why work is hard

Confession time: I’m not really all that excited about the new year.

What I have ahead of me is five months of grinding. The holidays are past, the next one is Memorial Day. Oh, I have a little Texas getaway planned, but basically the fun is over and it’s time to get back to work.

What’s so bad about that? Work is good, work has value, work brings satisfaction and meaning. And yet, we all try to spend less time at work and more time chasing our dreams, whatever they are. And usually our dreams and work are completely separate.

Genesis 3:17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.”
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 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."

There are two things going on with my post-holiday blahs. First, work is hard and painful; it’s been that way for all mankind since Adam and Eve ate the apple. Second, my attitude toward work is messed up. I think my life should be about me, not about service. Again, because of that rotten snake and his stupid apple.

I begin this year of Bible reading as I always do, at the beginning, Genesis, where God made everything good. Where God made the perfect life for Adam and Eve. Where they, like I do every day, messed it up by thinking they knew better.

But the second chapter of Genesis is also where I first read of the great promise of a Savior. In the darkest moment, there is hope. A promise of an amazing rescue from my own bad choices and attitudes, and equipping to once more love the great work of restoration.

And so begins the greatest story ever told.