The Blessing of Work (Ideally)
Unless you are independently wealthy, or the beneficiary of a trust
fund that Mommy and/or Daddy set up for you so that you would never
have to work a day in your life (if you read many stories about these
kids, the money, meant to be a blessing, often leads to tragedy for them
as adults), you will sooner or later need to work for a living. The ideal,
of course, is to find something that you are passionate about that can
provide you with a good income, get trained in it, find a job doing it,
and work at it for your working years. That’s the ideal; of course, it
doesn’t always turn out that way.
Read Genesis 2:15 (see also Eccles. 9:10 and 2 Thess. 3:8–10). What
is the significance of the fact that, even before the entrance of sin,
Adam (and certainly Eve, too) was given work? How might this
explain why, as stated above, those who never had to work found
their situation to be a curse?
This work was not a punishment, obviously. It was designed for their
good. That is, even in Paradise, even in a world in which no sin, no death,
and no suffering existed, God knew that human beings needed to work.
“And to Adam was given the work of caring for the Garden. The
Creator knew that Adam could not be happy without employment.
The beauty of the Garden delighted him, but this was not enough. He
must have labor to call into exercise the wonderful organs of the body.
Had happiness consisted in doing nothing, man, in his state of holy
innocence, would have been left unemployed. But He who created man
knew what would be for his happiness; and no sooner had He created
him, than He gave him his appointed work. The promise of future glory,
and the decree that man must toil for his daily bread, came from the
same throne.”—Ellen G. White, Our High Calling, p. 223.
However, even after the Fall, when (as with everything else) work had
been tainted by sin, God said to Adam: “ ‘Cursed is the ground for your
sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life’ ” (Gen. 3:17,
NKJV). Notice, God cursed the ground for “your sake,” for the sake of
Adam, with the idea that work would be something that he would need,
especially as a fallen being.
What is it about work that, ideally, should make it something that
can be a blessing to us?
