My summer conference and retreat commitments will make topical blogging a bit of a problem, so I am going to do what I did last summer and use these summer weeks for some biblical reflections. Our 2009 summer topic will be Genesis Gems.

I am suggesting that we think about some of the forgotten moments in that great first book of the Bible, moments we might have lost in the sweep of the stories related there.

Our first point is one to be found in Genesis 2:15—"The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it."

What a place to begin! The first human has been made, the woman is yet to come, but this creature is already at work. He was not created to loll under a fruit tree in the garden of delights, resting while life moved on.

So often we get this profoundly important point of theology wrong. We believe, mistakenly, that work was part of the punishment of the fall. Wrong! The human had already been given a role to tend and keep the garden. He was to feel the loam crumble beneath his hands, he was to plant seeds and tend their growth, he was to watch what he had tilled turn into a harvest-ready product.

And therein lies our destiny. We were not made to spend our lifetime in rest and relaxation, but in useful endeavors. I realize that early man had work that brought him directly in contact with the earth. He could watch the fruit of his labors take form and shape, something that many of our modern jobs do not allow.

But this might be the day to thank God for our daily tasks, even something as mundane as household chores or meal preparations. To be able to work is to share in the creativity of the God who made us. Let us rejoice and be glad!