“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15).

Floating on a cloud…playing a harp…sitting around…

Who even plays a harp?

Some picture this is what spending eternity in heaven will be like. How boring! No wonder few of us truly long and yearn for heaven.

I don’t know what heaven will be like, but I can tell you this is not heaven.

One of the clues for what heaven will be like comes from the verse of the day. God created the heavens and the earth and created Adam. After creating Adam, God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, and this is where it gets interesting. God placed Adam in the Garden to work!

Work! Yup. Work.

Adam is in paradise. And the reason why Adam is in paradise is to work it and take care of it. You mean, Adam wasn’t in paradise just lounging around eating fruits? He was working?

Yup. Work.

You see, we are most fully alive and most fully who we are when we are doing what we were created for. You know why? That’s what we were created for!

You know the feeling you get after accomplishing something, making something, baking something.

Here’s the thing – you don’t have to wait until heaven to do what you were created for. You can start that right now. God created you with your particular gifts and passions so that God can use you to establish his kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.

So, get to work!

“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).

The verse of the day tells us the steps or the process for human beings to becoming fully alive.

There are three clauses to our verse:

1. Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground
2. And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,
3. And the man became a living being.

Each of these three clauses begin with the Hebrew conjunction “and.” The Hebrew conjunction for “and” can mean “and,” “when,” and “then.”

So what James? What’s your point?

The point is that the conjunction “and” makes these conjunctions progressive. What I mean is that in order to get to being fully alive, the first two steps are necessary.

In God’s creation story, the man takes shape and form but is not fully alive until the breath of God is breathed into him. The breath of God is synonymous with the Spirit of God. It is only after the Spirit of God enters into the man that the man becomes fully alive.

There are too many people walking around having the form and the shape of human beings but who have no life. They are dead. They are the walking dead because the Spirit of God is not in them.

The only way we start living is when the Spirit of God enters us through the person of Jesus Christ. Only then can human beings understand their purpose and meaning in life.

Is the Spirit of God in you?

If so, do the people around you know the way to becoming fully alive? His name is Jesus. Tell them about him.

“God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground'” (Genesis 1:28).

Fill the earth – and subdue it.

Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and over every living creature.

I like it.

What’s there not to like about it? This pretty much sounds like a green light to do with the created world whatever pleases me. That’s what the Bible says. Right?

Hmm…Not so fast.

The Hebrew word for subdue means to “rule,” “have dominion,” and “dominate.” The understanding is that human beings have been given the responsibility to rule over, have dominion, and dominate the world around us to purposefully use them.

For instance, in order to grow things and keep things beautiful in a garden, one has to tend to the garden. The gardener has to rule over, have dominion, and dominate the natural order of things so that weeds and overgrowth can remain under control so that plants and flowers may grow. If you do nothing, it leads to chaos.

The Hebrew word for rule means to “subdue,” “bring into bondage,” “subjugate.” Much like the word translated as subdue, this means that human beings have been given the responsibility to bring order by subduing and subjugating the created order.

Behind both these words is the understanding that the human being is placed on earth for a purpose. The purpose is to do God’s will. When we forget that and put ourselves as the ultimate authority, we abuse and misuse God’s created world.

God created the world with a purpose. And God placed us in his created world to bring about his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

We are most fully alive when we fill the earth and subdue it for God’s kingdom purposes.