Do you ever have one of those days?  Those days were work just seems to drag on.  The day where the TPS reports are killing you and your sick of being told you have a “case of the mondays.”  I’m not sure there is such a thing as a job where you don’t have those days.

Because work is hard.

Work is hard because we often have bosses that are difficult to deal with.  Or co-workers we can’t stand.  Maybe we have a deadline that is fast-approaching.  Or maybe even clients that have unrealistic expectations.

Work is tiring and exhausting.  And not only that but for many of us, work follows us home.  And this happens with all work - even the most appealing, perfect, dream-jobs.

But there’s an important reminder for all of us in the midst of these days.  Work was never intended to be a curse.  Work was actually intended to be a gift for man.  A calling for man to fulfill in paradise.

“The book of Genesis  leaves us with a striking truth-work was part of paradise.” - Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor

But then sin enters the picture.  Sin is the reason that both our perfect jobs and our less-than-perfect ones are hard work.  Sin is the reason why our work follows us home.  Sin is the reason why we have to work jobs just to make ends meet.  Sin turns a calling into an obligation.

“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 3:17-19

Work is a good thing.  It is a gift from God.  It is a part of the way that God has wired humanity to work.  He has created us and called us to work in the various spheres of our life.  But with sin, our callings also become laborious.  Our gift also brings pain.

In Jesus, we have hope that this is not the way things should be or the way that things will always be. And we have hope that our work doesn’t define us.  And while we face the pain of hard work, we can with faith look to the pain of the cross and be reminded of what sin does.  It brings about a curse that affects every area of our life - our relationships, our homes, and our workplaces.  And it’s a curse that can only be solved by a cross.