We think retirement is the reward
You go to college so you can get a good job. You then work for the better part of your life until you reach the point when you no longer have to work and can retire. Then you can enjoy the fruit of all your labor, relaxing in retirement paradise. There are three phases, and work is the miserable middle.
Maybe we don’t say it quite so bluntly, but that essentially sums it up. We get educated so we can get rich, retire, and no longer have to work. Retirement, we believe, is the reward for all our work.
But what if work is the reward?
To understand how work might be the reward, we first need to understand the nature of God, work, and man.
God is a worker
In the beginning, we are told, God created the heavens and the earth. In other words, God worked. In fact, God first reveals Himself to us in His work, specifically, in the work of creation.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1.
By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Genesis 2:2.
Fast forward to Jesus’ earthly ministry, and Jesus describes the Father as “working until now.” So, we see God working in the beginning, and Jesus says He has continued to work to that very day. Jesus then says that He too is working (John 5:17). Then, before He goes to the cross, Jesus takes time to tell His disciples about the work of the Holy Spirit, who will guide them into all truth, remind them of all that Jesus told them, and tell them what to say when they are delivered up to the authorities.
That’s a lot of work going on in the Godhead.
Man is made in God’s image
That God is a worker has important implications for us because we are made in His image. That is why there can be such deep satisfaction after a hard day’s work. Just like it is in a cat’s nature to sleep, it is in man’s nature to work. It is as much a part of our nature as eating, drinking, and breathing.
God designed work to be part of our nature, which is why He made it part of His plan for our lives. I’m not talking about after man disobeyed God and screwed up all God had created but before. After God made man, He placed him in a garden and immediately gave him work to do.
Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. Genesis 2:15.
Work was part of paradise on earth
This is prior to the Fall, which means work was part of God’s intended paradise for man on earth. Think about that. Work was not a consequence of the Fall. Work was part of paradise before the Fall. We take vacations from work to conjure up two weeks of paradise at a resort, when God created things so that we could enjoy paradise 50 weeks per year.
And here is the other thing about work: it was not intended to be meaningless. The work God gave man was meaningful. He told man to keep and cultivate the Garden, to be fruitful and multiply, and to take dominion over the earth. Man was to take the blueprint of the beauty, abundance, and blessing of the garden and extend it to the rest of the earth (Genesis 1:28).
So, work is part of our person, part of God’s plan for our lives, and part of His purpose for the planet. That’s a lot of “p’s,”, but it means that work should be part of our paradise on earth. It should be part of our ideal life, and ideally we should experience work as a joy, not a drudgery. Engagement in meaningful work—not escape from it—is part of the biblical picture of human flourishing.
So why doesn’t work feel like paradise for most of us?
That’s the subject of my next post. GS
