With the advent of sin into the world, man had to find ways of dealing with limited resources. Time was limited. The ground no longer grew to its full strength. Lives were shortened and the animals no longer trusted us. The ultimate limitation we earned was death. People can live only so long and, in that time, certain things have to be done. The earth must be coaxed to provide its resources. A large part of our already limited time must be spent nurturing and gathering necessary sustenance.
Then there are personal limitations. These limitations express themselves in likes and dislikes, capabilities and disabilities. To deal with these limitations we specialize. We see specialization in Cain and Able; one was a gardener, the other was a shepherd. We see many specialties today; medicine, engineering, social work, teaching; we use our talents in this or that way to earn our living.
What I do well I trade for what you do well. The intermediary in this trade is usually money.
We are dependent on each other in some way for nearly all of our resources be it food, tools, friends, or spiritual growth. Individuals can’t do all that needs to be done but sharing the load makes many projects easier and many more projects become feasible. Limitation and dependence are very useful tools in the process of salvation.
Through dependency we have useful employment and share relationships. With limitations we must establish priorities. In Eden, at the forbidden tree, a poor choice of priorities was made. Now, the process of salvation, the process of removing sin from us, requires the establishment of priorities. As these priorities are processed either sin or salvation is weeded from our lives. Let me repeat a bit of that. The process of salvation requires the establishment of priorities. As these priorities are processed either sin or salvation is weeded from our lives. Our priorities cannot help but be demonstrated in our behavior; in the things we do and the way we do them.
When we are God’s children, our priorities show: things we used to do, we no longer do. Things we used to treasure are not. People become important; spending time with each other becomes a greater pastime than social media games. We want actually relationships, not imaginary ones. We have less interest in how society judges us and more on how God sees us. We spend our time differently. We are kinder, gentler, our decisions are based not so much on the bottom line of finance, but on the idea of helping and changing bad to good. What is your specialization?