“What day is it today?” is often the first question on our mind when we wake and get out of bed, drowsy or disorientated, needing to reset our connection with reality and routine. When we know what day it is, we know what we are meant to be doing. It can only be one day of seven, an odd number, but seven days define a pattern that determines the structure of our life. When we work, when we rest, and how we arrange all the activities we fit into our busy weeks.
That there are seven days in a week, and that one week rolls on into the next, are not things that we usually pause to consider. The origin and meaning of this pattern, not seen as something of great importance. But to the writer of the book of Genesis, as they describe why things are as they are in this world, these seven days are significant. The existence of the universe, the world itself, and all living things give meaning and value to each and every day and week that passes. The writer, weaving the power of God’s voice, the actuality of all life, and our seven-day cycle, into a revelation that gives meaning to both space and time.
The opening words of Genesis tell us that our world is God’s work, completed over the course of six days. On the seventh day, it says, God rested. This pattern we see reflected in our own routines when most of us expect at least one day off in seven. But that reflection not only touches our pattern of work, it runs much deeper too. A careful reading of the text tells us that this God instructed our ancestors to continue his creation process, by filling the land, and caring for creation. His work was to become our work.
We all know how it can be when work is difficult and unrewarding. When there is too much to do and too little time, or the people we work with make things harder rather than easier for us. We know that this is not how it should be. Similarly, there will be those of us who enjoy work so much that there is little else we like to do, and little time left over for family and friends.
The amazing thing about the Genesis story is that it gives both meaning and purpose to our endeavours, structure to our time, and a balance that holds in check our propensity to overwork and rely too heavily on our own efforts. Work becomes an invitation to participate in the divine work of continuing creation, by making, building, designing, and doing new things, and also caring for the world that God created. Work, seen through these eyes, then, cannot be secular. We become Godlike in our work because work originates in God, and all work flows from him.
This does not mean, however, that it is not possible for us to deflect our labours from God’s original purposes. We can easily be tempted to pursue our own agendas, or our ambition to ‘feather our own nests’ rather than to work to honour creation or sanctify our society.
Our exploitation diminishes people, damages this world, and is detrimental to society.
Perhaps the test of our work should not be the profit we gain from it or the status we receive, but the effect it has on God’s creation. Are People impoverished, the land diminished, or society defrauded? Is the world less or more because of my work?
When God became human in the person of Jesus he continued his work among the people he met. Jesus learned the trade of his father Joseph, a first-century carpenter-builder. He would have had builders’ hands. Yet Jesus was also at work when he taught, healed, preached to, spent time with, and prayed for the people that followed him. That work still continues today, and Jesus calls us all to follow his ways and to be about his father’s business.
When we direct energy, fashion matter, or enter into relationships, we are participating in God’s divine work. When we spend time with, pray and care for other people, we enter into the activity of God. And when we rest and remember that it is God who supplies our every need we become increasingly aware, that every day is a gift from Him, and something to be grateful for.
What we choose to do with the gift of life that we all have been given is ultimately up to us. Yet, how we use our time today, dependent on the moment by moment decisions we will make, may have consequences far beyond those we first imagine. Because, today, God is inviting you to participate in his work. Now, that is something worth getting up for!
Be encouraged.