I’m not just referring to Him providing the sunshine that enabled your cornflakes to be. I’m also thinking of how He worked through so many people to get it to your bowl. You see, God could have chosen to deliver your food to your front door by Himself, fully prepared. But instead, we see a long human chain that links the farmer to the soil, the truck driver to the marketplace, and the grocery clerk to the cash register. All along the way, from one end of the chain to the other, humans are engaging in the First Commission, whether they realize it or not.
If we continue to follow the chain out the grocery store door, we find men and women who spend 40-80 hours a week at thousands of jobs that generate the dollars paid at the cash register. If we go back to the other end of the chain, where the farmer meets the soil, we discover things that only God can do (like creating sunshine, plants and water), but this doesn’t mean His work is done through photosynthesis alone. God does His work through truck drivers, grocery clerks and bankers.
As humans, we were created to co-work with God, by ruling over raw materials He alone sustains, shaping and molding them (as only image-bearers of God can do) into cornflakes, oatmeal and french toast. Milk comes from cows and grass that God alone sustains, but the process God uses to give you your breakfast is a delightful dance between Himself and human beings.
God sustains the milkman, and the truck. The butcher and the baker, too. These are all means by which God fulfills His purpose for food, His love for people, and His intention for human beings to govern over creation, using the gifts and abilities He provides. That’s what work is all about.
Secular jobs? Think again. The Hebrew word for "work" and "worship" is the same word. Click: avodah.
