The Curse of Work

How many times have you seen it? It seems the dream of so many is to be able to stop working. "What would you do if you won the lottery?" "Oh, I'd quit work and live it up!" It seems like for many people "the perfect world" would include no work at all. We hate work ... don't we?

It is a common belief among Christians that work is the curse of sin. You know: "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; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field" (Gen 3:17-18). See? We have to work because of Adam's sin.

Not changing the subject, but one of the perks in my car is satellite radio and one of the stations I enjoy hearing is the Radio Classics station. They play old-time radio shows from the 30's through the 60's. I enjoy it. The other day they played an episode of Escape about a guy who wanted to get away from all the struggle of life. He wanted to find "the perfect place". And he found it. Except when he did, he found it wasn't perfect. There was no competition, no effort, no direction. He couldn't achieve anything because it was already done. He went fishing and the fish simply gave up and jumped in the boat. He went hunting and the deer lined up for him to shoot. There was no challenge. And it wasn't perfection.

The show highlighted what many of us tend to forget. We were not designed for only leisure. We were designed to do. Before the Fall, Adam was not idle. He wasn't sitting under a tree eating fruit that dropped into his hand. He was tasked by God. "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it" (Gen 2:15). Adam, in his original, sinless state, was not unemployed. He had jobs to do. He tended the garden. He named all the animals. He worked.

What, then, was the result of the Fall? It wasn't the curse of work. It was the curse of hard work. Essentially, God sentenced mankind to hard labor.

What does it say, then, when we complain about having to work? First, it says we're sinful and selfish and don't realize the many benefits of fruitful labor. Even Natural Man can identify the value of work. We're born for it. We inherently desire to contribute, to be successful, to be significant. That doesn't happen without work. And even Natural Man knows "No pain, no gain." But it also says that we are in rebellion against God's justice. Work is a gift. Hard work is a curse. We have to work hard because God justly ordained it so. And we would prefer to remove God from our lives. In other words, when we complain about having to work and having to work hard, we are complaining about God. We are telling the Potter, "Why have you made me thus?"

Work is not a curse. I sincerely doubt that any of us have really hard work these days, either. The next time you find yourself wishing you could quit work and just live a life of leisure, remember whose voice you're hearing. It's not your Maker's voice. It's the Father of Lies. You know, the one who said, "Did God say ...?"