"Abad"

I love the book of Genesis, especially the first three chapters. There is so much to study and think about within these three chapters that I come back to them, time and time again, just to get lost in the story and imagining what it would have been like to witness. I have been struck lately with God's heart behind the job description that God gave to Adam in the Garden. Genesis 2:15 says, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." What is translated as "work it" is the Hebrew word "abad".

Hebrew is such a fascinating language because so many ideas are wrapped up in a single word. Being one of the earliest languages, there were very few words, therefore each word had to convey a plethora of meanings that context would make clear. Standing at 4,000 years of distance, we can look back and see all sorts of neat things that native users might miss. Abad is one of them.

Abad, according to the Strong's Concordance, means all of the following things (and then some): To work, serve or till; to be; to be a husbandman; to bring to pass or make fruitful; to be a servant; to be a worshipper - how cool is that? One word means so many things, each definition is one facet of what it is that God was looking for in man.

God wanted man to work and tend to the Garden, that much is certain. God gives man dominion over the earth, but what does that dominion look like? I think all of the above definitions of abad fit to some degree. Adam was to be master over creation, but he himself was mastered by God. He was to do what was necessary to produce fruit, but to do it with tenderness, as a husband of the land. Adam was also to "be" in the Garden. He certainly had work to do, but he was to be observant, a beholder of God's work in creation - he was to be a worshipper.

What I think is really cool about the creation story is that the whole world was not a garden. The whole world was wild, and in the midst of that chaos God carves out a space for He and man to meet. He tames a small portion of the globe and plants a garden. He makes it beautiful and fruitful and then he invites man into it. God gave Adam a template of what He wanted the whole Earth to look like, but it was up to man to take it would into the wild - to impose his will upon it and make it like God's design.

Can you imagine Adam walking into the Garden? How beautiful, orderly and perfect it must have seemed compared to the wilds in which Adam was created. To come into a place where every detail speaks of the intention, heart and emotions of a Creator must have been overwhelming. And then to be able to walk with God in the cool of the day, to talk freely and have unhindered relationship - how awesome that must have been... how awesome that will be again. God's plan, His desire hasn't changed. His purpose is still to walk with man in intimate fellowship. One day that will be in literal time and space, for now it is an internal reality.

God wants us to create an inner garden of the soul. He wants us to carve out a space where we can meet with Him amidst the chaos and distraction of our daily lives. He wants a resting place in us, a place of peace and tranquility where He can stretch out and relax, where He can spend time with His Beloved. I think that understanding abad is critical to fulfilling this desire of God's. We need to master our own inner dialogue, we need to bring our very selves into submission before God so that we can meet with Him in peace. We need to be people who are comfortable "being" with God, not trying to fill every moment of every day "doing" various things. We need to reclaim worship as our primary mode of existence. May God give us the grace to do so. Amen.