God Wrote Your To-Do List Before the World Began

God wrote your to do list before He laid the foundations of the world.

Yep, you read that right.

Your ordinary, boring to-do list, filled with mundane tasks like washing your hair and meeting that work deadline, is something God cares about so deeply, that He meticulously planned it out before He even created the world.

Ephesians 2:10 says:

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

The Greek word translated good “works” is ergois (ἔργοις). It doesn’t only mean religious works or ministry efforts. It’s a much broader word. Thayer’s Lexicon describes it as:

“1. Business, employment, that with which any one is occupied Any product whatever, anything accomplished by hand, art, industry, or mind An act, deed, thing done…”

That’s a remarkably broad definition! And that means something profoundly personal for you: It means that no matter where your tasks range on the spectrum of mundane to impressive, God cares about it. He cares about your work so much that He planned each task out before He laid the earth’s foundations.

Good works don’t just mean volunteer work or being on staff at your church. Good works aren’t only taking a meal to a sick friend or reading your Bible. From the spreadsheets to the client meetings, the meals you cook to your late-night laundry loads, all of these are the “good works” God had in mind.

That client project that’s stressing you out?

That conversation you’re nervous to have?

That business you’re learning to scale?

God thought of it. Before time. And He entrusted it to you.

Sister, your life isn’t ground-hog day. Your work isn’t meaningless. You are walking out a path that’s been lovingly prepared for you by your Father.

And that’s why it matters how you show up in your work—not just when you’re doing “spiritual” things, but when you’re replying to emails, wiping counters, editing photos, or planning next quarter’s launch strategy.

Your work matters deeply to God.

But the enemy doesn’t want you to know that. He wants you to feel like you’re living the same day over and over. He wants you to feel like you’re on a road that’s a dead-end. He wants you to feel hopeless, stuck, and without fulfillment in your work.

Why? Because when you work, you are imaging your God who is a Worker.

Did you catch the beginning part of our verse? You are God’s workmanship. He is a master craftsman who can paint the skies vivid colors and create intricate creatures like cuttle fish, and yet his favorite project is you. He is skilled in the art of taking humble humans like you and me, made from the dirt, and creating beautiful, capable creatures out of us. I mean, we humans start off in Eden from a recipe whose main ingredient is “dirt” and we end up reigning with Christ (2 Tim 2:12) and judging angels (1 Cor 6:3). That’s a pretty amazing trajectory to be on!

We are His craft.

The Greek word used here for “workmanship” is poiēma—the same root where we get our word “poem.” You are God’s poetic expression. His art. His intentional, deliberate design.

And you were “created in Christ Jesus”. If this creation language reminds you of Genesis, it should! It is supposed to be reminiscent to us of the Genesis narrative, where humans were first created. But this time, we are created “in Christ Jesus”, not in Adam. Our identity is being remade, redeemed, and restored through Jesus, the second Adam; the perfect Imago Dei.

And why are we being remade? Is it so that we can feel the spiritual warm-fuzzies? No. Ephesians 2:10 says that the purpose we are being remade is “for good works”. God planned out the works He wants you to do before He made the world because He really cares about them. He actually created us to be like Him, workers (Genesis 2:15). Our work isn’t a necessary evil to pay our bills and get us through another fiscal year. No. Our work is one of the main ways that we image our God, and the work we do matters to God because he loves to use us as His hands and feet to serve the world. We are the channels through which His care is administered to creation around us.

In other words, Jesus—the perfect Imago Dei, the true image of God—came not just to save your soul, but to redeem your whole life. No part is too small. No part has escaped God’s notice and careful thought. God created to be his “co-creators”, and He is restoring you to the amazing purpose He created you to fulfill, to be a creative worker like Him.

So as you go about your to-do list today, remember that the apathy you feel toward your work isn’t neutral. When you hate your job, it’s not an accident. It’s a direct attack of the enemy that strikes at a core part of your humanness. The last thing the enemy wants is for us to be joyfully on mission to do all the good works God has planned for us to do.

Martin Luther saw this clearly:

“The devil opposes this point of view tooth and nail, to keep [a person] from coming to this joy and to cause everybody to have a special dislike for what he should do... So the devil operates in order to make sure that people do not love their work and no service be rendered to God.” - Martin Luther

So whatever is staring back at you from your to-do list today, let this Scripture reshape how you see it. Don’t despise the list in front of you—God dreamed it up before He spoke the stars into being. Your work is weighty. Each dish you wash, each word you write, each project you touch is not random but and assignment entrusted to you by the King Himself. And when you step into those good works with faith, you’re not merely “getting stuff done”—you are joining God in the work He’s been planning from before the world’s inception. And honestly? That’s pretty dang cool.