Is Work Cursed?
Let’s be candid, work can feel cursed. I remember when I was in junior high working with a friend’s uncle in the heat of summer cleaning out apartment buildings as they were undergoing renovations. If it wasn’t the rank smelling soot and the itchy insulation, it was the nail waiting for a tender and unsuspecting foot to find its way to its piercingly sharp and rusty tip.
Most days, we left exhausted, scratchy-throated, and dirty.
However, there was something that welled up within me at the end of each day. It was what I would call satisfaction. Each day we had accomplished something. We had started in the morning with chaos, and we left with more order than the day before.
In the end, I realized that that satisfaction inside my chest was the outworking of work.
This principle is often confused in our world today. Work is often perceived as a negative oughtness instead of a positive privilege. Let me explain.
When we sweat, we associate the perspirating action with hard, and we think hard is usually not good. Really, it’s a misplaced correlation. The effects of work become the understanding of work, and that is where we can go wrong.
What is work? Work is a characteristic of God. In Genesis 2:2, we see that “By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” Work finds its meaning from God. So, to work is to image God. Put another way, if God worked and it was not bad, then when I work it is not bad.
What’s the problem then? The problem is not work. The problem is effects of work. When we work, we sweat, we struggle, we feel pain, we break down our minds and bodies. In a real and practical sense, we decay. That doesn’t mean that work is bad. It just means the effects of work take a toll on us.
The problem is sin. In Genesis 3, we learn that the ground was cursed because of sin, not work. Had Adam and Eve not sinned, then we would have a world of fellowship with God wherein work constantly occurred, sans sweat, pain, and struggle.
The bottom line. Work is a blessing that ties us to the very character of God. As we work—in any sphere of life—we image God.
This new vision of work enables me to view every aspect of work as a gift whereby I may image God. When I sweat, suffer hardship, or pain, then I am reminded of the curse placed on the effects of work. It is into this dismay that I’m reminded of a day coming when the ground will no longer be cursed (Rom. 8:18-23) and we—along with creation—will not groan, but worship God through work.
Thus, purpose is found in my work. Not identity. Purpose. I am not identified by my work, but am I purpose-filled in my work. So that, as a barista, janitor, pastor, executive, plumber, accountant, welder, etcetera, I have purpose. That is to say, my purpose is to image God. That brings up another question.
How did God work? God’s work was excellent, perfect, and ordered. There’s my bar for my work. There is therefore no excuse for lazy, half-hearted, lackluster work. While I may not ever achieve perfection like God, I am still aiming toward it with all my heart. My bar for my work isn’t my co-worker, boss, parent, mentor, etc. While those can be helpful, they are poor substitutes for my God who provided the example of how to work.
“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 10:31
Next time, we’ll examine what this looks like practically.
— March 3, 2022