Cultivate

Psalm 104:14 ESV

You cause grass to grow for livestock

                and plants for men to cultivate,

                that he might bring forth food from the earth

Recently we are back in the throws of training wheels. Although we have had them for a while only recently have the legs possessed the length and strength needed to reach and turn the pedals. For those that are without experience, training wheels are a set of wheels that make a bicycle a quadcycle for a time, that can be removed when appropriate balance has developed such that not too many falls occur. You learn to ride a bike without as much injury and can keep up with your brothers and sisters in the meantime. Yet, they exist always to be removed, they are always to be temporary.

Tithing was always regarded by God to be training wheels for giving, so we do not read of tithing in the New Testament we are to have grown so much in our giving that training wheels would hold us back. Giving so much and so abundantly that we don’t have to think about tithing anymore. Not that we stop giving but we do it so well we don’t have to think about it anymore. The New Testament is full of this as well. As Christians grow into the abundant life, we have training wheels that God gives us to help us come to full maturity. One of those is submission: Wives to husbands, children to parents, members to elders, the church to Christ. Once we have grown into this, we can take off the training wheels. Not so we don’t have to anymore, but because it comes so “naturally” to us, we don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Growing in submission Christians become able to exercise dominion, and this is a far more difficult task than submission. The struggle with submission is obedience, the struggle with dominion is sloth and direction. Dominion takes ownership and mastery over what one has been given. It requires work and effort, direction and impetus. We struggle often with dominion, I hear it from others and my own heart as well, it comes with the exasperated cry “God just tell me what you want me to do”. With the thought that it was easier when God would speak from heaven and give clear direction, but that was for those who needed training wheels in submission.

Christian Maturity is taking off the training wheels and embracing the risk of Dominion. When you first take off the wheels, falls, cuts, and bruises happen. The slower you go the harder it is to keep balance, so my foster son simply always went really fast until he mastered it, the falls were more epic but they were less often than when my daughter tepidly peddled around the street. Learning to take dominion over property, family, and home prepares us for eternity. It was in the garden that God told man to have dominion (In perfection), why would we believe we are not called to dominion in the second Eden? Men from creation have been shown as more and had more expected from them. The Psalmist here tells us that God created grass to feed livestock, but he causes plants to grow that men might cultivate them. Man’s dominion is woven into the fabric of creation, and when we choose to shirk our call, the fall.

Another disc was on the roof. So, I made my son go up and get it, since he was the one who threw it. Being scared of heights he slinks across the angled roof on all fours and eyes well up when I make him stand and walk. Getting down the ladder is almost worse, for at this point his fear makes him dangerous to himself. Trying to get on the ladder without turning his back on his fear he contorts with one hand and one foot on the roof one hand one foot on the ladder, back to the ladder. I make him turn his back on the risk of falling so as not to endanger himself. When we refuse to take dominion, we endanger ourselves at best and others depending. When we take dominion, we live in a garden of human flourishing, where men and women are fruitful and multiply.

Coram deo