.jpeg)
What if the answer to our questions about connections is rooted in the very foundations of the creation of our earth?
Over the holidays, my husband and I were driving back from my hometown in Tennessee to where we live in Illinois, and we were listening to a podcast. The hosts of the podcast are Christians whose entire platform is catered to helping people make sense of the human experience. In this episode, they interviewed Dr. Matthew Lieberman, a former Harvard neuroscientist who specializes in social connection, about his findings on loneliness. Around the 1 hour mark, Dr. Lieberman says, “...we were built to take care of other people.” He bases this claim in history, stating that if you go back a thousand years, you were either a child being taken care of or you were actively a part of taking care of others. The phenomenon of independence in adolescence and young adulthood is much more of a recent development where you take care of no one but yourself.
He says, “I think the whole grow and find out who you are, sort of exists in this weird vacuum because I think who we are, are creatures that are supposed to be taking care of each other.”
Dr. Lieberman shares these things on a Christian platform, but he makes no reference to being a Christ follower himself, and there’s no evidence of him talking about God anywhere else that I could find online, yet his observations prove to be incredibly reflective of the things we see in scripture. What if the loneliness epidemic, which Leiberman argues is worse for your health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, was something God sought to remedy at the beginning of time? What if the answer to our questions about connections is rooted in the very foundations of the creation of our earth?
What Were WE Made For? – The Creation Account
Many pastors and theologians have looked to the Genesis account of creation as a possible way to explain many of the questions surrounding the hot-button issues of the day. But if we want to answer the question, “What was I made for?” we must begin with the question, “What were humans made for?”
In the book of Genesis, God creates man and woman and gives them three basic commands: “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 NIV). Immediately, we see man and woman given a purpose, a combined effort that would need both of their gifts. A charge to share and cultivate life and the earth and truly enjoy God’s creation as a gift. This is an extension of a partnership, an agreement between the Creator and those he created to take care of his work.
According to the Genesis account, Yahweh entrusted the responsibility to care for the earth to humans. On the seventh day, God rests, but not like we understand rest. He sits on his throne as Lord, seated in the Heavens to rule over his creation.
Humanity’s first command from God is to be caretakers of the things he has created.
What Are WE Made For? – Contextualized
While I am often tempted by the homestead farm life presented on social media, the reality is I live in a 900-square-foot second-story apartment in the North Suburbs of Chicago. There is minimal opportunity for me to tend to and subdue the Earth. Does this commandment mean I need more houseplants? Should I join a community garden? While those are good ideas and definitely wouldn’t harm your quality of life, I think the scope of these commands can go further than what we immediately think.
What then do the commands of God given to humanity mean for me? I believe these three commands can be contextualized and applied to every person.
“Be fruitful and increase in number,” – Care for Families and Community
Live your life oriented towards growing your community. Some of you reading this might be past the age of having children, some of you aren’t married. Some might wish for children but are in a season of waiting. Whatever your circumstances are, you have a role to play in the command to surround yourself with others. I believe this is a very literal call to Adam and Eve to create life together, but I think it can also be applied to a general call to relationships within a Christian community.
What does fruitfulness look like outside of childbearing? While the call to parenting is a beautiful opportunity, what do those without children do in the meantime? Much of our present-day Church experiences tend to be catered to families, but there are plenty of people outside of that demographic within our congregations. I believe fruitfulness outside of families has to include creating a family within your church community.
What would it look like for you to extend your eyes beyond the pod in which you exist and welcome others into your life intentionally and intimately? The call to community in Scripture is not a suggestion; God created you to live in community just like He does. Our very likeness to God reflects the way we live, work, cry, rejoice, mourn, and celebrate around and with others.
“Fill the earth and subdue it.” – Caretaking is a Cooperative Project
This command goes alongside the previous and the following commands. To subdue something means to control it, to care for it, and bring it together. God instructs Adam and Eve to care for the life that is around them and that they will create.
To quote Dr. Lieberman again, “...we were built to take care of other people.” His research of social psychology has proven this, but God commands it in the first chapter of scripture! Take care of others, and allow them to take care of you. Everything in our culture demands that we spend 10-15 years of our life “finding who we are.” What if we don’t have to?
While much of the world would describe freedom as the ability to do whatever one wants whenever one wants. For the Christian, freedom is the ability to live how God designed us to live. That is what the hope of eternity is!
A life where we are free from the things that harm us.
What if we, as Christians, sought to live that way, to the best of our ability, now? The deception of the world demands an individualized answer to questions God has already answered for us. We should not seek to selfishly find ourselves, but passionately find others and commit our lives to them.
While most of us are not living in gardens, farming the ground, and tending to livestock with a community of others, we have elements of work and relationships that surround us. If I had to summarize these three commands, I would say this:
- Create a community. Be vulnerable and dive into a group of people and trust them. Create life if you can, but bring them into that community to bless and be loved by many.
- “Find Others,” Resist with everything in you the temptation to only look out for yourself. Surround yourself with a community, and allow them to take care of you while you also take care of them.
- Care for all of God’s creation.
Sign up for our newsletter
Resources for the formation of wisdom on the last Saturday of each month. Try it out.
