Living Your Life by Design
"But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand."
Isaiah 64:8
I am on a journey of discovering exactly how we are created and what that means in relation to our purpose. If we are going to live by design, then I guess we ought to know exactly how God designed us.
So let's go back to the very beginning.
"Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." - Genesis 2:7
Let's look at a few words from this particular scripture to gain understanding. The first word is "formed." The greek word is "yatsar" which means to fashion, through the squeezing into shape.
The second word I want us to look at is "ground." The greek word is "adamah" which means earth, soil, land.
The next thing God does is breathe into his nostrils and the man became a living being. He became a person with desires, passion, appetite, emotion.
This is where Isaiah gets his analogy of a potter molding the clay. God is taking from the ground and fashioning it into something beautiful. God was actively involved in forming every aspect of your life (spiritual, physical, emotional).
"And then the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed." - Genesis 2:8
God put man in the garden to cultivate it and keep it, to work it. God created work.
God could have continued to create. But He put man in the garden to continue what He started, to work and create. He gave him all that he needed to be fruitful (flourish), multiply (make much of Him), fill the earth full of His glory, and subdue it (mold the earth into useful and good purposes).
The intent from the very beginning is that we would take all the resources He created and bestowed upon us to make much of Him, to mold the earth into something beautiful and to create cities and societies who would glorify Him.
I was reading in my Bible app the other day and came across this quote in a reading plan called "God's Design For Your Work" by Work Matters,
"When we abide in God, put Him first and seek His wisdom, His word promises that our lives will bear abundant fruit - and we're not talking about apples here!
We're talking about transformed lives, beauty, technology, cities, industry -
about all the things that God is using to build
His kingdom and to bring Him glory."
You were created to create with your very being, your passions and desires, and flourish and create cities who worship Him with their very lives. There is an enemy who strategy is to frustrate that plan.
The Good News! God is redeeming body, mind and spirit and restoring our purpose. We weren't just saved from the curse of sin and death. But we were saved for a purpose that includes doing good works that God prepared in advance for us to do and bring Him glory as we create.
