Obedience Over Hustle: Surrendering the Striving Heart Sample

Working Hard vs. Partnership With God 

Our world is full of messages telling us to dream big, set audacious goals, and then push ourselves to achieve it all. “Working hard” has become synonymous with burnout and exhaustion, and we live as though our success is a result of our strength, intellect, or abilities alone.

In the second chapter of Genesis, it says that God “put the man in the Garden of Eden to work the soil and take care of the garden” (Genesis 2:15 ERV). God cared for Adam, but He also expected Adam to work. And that work would only be successful if Adam partnered with God. The land was already producing; it only needed to be tended.

Genesis tells us that it was God who planted the garden and made all kinds of trees grow there. It was God who carved out the riverbeds and filled them with water.

Adam’s job was to “take care of” the land. Isn’t God's choice of words interesting? He told Adam to “work” the land. He didn’t say “labor,” “toil,” or “strive.” None of these ideas appeared until after the fall:

“Cursed is the ground because of you;

    through painful toil you will eat food from it

    all the days of your life.

 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

    and you will eat the plants of the field.

 By the sweat of your brow

    you will eat your food

until you return to the ground.” (Genesis 3:17-19 NIV) 

Perhaps God wanted to introduce Adam to an environment where he would have to partner with Him to produce what he needed to live. Adam had learned how to work hard, but even more important, Adam learned the meaning of depending on God.

How many farmers do you know who can take full credit for the crops they harvest? Isn’t it God who provides the rain that falls and sends worms and animals to fertilize the earth? Isn’t it the Creator of the sun who tells it when to rise and when to stay hidden, and who commands the winds to blow in the seasons? Isn’t it God who whispers photosynthesis into existence and turns a single seed into a seed-bearing plant? The farmer doesn’t control any of those processes. The farmer merely tends the crops—protecting, maintaining, and stewarding the ground, but never actually creating anything through some personal power.

This is the difference between relying on our own strength and trusting in God’s. It’s acknowledging that we can’t do everything, even if the world tells us we ought to. It is living surrendered to God’s plan and timing, knowing that His vantage point is better. It’s choosing to partner with the One who not only gives us our dreams but the abilities necessary to carry them out.

Where have you been working hard instead of partnering with God? Is there a dream that you’ve been pursuing, but haven’t stopped to ask God if the timing or details are in line with His plans? What has God called you to steward, and how are you doing?