Work and satisfaction are meant to go hand in hand. But in the lives of many we don't always see that to be true.
Are you the kind of person who loves your work? If you are, then you are most likely part of a very small and blessed minority.
Work is a blessing, but in many times it can also feel like a curse. At times it looks like a wonderful gift of God and a great privilege, but in other times it can also be a cause of pain and stress. What is God's design for work and how are we to view it?
The Day Work Was Cursed
Looking at Genesis 3:17, we might find something that might not be great news to labourers all over: "And to Adam [God} said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life...'"
As a result of Adam's fall and sin, he was cursed along with every other human that would come forth.
Does that mean that God gave work as a curse?
Not necessarily. Scripture here does not imply that God gave work as a curse, but rather that work had become cursed as a result of sin.
The True Nature Of Work
God made work even before the fall of Adam. In Genesis 1:28 it says, "And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'"
God gave Adam and Eve a blessed and fruitful job—to rule all the earth. In addition to that, in verse 29, God promises all provision to come as a result of this work. Work was originally designed to be a blessing, not a curse.
But what complicated, cursed, and destroyed the concept of work was sin.
Today, we see nothing different. Deception, laziness, relational dysfunction, discrepancy, and so on all curse our work. Work is now cursed by the sin of this world.
Walking In Christ's Blessing
But the gospel gives us good news: God worked to give a way for blessing, life and satisfaction through His son. Jesus Christ came to earth to live the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died to cancel the curse and consequence of sin.
Now whoever walks in Christ walks in His blessing. In John 10:10, Jesus says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."
Through Christ we can experience abundant and life-filled work. Through His finished work, our unfinished work now becomes a joy and blessing instead of being a curse.
