How Our Work Makes the World Beautiful

Last week, I wrote that the original vocation of Adam and Even was to partner with God in the work of cultivating and creating and about what this means for our work today.

Today, I want to make the case that work is meant to be beautiful, and that one of the results of the Fall is ugliness, and that at least one of the ways that we are meant to participate with God in the redemption of all things is by cultivating beauty.

When God puts Adam and Eve in the Garden, he takes great care to ensure that that the garden is beautiful.

Isn’t this incredible? God doesn’t put Adam in a garden that is functional, he puts Adam in a garden that is beautiful.

It looks good. It tastes good.

To me, this points to two things:

1. Creation is meant to be beautiful.

2. Work is meant to be beautiful.

The idea that creation is meant to be beautiful is quite obvious - just open your eyes!

The idea that work is meant to be beautiful is entirely another thought. Is paperwork supposed to be beautiful? Emails? Slack alerts? Politics and promotions? The pressure of deadlines? Lay offs?

I would argue that because God put Adam in a beautiful garden to learn how to cultivate and create, the original context of work is delight, partnership with God, and even enjoyment of the context in which God places us.

God’s original design for our jobs is that they should be fulfilling and take place in a context in which we are participating in and enjoying God’s good and beautiful creation.

Then, after this, God gives Adam a partner named Eve, a teammate, and he puts a song and a marriage ceremony right in the middle of the original call of humanity to work the garden.

A couple of notes here:

• the first human words of the Bible are a love song - this is beautiful! It’s artistry!

• the gift of sexuality is given within the context of a team that God puts together for the sake of partnering with him in the work of cultivation and creation

• the gift of sexuality and marriage are filled with delight and beauty

Whether we are married or not, God gives the gift of relationships for delight, and they also are meant to be beautiful. In some ways, the delight of relationships can be a tool that sustains us in the hardness of a particular kingdom call or assignment.

So, I would add a third point to the list we are building:

3. Relationships are meant to be beautiful.

Curiously (or perhaps not curiously if you are familiar with where this story is going), all three of these areas are marred by ugliness and brokenness in Genesis 3:

The natural beauty of relationships is broken as God says to Eve:

Instead of equality, partnership, and delight, there is hierarchy, disconnection, and hardship.

The natural beauty of work is broken:

Instead of delight and partnership with God, there is toil.

And, the natural beauty of creation is broken:

Instead of food that is good to look at and eat, there are thorns and thistles and mere plants to eat.

Take a moment to let this sink in — any area where we are not experiencing blessing, beauty and delight in our work, relationships, or world around us — is a result of Genesis 3 and it is not the way it should be.

It seems that the enemy is still hard at work in our day bringing ugliness to our environments, dreariness to our work, and strife in our relationships. Stop and consider that if you are experiencing brokenness in your job, this could actually be an assignment of the evil one! You were made to flourish in your workplace!

But of course, we know the end of the story. Jesus has come to make all the wrong things right! He has set about on an entire world-shaking redemptive plan, beginning with his revolutionary death and resurrection.

The end of the story is this:

Do you hear the echoes between this and Genesis 2 and 3? This is where it’s all going! Creation is restored! Relationships are restored! Work is restored!

The hallmark of heaven (as in Eden) is that it will be beautiful.

Work will be beautiful. Creation will be beautiful. Relationships will be beautiful.

So, what do we do in the in-between?

Last week, I argued that our original call is to partner with God in the work of cultivating and creating in our jobs.

This week, I want to argue that part of our work between Eden and Heaven is to partner with God in the redemption of beauty in our jobs.

Our work matters because we get to participate with God in making the world a more beautiful place.

Where there is workplace conflict, we get to be the peacemakers. When there are pieces of our work or job that feel more like duty than delight, we get to partner with God for wisdom about how to restore joy into our activities. When there are ugly offices and fluorescent lights (which I firmly believe are a result of the fall), making beautiful office spaces can actually be a way that we restore Eden in our day — as well as prophesy the coming kingdom of heaven.

So today, I’d love to ask:

• Is there a broken relationship that God might be inviting you to move towards to bring beauty there?

• Is there a place of drudgery or duty in your job that God might be inviting you to creatively figure out how to turn into a delight?

• Is there a physical space related to your work that hasn’t reached its full potential that God might be inviting you to make beautiful?

If I can ever support you in your journey of coming alive and living in love with Jesus, please don’t hesitate to hit “reply” on this email and let me know.

-Ryan

P.S. It is one of the greatest joys of my life to help people come alive and live in love with Jesus, especially by waking up to the continual conversation we get to enjoy with God. Our team is working on creating some beautiful prayer resources this year, starting with a daily prayer journal designed to help you grow in your ability to hear God’s voice. Please consider becoming a founding partner with us to receive every resource we create in 2025 completely free!