Exporing beauty and responsibility

Working in the Garden

Published February 27, 2019 in Creation Care - 8 Comments

What gift can a Christian bring to environmental discourse??

By God’s will, we exist. All created things exist. Think about this: everything we need – all 8 billion people and the myriad of other species – has already been created. Wondrous.

The Spirit moved over the waters. Material comes from Spirit. That material provided all the resources we have now. Over the centuries we humans have recombined the raw materials God has given us, fashioning what we need to eat, to wear, to live in. Sometimes we do a good job. Other times we are wasteful.

While this gift is bountiful, it comes with a covenant. We are told we are to work in the Garden (Genesis 2:15). After our fall from Grace in Genesis 3, that work got a tad more difficult, but the task of working in the Garden continues.

Three of the aspects of Christian life we can bring to the environmental discourse are gratitude, joy, and obedience. Our gratefulness comes for a God who provided everything we need. Our joy comes from the privilege of working in the Garden with the Creator. Our obedience arises from continue to work in the Garden, even when we do not feel like it.

Gratitude in Provision
Joy in Relationship
Obedience in Perseverance

As I write this, my wife, Terri, is refashioning my beloved Harris Tweed sport jacket. As I watch her work I can see the cycle of God’s provision at work and how Terri gives back to the “Garden”. She made it originally in the 1990’s from fabric purchased in Liberty London, where she worked. The tweed, wool made from sheep; the lining, Bemberg Rayon made from the cellulose of cut down trees; the thread, polyester, long-chained carbons from oil made from long dead diatoms. Everything she needed for the jacket came from God’s created order, something for which we are extremely grateful. God’s raw materials were fashioned by Scottish millworkers, Canadian loggers and plant workers, and American chemical technicians into the products Terri could use. All of them working in the garden. I hope they had joy and pride in their work, collaborating with God. I know that when Terri is working on a new clothing creation, her studio is suffused with joy.

The obedience comes from perseverance in the work. Terri often gets a stuffed nose from the fibres floating around, tense shoulders from working over her sewing machine. The reward? An object well made, and I can assure you, worn with pride. The obedience also comes from wasting nothing. When Terri lays out a pattern, it is in such a way that little fabric falls on the cutting room floor.

All of us share the same task of obedience to use carefully what God has given us. With gratitude and joy, we look at our lives and the work of our hands to see with new eyes how we are placed in God’s Garden. How can we better tend the Garden gifted to us?

8 comments

Kampus Ternama - April 29, 2023 Reply

The content was really very interesting. Best of luck for your next blog.

    Mark Polet - May 2, 2023 Reply

    Thanks for your support!

Adi Satria Pangestu - October 19, 2019 Reply

what can be done in the park?

    Mark Polet - October 20, 2019 Reply

    Hi Adi, thank you for writing. It is good to hear from you. Just to be clear, do you mean a park in a city, or a national park in your country, Indonesia? Please let me know what you mean so I can provide a more relevant answer. Regardless, all of us share the same task of obedience to use carefully what God has given us.Your country is blessed with a rich amount of natural resources; please use them wisely.

Dianne Priest - March 5, 2019 Reply

You mention ” Joy in relationship.” Yesterday, Robert and I ” joyed” directly with nature as we cross country skied in the fields across from our house. Getting there was a bit tricky as someone who must have been driving a huge, double wheeled truck had driven down the toboggan hill marring its recreational possibilities. However, if one wants the joy, one seeks to overcome difficulties and once on top of the hill, we were off on the tracked trails, across fields, with the blue sky, sun, swish of the skis and more then one ” yahoo” to celebrate. I called out to Robert, ” aren’t we privileged to be able to be here, to stretch out, see the tracks beckoning in front of us, quiet, no one around.” Dear God, thank you that even in the city you give us an oasis of nature to rejoice in.

    Mark Polet - March 5, 2019 Reply

    Sounds compelling, Dianne. I love the statement ‘…if one wants the joy, one seeks to overcome difficulties.’ What a joyous reward: blue skies and white snow in the purity of God’s Creation.

Andrew Whistance-Smith - February 28, 2019 Reply

You are so insightful, Mark. And how glorious that even rayon comes from God’s creation! Nothing comes from our hands alone. We only manipulate what God has already created and so it is only right to give Him praise and use the resources He has provided wisely.

    Mark Polet - February 28, 2019 Reply

    Thanks, Andrew. Yes, indeed, even Rayon! Being colabourers with God in fashioning what he gives us brings such joy!

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