Devotional for August 25, 2006

Devotional for August 25, 2006: "Character Profile: Your Work Ethic, Part 2

Then to Adam He said, 'Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': 'Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.-Genesis 3:17 (NKJV)

We may call it a lot of different things-business, occupation, career, calling, vocation, livelihood, practice, or profession-but in the end, it's all the same thing . . . work. Something often happens in our hearts when the word work is mentioned, a heaviness that makes our shoulders slump.

The average person doesn't enjoy working. Many refer to the start of the work week as Monday moanin'. Why is that? How is it that the human race has come to have such resentment for something that's such an integral part of life?

The answer is given to us in the first few chapters of Genesis. God created man and gave him the responsibility to tend, serve, and care for the rest of His creation (Genesis 1:15). This was intended to give man a sense of purpose and fulfillment. However, when man sinned, it altered his environment. The world became a hostile place-tending turned into toiling; serving, into sweating; and caring for God's creation, into a curse. This is the world's outlook on work. It's"