Work gets a bad rap, understandably so. Not all work is fun. It takes effort and time. It challenges and frustrates. The work — or the absence of it — produces stress and anxiety.
Because of that, work sometimes becomes synonymous with words like “daily grind, drudgery, and struggle.” Work often feels like those things. People go to their jobs and experience going through an almost literal grinder. They struggle to find joy in completing tasks, perhaps especially with the less glamorous ones: taking out the garbage at a McDonald’s, cleaning a vent hood, setting up and tearing down tables and chairs, making copies for the executive team, pulling stats for reports, et cetera, et cetera. The work plods along, and people look and look and look at the clock in hopes that it’s time to leave.
Work before the Fall
The perspective is normal, but that doesn’t mean it’s accurate. Work once was a beautiful gift. In Genesis, the beginning of all things, Adam and Eve work in the garden and fulfill the roles given to them by God. Adam orders, categorizes, and names the animals (Genesis 2:19). Eve later joins him in the work. Together, they cultivate the garden (Genesis 2:15), ensure its flourishing, and come to know their Creator ever more intimately.
The work is hard; weeds and thorns have yet to appear. The ground produces grass and flowers without much prompting on the part of the human laborers. The trees bear fruit that the man and woman eat. Adam and Eve work in perfect harmony with the created world and the Creator who made it. The labor reminds them of who they are and to whom they belong.
Work after the Fall
The “fall” — the moment Adam and Eve disobey God’s one command and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — damages work. God curses the ground, Adam’s place of employment, because of Adam’s sin. God says:
Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat from it”; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:17-9)
In that moment, work devolves into backbreaking toil. It loses its original purpose and, in losing it, its glory and joy. Work, though, continues to stretch toward those things. Man intuitively knows the way work exists today is not the way it should be. Work ought to bring delight. It should create a sense of harmony and fulfillment and bring a person closer to the Person who instituted and assigned work.
The writer of Ecclesiastes understands the tension. He says, “There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without him?” The writer finds work to be a “vanity,” something “painful and grievous,” yet he still concludes that labor should be thought of as “good” and as coming from the “hand of God” (Ecclesiastes 2:23-5).
Work after Jesus
The author of Ecclesiastes foreshadows the reality of work post-Jesus. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection not only rescues people from sin and death but also begins the restoration of all things—man, society, and creation. Jesus’ entrance into the world heralds the new world to come, a world in which work once again is easy, light, and joy-infused.
His appearance, however, offers more than a future promise. It alters the way work is to be viewed and conducted in the present. Work will be restored to a perfect state at some point in the future. In the meantime, God’s sons and daughters usher in the coming reality. They remember that work is a blessing even if it’s currently besmirched by sin, daily life, and other limitations.
Paul offers a way to think about work and to remain mindful of its original design in Colossians 3. He says, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve” (Colossians 3:23-4).
Paul recognizes work for what it is: a way to glorify God and serve him. Because of that, work retains its joy in the midst of the “daily grind.” It becomes possible to work well, no matter the job, because the position doesn’t matter all that much. What matters is working in, with, and for God, to find enjoyment in the work because his presence accompanies the son and daughter cleaning the bathroom stalls, answering phone calls and scheduling appointments, and preparing project reports and invoices.
Image: Eneas De Troya (Creative Commons)