One of the great temptations in work and ministry is to become so busy doing things for God we neglect spending time with God. We think we are smart enough and skilled enough to work and keep our gardens, but we forget it was God who planted our gardens. In the busyness of working and keeping, we forget from where our foundation comes, and ultimately, we ignore God’s presence. A lack of awareness of the presence of God will drive us from the place we were meant to work and keep because we were never meant to work alone. 

What if we never had to work alone again? Christians are often taught to work for the glory of God, and there is no doubt this admonition is based in scripture. On more than one occasion in his letters, the Apostle Paul challenges his audience to glorify God in all their endeavors (1 Cor. 10:31, Col. 3:17). The best way we can glorify God through our work is by seeking his presence in our work. Even in the Christian world, work is often thought of as something we do for God, but we forget that work is meant to be something we do with God. Rather than working only to receive his presents, we should work in such a way that we abide in his presence.

We Weren’t Meant to Work Alone

From the beginning, it was never God’s intention for man to work alone. In Genesis 2:15 (ESV), the Bible records that God put Adam in the garden in order to “work it and keep it.” God did not make Adam a character in a blank canvas, but the Lord had already created and fashioned a beautiful garden, and man’s job was to “work it and keep it.” Genesis 2:8 says the Lord had “planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.” Notice it was God, not Adam, who planted the garden. Adam’s job was to “work it and keep it.” It might be said that Adam’s job was to water the garden the Lord had planted, and this signifies a cooperative partnership between the planter and the keeper.

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