There’s something about Mondays that everyone hates. Just look at the endless amount of memes and coffee mug quotes that are dedicated to reminding us of our contempt for Monday.
But what is it really about Monday that we all universally hate? It’s the beginning of a work week.
We celebrate Friday, covet Saturday and Sunday, and absolutely loathe Monday. This is a common human experience. We tend to have a very strong dislike for work.
Now, I’m not one who jumps up and loves going to work everyday. But I think our understanding of work has been warped by our culture and the fallen state of our world. God actually created work to be so much different than what many of us experience on a daily basis.
If we allow the bible to shape our thinking of work, then we might actually enjoy it a bit more.
Here are 4 truths from the Bible offering a biblical perspective on work:
1. We are Hardwired to Work.
I recently listened to a podcast featuring a compilation of TedTalks addressing human motivations behind work. One of the psychologists, Barry Schwartz, said humans work because we have “an innate need to feel valued, to feel like what [we] do means something even when [certain] jobs might not be what [we] necessarily want.”
The point is that humanity has an intrinsic desire to work. And it isn’t fundamentally tied to financial gain.
The reason we feel this way is because it’s actually how God wired us. He created us to work. In Genesis 1, God created the world and then charged man to fill the earth and subdue it. God called Adam to care for the earth—to work. From the very beginning, even before sin, working was always part of the good life.
Work was designed to be something we would enjoy. It was actually a gift from God.
This view on work may be a little difficult to buy into. Work can be either a burden or even an unhealthy obsession. I wouldn’t need to look far to find someone who says they dislike work.
And that’s because this good and perfect gift has been tainted. Genesis 3 is known as The Fall because that’s when sin entered the world. And from that moment, everything in this good and perfect world God created, including the intrinsic gifts within us, became tainted and distorted. The goodness and enjoyment of work became buried underneath the hardship.
