day no. 16,996: a glimpse of the garden

“Work is not primarily a thing one does to live but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.” — Dorothy L. Sayers

Work is not a curse. Work is from God and it is good. It is a gift from God we give back to Him. He gives us the privilege of giving something to Him: grace upon grace.

Genesis 2:15

And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Before the Fall there was good, hard work. The daily grind was grace upon grace, but the Fall made things harder than they had to be.

Genesis 3:17-19

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

As a result of the Fall, work was cursed, not because there was anything wrong with it per se, but because there was now something wrong with man in se.

So, God sent His Son to do the good work we could no longer do and to die for the bad deeds we had already done.

2 Corinthians 5:21

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

The Son made it possible for us to return to the good works that God had prepared beforehand for us to do.

Ephesians 2:8-10

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

So, work is a gift. It is a blessing from God. It is a return to Eden. Work provides a glimpse of the Garden. Good works are return to that perfect world and the path forward in this new earth.

1 Corinthians 15:58

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

In Jesus, nothing is in vain; especially good, hard work.