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You may not know that part of the Bible was written to people with a dysfunctional view of work that was making them miserable. The Israelites had known nothing but slavery for generations. People sometimes say that their boss is a slave driver, but in their case it was literal. Work was the place where they were brutalized and mocked. Their jobs were demeaning and monotonous. Their days were long and painful. As God set them free from that slavery and set about establishing a new nation, how would He change those engrained patterns of working? How would He keep them from approaching their work as drones or slave drivers? If you’ve ever felt those same tendencies yourself, you may need to rethink how you’ve come to think about your work. Consider how God infuses our work with significance and satisfaction.
1. Work gives our lives meaning and satisfaction
If you’re surrounded by people who think of work as drudgery and are just working for the weekend, it can begin to feel like punishment. It would have been natural for the Israelites to have felt like that. But God invests work with dignity. He sets the pattern by showing that He works, Himself. He models the 6-day workweek in Genesis 2:2 and He talks about the satisfaction that He finds in His work. He pauses regularly to notice that “it was good” (e.g. Genesis 1:4). And while He invites Adam and Eve to work, He’s on the job before they ever arrive. In fact, Genesis 2:8 records that it was the Lord, Himself, who planted the garden in Eden. Obviously, God doesn’t work because He has to. It’s not a chore for Him. And He certainly wouldn’t include work in a perfect paradise if there was something inherently wrong with it. People often treat work like a necessary evil but it’s in fact a major part of what gives our lives meaning and satisfaction. Knowing that should encourage us to reflect on some of the things that we enjoy about our jobs. It should remind us to reflect on the tasks that we complete and enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. Work is part of paradise, and part of what we’re created to do.
2. Work is where we reflect the image of God
Work is also how we reflect God’s character in the world. In Genesis 1:26, God famously says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Those words feel foreign to us but were surprising to the Israelites. Ancient kings were often seen as bearing the image of the gods they worshipped. The pharaohs portrayed themselves as the representatives of the gods. But when they said that, they were trying to set themselves apart from mere mortals. What Genesis teaches us is that God created humanity to reflect Him in the world. We were made as divine ambassadors and so have been given intelligence and a passion for design and industry that plants and animals don’t have. When we lose sight of this, we begin working like robots. When you see your job like a machine, you become less human, and work becomes something less than it was ever intended. Remind yourself that you were uniquely created for work and bring all of who you are to reflect God’s image in how you approach what you do.
3. Work makes this world worth living in
People often imagine the Garden of Eden as if it was a finished project. While it was perfect, in one sense, it was also incomplete. God commands Adam and Eve to “fill the earth” and “subdue” it (Genesis 1:28) because although Eden was perfect in its potential it was very much a fixer-upper. More people were needed to harness the fullness of all that it could be. More effort was needed to manage and develop it into all that God envisioned. Whatever job you do is a continuation of the original task of seeking the potential of God’s creation and cultivating a bit of paradise in your corner of the earth.
When you pursue your work with dignity as an expression of how God made you and with a heart to reflect Him in what you do, you make this world a little more like paradise. If what you believe about work is making you miserable, reflect on the garden and all that God intends work to be.
As you do, leave a comment and share how God’s design for work helps you see your work differently. Or if your work is difficult to imagine as contributing to paradise, share that too so that we can interact about where that might fit.
In awe of Him,
Paul
