Many people who know anything about the Bible see work as part of the curse that God pronounced on creation as a result of Adam’s sin. “And to Adam he said, “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. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17, ESV)
‘You see’, they say, ‘work is a curse.’ Is that what it says? Or does it say that even our work is now cursed?
Before the fall and the curse God gave Adam work? “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15, ESV)
Work, useful tasks to expend our time and talent on, is not a curse. Work is a blessing. Something useful to do is a blessing. Because of sin it is also less productive, many times hard, sometimes boring, and often dreaded. But that’s the way with sin. It makes righteous behavior look like hard, unreasonable, boring drudgery to be avoided.
Are you going to listen to selfishness and sin, calling work a curse to be shunned and hated? Or are you going to agree with God’s word and call work, something useful to do in this sin-cursed world, a blessing from God that he has promised to reward?
Blessing or curse? Your attitude. Your self-talk. Your choice.