As Christians, our life and citizenship isn’t here. We aren’t waiting for our best lives now in a broken world so completely drenched in sin. We await a new Heaven and Earth, made as perfect as this was before the Fall. We look forward to our glorified bodies, free from death and frailty. We look forward to the day when all the effects of sin’s curse is gone forever. In the midst of our eager anticipation, should we also look forward to an end of work?
Today
Whoever said “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life” lied to us. If you do what you love, then what you love becomes work. And no one likes work. So doing what you love eventually means doing what you used to love.
Of course that’s not always true, but it can often feel that way. When we think about work, we often feel a mild sense of foreboding and oppression. We work for the weekend, save for retirement, and eagerly count the days until we’re done with work. And that’s certianly not a unique experience.
After all, who wants to spend 40+ hours each week someplace other than home with the family, fishing on the lake, or jet-setting around the world? We see work as little more than a means to an end. We need it to buy food, keep the lights on, and dig ourselves out of debt.
As Christians, we often add a whole new layer to the idea of work. Where others see the world as how it must be, our source of truth tells us that the world is how it was never meant to be. After the Garden of Eden, God’s perfect world broke. With the corruption of sin, bad things began and good things became less good.
So when we think of work, with all its negativity and our desire to live long enough to be done with it, it’s easy to lump it in with all the other broken things in the world. We see work as a necessary thing in a hostile and uncaring world. Without work, we would starve. But oh do we pine for the future days with Christ when sin’s curse is lifted and our work is done.
Or is our work really over?
Originally
When we look at what is broken, it’s important to see what God originally called “very good.” Before humanity’s fall into sin, the world was created and ordered exactly as our perfect God wanted it to be.
Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. (Genesis 2:15)
Before sin and death and misery, God gave us work. What’s incredible is that, just like the creation of marriage and a world that produces food, work was given as a gift. Mankind was made to have purpose from the very beginning, created with the innate need to go and do something.
Though we may not want to admit it, we understand this innately. Those who feel lost and hopeless often claim they have no purpose. Those who are injured or bedridden are restless because they want to do something. We may not enjoy work, but because we were created to be workers we also don’t enjoy a lack of purpose.
Work is a gift, not a curse. So why does it make us so miserable?
Then to Adam He said, “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 3:17-19)
Like so much of God’s perfect creation, a good gift was broken. Just as marriage has arguments and childbirth brings pain, the blessing of work was tainted by our fall into sin.
But when we understand that, our attitude towards work can be redeemed by Christ because we can see His goodness in it.
Joy for Tomorrow
Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)
Work comes in many forms. Being at the office, home with the kids, or anywhere else we find ourselves doing something is a good gift from God. It will come with frustration, and we’ll continue to wonder if maybe, just maybe, work really is a curse.
Yet when we see God’s original purpose for work, as a blessing to an entire race He designed to find satisfaction in their work, it becomes something else. No longer are we just earning a paycheck while keeping a longing eye on retirement. Instead, we are serving God right where we are, wherever He has us. We are taking part in something He created for us, even though its goodness may be hidden beneath layers of boredom or frustration.
Though we don’t know exactly what the new Heaven and Earth will be like, we can be sure that it will mirror what God originally called “very good.” In the absence of sin and death we will likely spend eternity finding joy in our work, a good gift from our perfect savior.
Today, we have work. Today, we have a perfect savior. Despite them existing in a broken world, we can still bring ultimate glory to Jesus Christ by enjoying what’s He’s given us today. Let’s not miss out on the blessing God has given us in being able to work and serve in whatever way He calls us to.
