09/10/2026
Many of us have a love/hate relationship with work. Sure, we need it to pay the bills. But beyond that - especially when we think of our unpaid work around the house or parenting, etc. - work can feel meaningful or painful, exhilarating or exhausting. And often it feels both ways.
In the fist portion of the book of Genesis, both sides of the equation surface. Originally, work is all good. It’s part of what it means to reflect who God is - God worked to make the world, so we get to work, also. This line comes up BEFORE the Fall into sin:
The Lord God took the human and put the human in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. - Genesis 2:15
God chose us - back in the mythical perfection of Eden - to be coworkers in the world, lovingly maintaining it. That work was meaningful and important. And yet…
Just a chapter later, we’d made a mess of things and our relationship to God, to each other, and to work had been wrecked. this is what it says:
Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life - Genesis 3:17
Work was hard, painful, cursed. Ugh. We all know that feeling.
So which is it for you on this Monday? If you had to adjust a scale where 1 was pleasure and 10 was pain, when you think of your work (paid or unpaid) this week, what number on the scale would you choose? Talk with Jesus about whatever you choice.
