Why you want to make something of your life

That longing you have to create, to contribute, and to make something of your life is part of your literal wiring.

Your life isn't just something you received; it's something you are charged by God to work and cultivate.

We were created to rule and reign as representatives of God and His Kingdom. Over the next few essays, I want to show you why that matters in your mundane Mondays, in daily rhythms, and in the pursuit of your goals and dreams. I'll go ahead and spoil the ending. Your call, your purpose, your mission can be summed up in these words: make something new. The specifics of how we each can and should live this out are countless and varied.

From the beginning

In Genesis 1:28, God tells Adam and Eve to "kabash" and "radah," which means subdue and rule. They are told to exercise control over creation. These are kingly words calling humanity to take up authority over a dominion.

A few verses later, in Genesis 2:15, God says that Adam and Eve should "abad" and "shamar," meaning they should cultivate and keep what he has placed under their dominion.

Unfinished

One thing that sticks out to me here is that God is asking them to cultivate the uncultivated. Isn't that interesting?

God created the world, but in a sense, he left it unfinished. He meant for humanity to co-labor with him in developing, creating, and bringing forth new things out of what He made.

By the way, this is a pre-fall commission. Subduing, creating, cultivating, and working were part of the way God designed us to live. This has a lot of implications, but one thing I want to reemphasize is that our longing to create, contribute, and make something of our lives resonates with a foundational, "from the beginning," God-given purpose. Like all things, sin taints and disfigures these desires, but instead of dismissing them outright, a part of Christian sanctification is reclaiming and restoring them back to what God intended.

What's at stake

If claiming a deep sense of purpose and self-worth still feels overly self-focused and self-indulgent, it might help to see that even more is at stake here. God didn't assign dominion and rulership to any creature. He assigned it to the creature that was made in His image. Ruling and reigning over our lives is a functional expression of image-bearing. Ruling and subduing is one way we actively reflect being like God, who creates new things, rules and reigns, subdues, cultivates, and keeps.

This is important for two key reasons.

First, the glory and image of God are at stake. Being made in His image means we are meant to represent and showcase who He is and what He is like. Abdication and a lack of ownership are both disobedience and a poor representation of God's character. We'll get into this more in a future essay, but this is what we see Adam do in Genesis, and it doesn't go well.

Second, God defines what it means to rule and reign. We understand how we are to rule and reign by looking at God's character and mimicking how he reigns. Again, this is a whole future essay waiting to happen, but God rules with strength and confidence, patience and grace. He directs all his authority and strength toward serving and seeing that everything under his care flourishes.

Your domain

It is our God-given responsibility to rule and reign as he has designed and mandated. We have each been given a domain to rule over: our lives, our bodies, our habits, our opportunities, our relationships, our families. The kingly and queenly role is yours alone and cannot be delegated.

There is a good and holy longing within your desire to "get on top of your life," or your desire to create something new and add it to the world, or your desire to have an impact. Your drive to build, to grow, and to make something of your life: the Christian response to these desires is not to automatically bury them, but to evaluate them. And ultimately to reclaim and restore them back to what God intended.

More to come

There's a lot more to say in future essays.

What does it actually mean to rule, and what does it definitely not mean?

Does this mandate survive the fall?

Does the New Testament carry it forward, or is this just an Old Testament thing?

And what does the Gospel have to do with any of it?

I look forward to continuing on with you in the weeks to come.

For now, I'll close by saying, if you're looking for a sign to start taking your life seriously and get forward momentum, consider these essays your sign. But this isn't just about permission. You can dismiss your God-given kingly and queenly role, but only at a great and weighty cost. It's vitally important for us to look to and hear what God has to say as we figure out what to do with our days, our dreams, and our lives.

Extra credit: marvel and praise

I was going to end there, but I wanted to offer you a Biblical way of responding to the epic truths we're looking at together.

In chapter 2 of Songs of the Son, Daniel Stevens points out that Psalm 8 bookends with the lines "How majestic is your name in all the earth!" The first exclamation marvels at God's creative power. But the second marvels at the truth that he has placed his image-bearers over all of it.

If the truths we've considered today leave us feeling smug and self-absorbed, then we've missed it. But if our hearts swell and resonate with the kind of excitement and awe that says, "how majestic is your name!" then we're right where we should be.