Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:28 — 19.9MB)
So, do you think you could ever honestly say, “Thank God it’s Monday” and look forward to going to work? Maybe you’re thinking you could if only you had a better boss. If you work for someone who is difficult or demanding or unfair, going to work can seem pretty tough some days. Perhaps the thorn in your side at your job is a coworker or coworkers who are not so easy to get along with. It could be their work habits—or lack of—or their negative attitudes. Sometimes it’s their lifestyles, vulgarity, and foul mouths that make jobs unpleasant. You may have gone through downsizing and lost your job rather unfairly. That can make you pretty cynical. So, going to work just becomes a matter of putting in your time. “I owe, I owe, so it’s off to work I go!” and that’s about it.
In addition to difficult bosses and coworkers and unfair treatment, how about unpleasant work environments, heavy workloads, stress, pressure, lack of appreciation, lack of success, insufficient pay—to name a few! Most jobs have enough of these to make them pretty miserable. So, how could those dwarfs sing “Hi-ho, Hi-ho, it’s off to work we go!”? How could anybody honestly say, “Thank God It’s Monday!”?
Most people have the attitude that work is something we have to do whether we want to or not. Work is what we do in order to acquire all the things we want or need. Work is more often seen as a curse rather than a blessing.
That’s really sad because until sin entered the picture, work and work environments were ordained by God, blessed by God, and ordered by God. In short, we were created to work. And that’s where we get our dignity as humans.
Notice when you meet someone new how prone you are to ask, “What do you do?” Well, that’s because what we do is our identity to a great degree, and God so intended it. Our dignity does not come from what we have, because we don’t have anything. The Bible says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1a). You may think you own some stuff but think again. As Paul told Timothy: “We brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it” (1 Timothy 6:7).
But God intended that our work would be a part of our identity, and that’s the way it was originally. But once sin entered the picture through the disobedience of Adam and Eve, everything good that God created was corrupted, including work. The Garden of Eden, the first workplace created by God, was corrupted by sin, and your workplace has been corrupted by sin. The reason we don’t often say “Thank God It’s Monday” is because of the curse that was placed on work after sin came on the scene.
You’ll find that curse in Genesis 3 where God said to Adam:
“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground. . .” (Genesis 3:17b-19a).
Paraphrase: You’ll have to work, like you’ve been doing, but now work is going to be full of difficulties. You’ll earn your living, but the thorns and thistles will make it unpleasant, and it will be painfully toilsome at times. Your work will be hard and make you weary and tired.
And this curse which God placed on work way back in the Garden of Eden is passed on to us today. Work is full of painful toil; you have to do things you don’t like to do or want to do. You have to do work that is boring or unfulfilling. Your work may seem mundane or painfully toilsome.
Work is full of thorns and thistles; things that upset you, irritate you, and make the job unnecessarily difficult. The unpleasant coworker, the impossible boss, the demanding customer. They stick you and prick you and ruin otherwise good days.
Work is full of the sweat of your brow. You are physically exhausted at the end of the day. Mental exhaustion is just as difficult, and often we experience emotional exhaustion on our jobs.
A secular writer, Studs Terkel, wrote a best seller entitled Working. Listen to what he says:
“This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence—to the spirit as well as to the body. It is about ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around. It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.”
Wow! You can’t blame us for not wanting to work in this cursed environment. If only we didn’t have to earn a living! If only we could be spared this unpleasant and unfair predicament called work!! Is that the way you often think? Do you just hold your breath and live for the days you don’t have to go to those corrupted workplaces? Thank God it’s Friday! My vacation is next week! I’m retiring in two years! Let me out of here!
Set Free From the Curse
I have such great news for you. You know that curse that was placed on work, way back in the Garden of Eden; that curse that was caused by sin; that curse which has created a miserable workplace for you. Guess what? Jesus came to redeem you from that very curse. Here’s the really great news, from Galatians 3:13:
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’“
Jesus Christ came to redeem us from the whole curse including the curse on work. I don’t think many Christians have ever understood that work was cursed, or that they have been set free from that curse. We seem to know that we’ve been set free from the curse of condemnation; our sins are forgiven; we will spend eternity in heaven with Jesus. But we’ve also been set free from the entire curse, including the curse on work.
Now, in order to be set free from the curse, you must first have a personal relationship with Jesus through faith. Can you identify the time in your life when you recognized your need of a savior, when you confessed your sins and became a new creation in Christ through faith in what Jesus has done for you? That’s what Jesus called being born again. If you haven’t been born again–born from above–then you are not free from the curse. It still hangs over your head.
Let me urge you to get that issue settled immediately if there is any doubt in your mind about it. You can contact us here at The Christian Working Woman, or perhaps you know a local minister or Christian you could go to for help. But you need to see from God’s Word what it means to become a Christian and make certain you’ve met those requirements.
Once you’re born again, Jesus does not remove you from the curse-infested world. He could, but he chooses to leave you here. He leaves you here with work to do, and you now have the amazing opportunity to demonstrate what work is really supposed to be like—yes, even in the midst of that corrupted workplace! Wow! What a privilege you and I have to show our worlds how God intended work to be.
In order to be able to truly say, “Thank God it’s Monday,” we must figure out how we can live in freedom from the curse on work, even though the effects of that curse are all around us.
Bringing the Kingdom to Your Job
If you know me, you know I’m a “how-to” person. I want to know how to do what the Bible tells me to do. I need it in simple words, easy-to-understand applications so that I can make it real in my life. So, what I’m trying to do is make this principle of being free from the curse of work more real to you and therefore, more applicable to your life.
Here’s our dilemma: We’re born-again believers, who have been set free from the curse, including the curse on work. Yet, every day we go into a workplace that is full of the consequences of the curse. Things like:
- Lack of cooperation
- Lots of jealousy
- Everyone is out for themselves
- Lots of lying and stealing
- Lots of gossip and office politics
- Discrimination and harassment
- Laziness
- Territory protection
- Lack of appreciation/recognition
- Unfairness
- Verbal abuse
- Too much work
Let’s face it: If we didn’t have to face these things on our jobs, work would be infinitely better for most of us. These are the thorns and thistles that now inflict our work environments. So, what do we do? Well, we have several options:
- Since we have to work, or think we have to work, we can do it with a fair amount of drudgery, complaining and self-pity.
- Or we can look for a job that doesn’t have these “thorns and thistles.” There must be a perfect job somewhere.
- Or we can become self-employed, so we don’t have to put up with these hassles.
- Or isolate ourselves as much as possible from everyone on our jobs to avoid as many “thorns and thistles” as we can.
Well, none of these are solutions, because they don’t get to the root of the problem. We are still living under the curse of work. Here’s the way God intends for us to do it:
Work at the job God has given you and carry the Kingdom of God to your job every day.
What does that mean?
Because we’ve been set free from the curse, we have a unique opportunity to turn our work and our jobs into places of victory and testimonies of God’s transforming power in our lives. It really is exciting. God has given us the power to transform our workdays and make them honoring to him—so we can honestly say, “Thank God It’s Monday!”