A Little Ambition Won’t Hurt Anyone, Part 2

February, 2007

by: Dave Hintz

When I was in eighth grade, I got a phone call from the pastor of a new church my family was attending. After chatting for a bit, he asked if I wanted to get together for lunch – his treat. Naturally, the offer of a free lunch prompted an affirmative answer, and a few days later I was sitting across from him at Chi Chi’s, my favorite Mexican restaurant. During the course of our conversation he gave me a piece of “sage” advice: “Dave,” he said solemnly, “don’t start working until you absolutely have to, because from that point on you will be working for the rest of your life.” At the time, this tickled my ears and I thought it wonderful counsel. Like most young men, I had an idolatrous love of leisure and the desire to play as much as possible. But despite its appeal, this advice was like poison to my lazy psyche. This pastor encouraged the idea that work was a curse, and that, like all curses, one ought to avoid it whenever possible.

In contrast, the Bible portrays work as a fulfilling, uplifting and rewarding endeavor. Initially, work furnished purpose for life. God labored to create the world in six days, and made man to take care of it from that point on. Adam had the task of ordering and administrating God’s creation by cultivating and keeping the garden (Gen. 2:15). Therefore, work provided man with the opportunity to emulate his Maker’s activity and dominion. Through his labors he exhibited the functional nature of being made in the image of God (1:27).

From his inception, man carried out these duties through naming the animals and searching for a helper suitable for him (2:17). God’s decree to the first couple to “be fruitful and multiply” (1:28) also afforded them the opportunity for obedience. The work of man consisted of spiritual service to the LORD through actively obeying His precepts. The garden did not exist as a playground of pleasure, but a setting in which to serve his Creator.

Cultivating and keeping the land also provided an opportunity for Adam to familiarize himself with the concept of work. As he picked the fruit and oversaw the animals, Adam understood his purpose for existence. God worked at creating the world, therefore Adam would work at maintaining it. Thus, Adam achieved greater communion with God through the shared experience of work.

Furthermore, as he cultivated God’s creation, he became more familiar with God the Creator. Witnessing the splendor of the works of His divine hand most assuredly led to worshipful thoughts regarding the Artist.

The acts of obedience, the shared experience of work, and a growing appreciation for the beauty of God’s creation made work a blessed experience and provided purpose for Adam’s life.

Tragically, all of this came to a screeching halt when Adam capitulated to the schemes of the Devil by disobeying the single prohibition given by God. The labor of love, in which Adam had partaken, was transformed into a labor of lug. Because God found Adam guilty of eating the forbidden fruit, God sentenced him to perpetually experience toil and pain in order to simply eat. Food would no longer come easily to the evicted garden resident, for now the apple trees and strawberry patches would be intermingled with thorns and thistles. The ease of life in the garden would be a distant memory as he would now spend his days tilling soil, pulling weeds, and hauling water in order to simply fill his stomach. Food would come, but not without the sweat of the brow. Eventually, the energy and physical exertion of keeping the land, combined with the newly declared curse of death, would lead to man reuniting with the very dirt over which he labored (Gen. 3:17-19).

Notice that the curse directed to Adam rests not on him, but upon the ground. Subsequently, we should not equate the curse with the exertion of energy. Undoubtedly, Adam labored in the Garden; for example, in one day he named anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 kinds of animals (Gen. 2:19). Rather, the curse rests in the frustration and fruitlessness of wasted work. Every gardener knows the frustration of weeding—you spend hours painstakingly pulling up every weed by its roots, only to watch them sprout again by the next weekend. Such inefficiency leaves man wearied and worn down by his labors.

Yet, work can have meaning and fulfillment apart from simple productivity. Referencing back to Gen. 2:15, God commands Adam to work and cultivate the ground. The Hebrew word for “work” corresponds to keeping the Commandments and heeding God’s Word. Similarly, the Hebrew word for “cultivate” conveys a sense of serving the Lord through spiritual acts of obedience. For Adam, the action of cultivating and working glorified God because he was obeying the commandment given him. To find purpose for work, one must fuse mundane and spiritual labor. Paul admonishes in Colossians 3:17, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” We need spiritual eyes to see that the office is a place of worship, no less than the pew, and not because we set aside paperwork in order to pray and read the Scriptures. Rather, we worship God by working hard and producing excellent work to His credit and not our own. Working for the glory of God consists in having a positive attitude free from whining and complaining (Phil. 2:14). Laboring for the Lord also leads to submission to the authorities whom God has set over us in the workplace (Rom. 13:1).

Young men, do not be afraid of work, but embrace it as an opportunity to fulfill your calling as men. You don’t need to have your dream job to find fulfillment. As long as you have a biblical perspective on work you can have deep joy whether you are flipping burgers, fighting fires, or programming computers.