-keepers, teachers, in finance and medicine, as children tending to our small corners of creation, play a God-given role and reveal something of God's creative and care-filled power. 

Seeing our work in this light, as part of God’s creative and loving purposes for us, as a work to which He as a loving father calls us, provides opportunity to see our day to day asks as more than just the mundane reality, but as something so much grander. We have the opportunity to see our work in the light of God’s ongoing creative, redeeming, and restoring work, through which His glorious and great image is revealed. This Labor Day, I hope you are have sense of the grandeur to which your work is contributing. 

Proud to work alongside you,

Peter+