“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ . . . God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.” (Genesis 1:27-28 & 31) 

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (Genesis 2:15)

Doesn’t this sound like such a good plan for living a meaningful, purposeful life. God put us, humans, in charge of all He created. We were to oversee and care for all the plants and all the animals and to “be fruitful and multiply.” In this perfect, sinless world, mankind was given a perfect plan and a perfect purpose, courtesy of our all-wise Maker. We were also given free will – the gift of the freedom to make our own choices. This would ultimately prove to be our downfall. You and I were created for communion and harmony with each other and with our Creator, God. In the garden, Adam and Eve enjoyed both of these things. But from chapter one of Genesis to chapter three, something happens which causes things to take a drastic turn. With one decision, everything becomes dramatically different, but not for the better. 

Work was one of those things that changed drastically. Once a source of purpose and pleasure, a way to use our talents and to help others – work now became something difficult and painful. The following words describe Adam and Eve’s new, irrevocably altered reality.

“To the woman He (God) said, ‘I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’ “ (Genesis 3:16)  

“To Adam He (God) said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ ‘Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.’ “ (Genesis 3:17-19) 

Originally, work was not a curse nor was work a punishment. Work was one of God’s many good gifts. However, work became cursed along with everything else, when Eve and Adam chose their own way over God’s good plan for them, thus ushering in sin and separation from their Holy Creator, who cannot look upon sin. God cast them out of the garden, but in His great mercy, not before He made them clothes to wear to cover their nakedness. 

Today, we still struggle with work and its place in our lives. No matter our vocation, we still feel as if we are toiling away, earning a living by “the sweat of our brow.” We don’t think of work today as one of God’s good gifts. We may think of work as what we have to do in order to earn a living and in the process work often becomes our identity and our purpose in life. When this is true, losing our jobs (or retirement) often causes us to lose our purpose and our identity, just as we may feel our identities and life purposes changing with every job change we experience. 

However, when our true identity and our true purpose are found in knowing our Creator and living according to His good plan and purpose for our lives, our identity and purpose are not constantly in flux. Jobs will come and go, but we are always who God made us to be. We are made in His image. We are created for His purposes. And His purposes are always good.

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)

Searching for that elusive perfect job continues to be quite common among those I know and among people in general it seems. So many people are unhappy in their workplaces and desire to find other employment, even if they aren’t sure exactly what that “dream job” would be. We hear a lot about the “toxic workplace” today. This seems to be code for having a difficult or demanding boss or for having coworkers that are hard to get along with for whatever reason. In the world of work, the grass always seems to be greener in the other workplaces, until we get there and find out that it was an illusion all along. All jobs have their challenges and their rewards, there is no perfect job. But Paul had some good advice, which he shared in Colossians, saying this –

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24)

This change in perspective certainly makes a difference in how I view my work and the people in my workplace every day. If I am looking to my work and to the people I work with, to provide me with validation, fulfillment, meaning and purpose, I will ultimately be disappointed. Working to please other people or myself cannot provide all those things. But working to please and to honor my Heavenly Father most certainly gives me all those things and more.       

Work is one of the many ways I can serve God in this world today. Work is honorable – all honest work is honorable. Our culture may value some jobs more than others as evidenced by the differences in how much the workers are paid. But what this world values and what God values are very different. In Ephesians I read –

“He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.” (Ephesians 4:28)

So I work not just for myself or my own gain, but in order that I can be generous with others who have need and, in this way, bring honor and glory to God. In God’s economy, the value of my work is not determined by the size of my paycheck. Nor is my personal worth dictated by the sum of my salary. I spend much time and energy looking for and longing for that perfect job, wanting to be sure I’ve found “my calling”, when in reality, God can use me in whatever work environment I am in, if I choose to “work as unto Him” and not myself or the people around me. There are no insignificant jobs in God’s eyes. David, whose current job was being king of Israel, said this –

“I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” (Psalm 84:10)   

No job today is without its share of workplace woes. That’s probably why so many individuals complain about the stresses of their current jobs, why so many seem to be continually searching for a new and different job that they hope will be better, and why so many quit their jobs, even without the prospect of something else. Working to please a human boss or other people will never satisfy us or provide us the purpose that we need in our lives. 

It is possible for us to find the validation, fulfillment, meaning and purpose we so desire without changing workplaces. (since every workplace has its own peculiar set of woes, specific to itself) I find that when I change my focus, my work takes on new meaning and eternal significance, not recognized by the world, but nonetheless bestowed by God. All work can become a divine assignment. Consider what Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians –

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

whatever I do? – “doing it all for the glory of God” – that would most definitely include work!

sincerely,  Grace Day