Genesis Chapter 2 talks about God’s order.  God’s system is in place and there is very little left to Adam other maintaining the garden (Gen. 2:15) and than naming the animals (Gen. 2:19).  God knows that no suitable helper is available for Adam in the animals, but shows Adam this through the animal naming process.  Adam can identify the male and female of the various animals, but there is a distinct hole where his helper is lacking.  Genesis 2 ends with the fulfillment of that need as well as a look into man’s need for a completing partner (some of the best material I’ve heard on the subject can be listened to in MP3 format here check out lessons 6, 7, and 8).I’ve written before and even had guest posts about the relationship of a man and wife and how that impacts personal finance (see: 10 Ways to Use Personal Finance to Strengthen A Marriage, A Deeper Look At Marriage and Finance Issues: Unity, A Deeper Look At Marriage and Finance Issues: Priorities, and Ten Tips To Prepare for Getting Married).  God had set Adam in charge of cultivating, or growing, the things in the garden.  Adam’s dominion was the garden, his job (for lack of a better word) was working for God and his goal was cultivation.  There were no weeds and the vegetation was fruitful.  Adam did not value the things of the garden in chapter three, but we’re not there yet, so we’ll save that for next week.What we do see in Adam’s tasks in chapter two are clearly some details of valuation: God gives Adam the task of naming the animals and evaluating them.  Adam orders the animals with God’s help.  Vocabulary is created on the fly, the animals are given order.  Imagine, if you will, that when Eve is created she’s a blank slate (though it is clear she has intellect) , and she gets introduced to Adam and she learns Adam has named all of the animals.  That would be quite a thing to explain and go over!  Adam’s job as a gardener is given some time to be interrupted and he is a namer of beasts.  To take dominion over something, you have to have names, you have to have valuations of things.Consider your own life: you have names for places, names for things, names for certain jobs, names for actions.  Your world comes with a sense of order, and yet as humans we desire to be creative and create new things to name to show our dominion over them.  We really do wish to be like Adam.  Our finances are really a valuable lesson in learning about dominion because with our finances we can bring things into our household, we can send things away from our household, and we can gain wealth and increase the potential of our dominion by virtue of buying more property, more stuff, or newer things to replace the things we have that are of better quality.God sets up order in the universe, puts Adam in charge of the Earth, and then Adam gets to participate in further defining a small part of that order.  What a dramatic role that was!  As you contemplate your ordering of things, consider your finances, consider your possessions, and consider how you can respect God’s ordering of things as you go about your life.  It is pretty cool stuff to be given the privilege of ordering things – don’t take it for granted.