Dude Skill #5: PROVIDE – Part 5
#29 IN MY SERIES OF POSTINGS DEDICATED TO SUMMARIZING A WONDERFUL BOOK ENTITLED “THE DUDE’S GUIDE TO MARRIAGE: TEN SKILLS EVERY HUSBAND MUST DEVELOP TO LOVE HIS WIFE WELL” BY DARRIN & AMIE PATRICK.
Continued from my article on June 28, 2023…
A Theology Of Providing
Early on, God had a specific calling for mankind:
“Got blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thang that moves on the earth’”
Genesis 1:28 NIV
The command was given to Adam and his wife, Eve. God commanded both to exercise dominion over the earth. That is, they were to exercise righteous rule over God’s creation with God’s authority. Women as well as men share in this authority and responsibility.
Herein lies an extraordinary vision for life. God does the heavy lifting by giving man the raw materials of nature. Then man gets to work with strength given by God to make something better. God creates, and man cultivates. God’s good creation. The command from God to his first son tells us something about what it means to be a provider. We are to work our version of the garden and keep it. Nature was made to be tended by skilled cultivators. The garden of Eden was good, but it was in need of Adam’s care.
As God’s ordained caretaker, we, too, have a duty toward the land. We can leave it lying there, untouched and uncultivated. Or we can bring out the best of it, “tending the garden and contributing to the world’s goodness.” The same goes for our wives. The Old Norse word “husband” literally means one who cultivates and prepares the soil. To be a husband is to cultivate the soil of your wife’s heart, drawing out and contributing to her beauty and goodness. Husbands are cultivators.
Cultivating Is Not Daydreaming
My dad, who remains the hardest worker I’ve ever seen, would not like the word “cultivate.” He would prefer the word “work.” His argument would be that people who work produce, and people who cultivate dream. He has a point, but true cultivation results in production. To cultivate is to make the potential actual. One who cultivates is one who takes what is there and makes it better. He doesn’t just have vision that isn’t attainable. He isn’t a legend in his own mind. He acts on his dreams and produces something good for the world.
Cultivating Is Not Easy
Throughout the last decade I have done career counseling. I have talked to hundreds of young adults about what they feel called to do vocationally. Warning: I am going to sound like an old man lamenting the attitude of young whippersnappers. My experience has shown me that emerging generations are losing the work ethic that caused culture to progress since the beginning of time.
I am encouraged that younger adults are so interested in natural foods. Many have gardens, and some are farming in urban areas. Gardening is hard work because you can’t do it successfully without weeding. You have to sort out what does and what does not belong, what will bear fruit and what will choke it out. Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making and executive editor of Christianity Today wrote, “The best creativity involves discarding that which is less than best, making room for the cultural goods that are the very best we can do with the world that has been given to us.”
Because providing is hard, men have to draw on resources beyond themselves. It is good for a man to realize that he is not God. It is also good for a man to bring out the full potential of his job in a way that magnifies his coworkers and the values of his business. When a man embraces his God-given call to cultivate, he experiences delight in his work. He begins to understand that his past has prepared him to be where he is vocationally. He starts to embrace the present and devotes himself fully to maximizing the employment opportunity that is before him. He gets a vision for his legacy in the future.
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