I am studying Dallas Willard’s book, Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23. Psalm 23 depicts God as a shepherd who protects, provides, guides, and cares for his flock. Why does God care for us? Why are there people on earth?
Willard shared a similar question posed by the psalmist.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?Psalm 8:3-5 (NIV)
Indeed, given how insignificant human beings are relative to the universe, why does God care for us? Why does he pay any attention to us?
The psalmist answered his own question.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.Psalm 8:6-8
Genesis 1:26 says that God made mankind “in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” God created humans to exercise dominion over the earth. He put other living things and vast natural resources in our hands.
In the beginning, God called everything he created good. And then…mankind fell.
The second chapter of Genesis describes this fall. God put man in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Then, he created a woman to be his helper. The woman was tempted by the serpent to disobey God; she convinced the man to disobey God as well.
It goes without saying that human beings are not wholly good. We harm each other and our environment. There is so much pain and suffering in the world, and we add to it! Yet even with all the pain and suffering, the good outweighs the bad.
Being in charge of the earth means we have to work. We may think of work as drudgery, but it is good for us to work. Willard quoted Phillips Brooks, an Episcopal clergyman, as saying, “God chose for him his work, and meant for him to put his spiritual education there.”
God is more interested in the person you are becoming than in your work or your job. There was a time in my career when my job was too important to me. I was becoming someone I didn’t want to be. I was stressed out and unhappy. God humbled me and gave me a spiritual education.
Whatever work we do, we should be using our time to produce good. As Willard put it, we can achieve so much more in life if we have God to help us. Without God, we face isolation, antagonism, and the harms caused by excessive pride and egotism.
We were created to have a special relationship with God and to do our work in that relationship.
Dallas Willard
Every human being is precious. Every single one of us, regardless of what we’ve done, regardless of our social status.
What makes us precious? We do not earn our value. We are of God. He breathed the spirit of life into us.
Why does the Lord want to have a special relationship with us? The kind of relationship that a shepherd has with his precious sheep?
- He knows that we are capable of goodness and faithfulness
- He knows that we can make a difference in this world by doing good works that glorify him
God wants to have a personal relationship with us. He wants to guide us in paths of righteousness. He wants to shepherd us through difficult journeys. He wants to comfort us and restore our souls.
We exist to love each other as Christ loves us. So live in such a way that people see the goodness in your life and acknowledge God as the source of your goodness.
Innermost Being 