Genesis: Made to What?

Expedia says we’re made to travel. What do you think we’re made to do? Expedia is spending millions persuading us that we’re made to travel. They know that what we believe we’re made for will steer our choices about how we focus our dreams, spend our money and our time. How would you finish this sentence? “I’m made to ___________” In this session we compare the Garden of Genesis 2 with the Brickyard of Exodus 1. The reflection questions referenced in the dialogue are the following: Reflection Where am I experiencing garden life? (Walking with God, walking with others, nurturing and protecting. E.g. wholeness in relationships, peace in who I am, satisfaction in my labours…) Where am I experiencing the brickyard? (Brueggemann says, "We are all of us caught in a way of life that yields only frantic hostility and desperate effort, which cannot finally pay off." That's brickyard life. Life in the brickyard is marked by coercion, competence, quality, quantity and quota. The core question of the brickyard is Who's in charge? Eg. A nine year old with a demanding soccer coach, a junior salesperson whose targets constantly get ratcheted up, an unappreciated mother or wife) In my relationships and work where am I nurturing and protecting? Where am I exploiting and attacking or neglecting? What is one step I could take to shift to move from exploiting or attacking or neglecting toward nurturing and protecting?  Garden life starts (but doesn’t finish!) with our hearts. What’s one change you could make this week to nurture the garden of your heart?