From where I sit I see dusk descending; it is evening and will be morning, another day. The greater lights of the mall are now aglow, so too the lesser lights of the autos, marking the circuitous route of workers stopping by on their way home.
Another day of labour has ended for many, ended I suspect without much reflection save some relief that Monday is finally over. [Ah yes the second day of the week, even from the beginning, the day was not designated as "good"! 
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Unlike the many, whom I resemble often enough, I have been thinking, not just about work generally, but the working relationship that exists between man and God’s creation. The LORD God assigned our elder brother to work and keep the garden (Ge 2:15). The word “work” here is also translated as “care”, “dress”, “cultivate”. The relationship is a positive one; the work of the man would be such that the garden would continue to be fruitful. The man’s labour in the garden and with the garden, would serve God’s purposes for the garden. Man in his toil would be representing God himself, he would be acting as his vice-regent, guarding the garden’s God-given capacity to bring forth harvest upon harvest. In so doing, he was protecting the very means that God had ordained to provide man with his sustenance (Ge 1:29-30). Man was to steward the garden, so that the garden could sustain the man.
That idyllic state did not last. Man was not content to be vice-regent, even to God Almighty. That rebellion, to which all of us naturally sign on to, has had devastating results. We no longer care for God’s creation as we ought, instead we often rule over it with self-centred, short-sighted ruthlessness. Instead of dressing it, we denude it; instead of cultivating it, we corrupt it.
From where I sit, dusk has given way to darkness. A fitting metaphor of how I feel as one man reflecting upon mankind’s relationship to God’s creation. I do not feel at all enlightened nor empowered to act in God’s stead as steward. It seems so much easier and simpler just to thoughtlessly function as a squatter in God’s garden.
But that will not do. Creation longs for the adopted sons of God to once again live as vice-regents. God’s Kingdom has broken into our broken world and with its inauguration the futility that enslaves creation ought to be challenged. I understand that I cannot change the world in global proportions, but it does not follow that I cannot change my world in personal and local proportions. That seems to me to be very much a part of following Jesus.
How do you see it?
