The God Who Delegates

In Genesis chapter One, we note that it is God who the heavens and the earth from nothing by His spoken words. He created light, formed day and night, the sky, land and seas, plant vegetation, sea creatures, the sun and the moon. God created seasons of the year, birds of the air, livestock and wild animals. He made man in his own image mandated to rule over the fish of the sea and birds of the air, livestock, over all the earth and its creatures. God blessed man, male and female, and commanded them to increase and be fruitful, fill the earth and subdue it. God entrusted stewardship of the splendid created order to man to man it. When God created, He saw everything He had created as good.

This last act of God amounted to delegation of responsibilities to man because he had been created in the image of God. As we travel through the narrative of creation in this chapter, our minds wander into aspects of creation that are very disturbing: disappearing streams and rivers drying up; polluted rivers, lakes, and oceans; acid rains from factories; fuels on busy roads in cities and greenhouse emissions that deplete the ozone layer causing the persistent global warming. This also causes disappearing vegetation and tree species that threaten insects like bees on whose activities the world depends for survival; while forests are the sources of food for humans, birds, insects and microorganisms. Trees clean the air by absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing into the air oxygen that keep living organisms going. Many trees and plants are sources of most effective nutrients that protect people from diseases and provide medicines for the sick. The threat to the environment due to human activity in the name of development, life on earth is under threat and yet God entrusted earth stewardship on man. How should man execute this immense responsibility to reclaim the beauty of the earth?

Man, has the mandate to restore and replenish the earth for healing and human survival. Diseases which have threatened human health in recent years are caused by pollution, environmental degradation and over-utilization of natural resources. The world needs to hear the voice of God once more to facilitate re-orientation, realignment and restructuring thoughts and action that restore and reinstate the beauty of creation on and for our planet earth. Failure to act now may lead to a situation where we cannot see and enjoy the beauty of constellation of stars and planets in the outer space, leave alone the ability to send men and machines to explore them. Man has God’s mandate to speak and act. His creation in God’s image underscores the delegated authority.

Delegated authority points towards tending, protecting, and facilitating in relation to the rest of the created order. It is not meant to be used for selfish gains that disregard other occupants of the planet. He must rule over the fish of the sea, birds of the air and everything on the ground (Gen. 1:28), every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. The narrator lists all beasts of the earth, birds of the air, all creatures that move on earth, simply put, God gave to man everything that has life to eat as food.

We see more expressions of delegated responsibility in Genesis 2:4b, where the narrator says that when God made the heavens and the earth, there was no shrub of the field. No plant had sprung up. God delayed sending rains on earth until he created man to work the ground. In this passage, human presence is bound up with man’s availability to tend plants. His failure to tend the earth and its crops has eventually led to the modern lack of clean air, destruction of water towers, wetlands, increase of waterborne diseases, animals, birds and insects. Lack of trees means lack of traditional medicines sourced in trees and plants. Trees and forests are wonderful medicines dispensed through aroma therapy, forest bathing, calming of the heart and mind through relaxation that combine to eliminate many diseases.

To man belongs the responsibility to execute environmental care. God has no other way of doing it. In this chapter, after creating man to tend the ground, God facilitated all kinds of tree to grow out of the ground. Those trees were pleasant to see and good for food. Here sight and health are put together. Imagine the amount of money spent on doctors and health services which could be saved by enhancing forest parks and orchards in our neighborhoods.

God delegates the power of naming to man. After God formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, He brought them to the man, to name them. What man called each living creature, that became its name. Names have meaning. They appeal to attitudes and practices that despise or honor, protect or expose, praise or demean. Naming people can become a process of building them up. It can kill their initiatives or even undermine their rights and privileges. Everybody loves to be called by his or her own name especially when it is associated with success and character. Man has the delegated mandate to give, animals, plants and place names that honor, praise and call for responsibility to nurture, care, protect and redeem. Our naming of people, situations and things should include consideration for protection and accountability as God’s stewards in that process of naming. We should be keen to take God’s position to represent His interests all the time.

God after He has delegated a role, He will not do what man can and should do. When He has an assignment for man to deliver, God will summon a man or woman to do it. This practice is observed through the work calling of Old Testament prophets and the calling of Jesus’ disciples and apostles in the New Testament. When God needed Isaiah, He called him after touching his lips, taking his guilt away, and atoning for him (Isaiah 6:7), God asked “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” Isaiah knew that he was the one that God needed to send. Isaiah then replied “Here am I. Send me.” (Isa. 6:8). And he took the delegated duties that God assigned to him. Jeremiah also embraced God’s delegated duty of speaking on God’s behalf through a long period of turmoil filled with uncertainties in Israel’s history. Jeremiah was reluctant to accept God’s calling to be His prophet (Jer. 1:5-10) because of self-doubt; but God who had known Jeremiah before he was formed in his mother’s womb and appointed him a prophet to the nations, was not swayed. God instructed Jeremiah not to say that he was only a child but must go to everyone that God sent him to and say whatever God commanded him to say. He should not be afraid of them because God would be with him to rescue him. God put his words in Jeremiah’s mouth and said,

"See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” (Jer. 1:10).

Jesus followed the pattern of delegated responsibility when he called his disciples for the duo purposes of being with him and later send them on his delegated mission. (Mark 1:16-20; 2:14; 3:13-19; Luke 9:1-9; 10:1-7, 17) while he was on earth with them but following his resurrection, ascension and the Pentecost, the disciples as they became apostles assumed the duty to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth at its total cost, as seen in the book of the Acts of apostles. God’s delegation of responsibilities to man is based on God’s trust in man, therefore what matters is not how man feels about himself but the confidence God has in man to serve.

More Posts by Dr. Daniel M’Mutungi

When God Speaks

The God Who Delegates

When God Calls, He Equips By Training

Believe God Will Provide and Rest