Work

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Work gets a bad rap. We often think of work as being a consequence of The Fall (Gen 3), and while there are consequences from the curse associated with work; there was work before the Fall, and it was “good”.

We spend much of lives complaining about work, avoiding work, and looking forward to one day we can stop working altogether. Indeed there will be a Heavenly rest for those in Christ; but it is not as if we will sleep for all eternity; there will be work to be done even in eternity. 

Our grandmothers were on to something when they admonished us about idle hands being the Devil’s workshop, because they absolutely are. If you are busy, particularly doing what you ought to be doing, it sure helps one to stay out of trouble. Yet so much of our effort is expended on not expending effort.

God created us to work, and to do his work.

I suspect that one of the root causes of the disaffection we have in modern life comes from the absence of real physical labor. There is something uniquely satisfying about seeing something that you built with your own hands, eating something that you planted with your own hands, and so forth. Modern work often has such delayed or abstract gratification. People were not made for cubicles.

So Solomon exhorts us to be joyful, to enjoy the fruit of our labors, recognize that that fruit is reward from God and ultimately recognize that all we have is from the hand of God.

What God does is permanent, but what man does is impermanent, so we can see how great God is. 

God is the one who determines whose work will be rewarded and how, in both the here and now and in the hereafter. He will judge us for all that we do. God is testing us, in part through our work.

You can certainly learn a great deal about someone from their work.