Editor’s Note: Read the previous article in this series below!
“Workism” and God’s Design for Work
In our current series, we’re exploring biblical principles that will guide us in properly balancing work and family. The Bible teaches that work is a God-given blessing, but due to the corruption of sin, it must be approached with diligence, intentionality, and wisdom to protect your family.
We’ve explored how the constant pull of “workism” (the desire to make work our identity and purpose for living) can negatively impact our families if we’re not on guard. (For more on “workism” see Derek Thompson’s book On Work: Meaning, Money, Identity.) We need to pursue the truth of scripture to ensure that we’re honoring God both at work and in the home.
The first principle that we looked at was God’s initial design for work in Genesis 1. God created work to be a blessing for man. Man was created in the image of God. Like God, man is a rational being who can create, organize, be productive, and have dominion. God created Adam to work in the garden of Eden to have dominion over the earth and subdue it. This was “very good” in the sight of God.
However, in your own day-to-day experience, work may not always feel like a blessing to you. It may feel like a curse at times. Why is that?
The Impact of the Fall on Work: Thorns and Thistles
We have to go back to Genesis to find the reason why our work doesn’t always feel like a blessing. In Genesis 3, we see Adam and Eve sin by listening to Satan, questioning God, and eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. At that moment, sin entered the world and everything that God had created perfect and good was now corrupted, including work. Sin entered the heart of man, sentencing him to physical and spiritual death. All men will now physically die at some point, but even worse, they’ll be punished in hell forever for their disobedience to God unless they are delivered from their sin by faith in Christ.
As punishment for their rebellion, God also pronounced specific curses on the serpent, on Eve, and on Adam. Listen to God describing His curse on Adam:
And to Adam he said, “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 was so integral to Adam’s existence that God chose to curse that aspect of his life. The earth was cursed—there’s now sickness, death, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, etc. Adam’s job to cultivate and have dominion over the land and the animals just got significantly harder. Thorns and thistles would rise up in the midst of his crops. To produce a harvest, it was going to now take intense, back-breaking, hard work. He was going to have to toil by the sweat of his brow until the day he died.
This explains why our work, even though it is ultimately a good thing, can be so hard. While we may not be cultivating the land, metaphorical thorns and thistles still crop up in our work.
Work Can Be Frustrating. It can be hard to get things done at work. Work can be simultaneously painful, stressful, boring, or a cause for anxiety.
We Experience People Problems. We can have bad bosses, lazy co-workers, rude cross-functional partners, angry customers, or difficult direct reports.
Work Can Be Hard to Find. Layoffs are becoming more common again in certain industries. Many people would like to be working, but it can be difficult to land a new job in a tough market.
We Make Mistakes. Since we’re not perfect, we might make errors in our work and get our hands slapped for them.
We Can Be Tempted to Sin. Our work can tempt us to pride, greed, laziness, and dishonesty.
Competition Can Be Cutthroat. Succeeding at work can become a zero sum game of competition with other people for promotions, raises, or recognition.
Work Can Become an Idol or Our Main Identity. Work can easily become our identity if we let it. It can become our primary source of meaning, worth, joy, and satisfaction. This is idolatry and the root cause of workism.
In our fallen, sinful culture, workism reigns supreme. However, as Christians, we must realize that work is a false god that cannot satisfy if it becomes an idol.
The Preacher in Ecclesiastes called this out thousands of years ago:
What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.
Eccl 2:22-23
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner, but to see them with his eyes?
Eccl 5:10-11
So, if work is a constant source of frustration, can lead to idolatry, and is not ultimately satisfying, why should we even bother with work? As Christians, should we just give up and try to work as little as possible?
No—quite the opposite. As Christians, we’re called to work diligently all throughout Scripture (Prov 6:6-11; 12:24; 21:5). However, we’ll need to have the correct motivation for work if we want to honor God and protect our families. We’ll explore what the Bible says should be a Christian’s motivation for work in our next article.
