Toil & Trouble!!!
Why Do We Have To Work So Hard???
Ever wonder why each and every day of our lives feels like a struggle. Every day we work hard so that we have the money to pay our bills, keep a roof over our head, food on our plate and be able to provide for our families. And being able to achieve this only seems to be getting harder and harder with each passing year.
It seems as if most of us are toiling away trying to make ends meet, and getting no-where fast. And as we get older and older, many of us start to wonder why? And we question the purpose of all this toil.
The answer lay at the beginning of time, and the beginning of humanity with Adam and Eve.
(artwork by Schism)
From the very beginning of humanities existence, since even before the fall, work is part of God’s sovereign plan for us. Adam and Eve managed and worked the Garden of Eden, they didn’t just lounge around the pool sunning themselves, and having a casual chat with God. In fact, Genesis 2:15 tells us that…“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” So, we now know that work is not a consequence of the Fall, and of the influence of ‘Sin’ on the world.
But why is work so hard, why do we toil day after day just to eke out a living, that for many around the world is barely enough to survive on?
The answer is that the Fall happens.
Genesis 3:17-19 says…“To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from 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, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Because of the sin of disobedience, not only were Adam and Eve banished from paradise, but the physical, natural world was cursed because of it.
We see in these verses that ‘painful toil' is a direct result of the Fall. This is why we have to work hard just to provide for ourselves and our families.
In the Garden of Eden everything was provided for Adam and Eve. Their food, their shelter, their spiritual life, the environment was perfect…everything was there just for them and their future offspring. The consequences of sin, and the curse placed on the world means that we will have to work hard (“By the sweat of your brow”) to provide for the things that were no longer provided directly by God.
And we have to work hard until we die. There is no let up, there is no time to just do whatever. We work hard all our lives and then we die. That is a fact of life - like it or not - and it is a direct consequence of humanities disobedience and the curse of sin on the cosmos.
So, is everything just doom and gloom then? Is life just this groundhog day like existence? Or is there more to it?
Romans 12:12 informs us that we should, “Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.”
This does not mean we should be joyful that we are going through tough times. Far from the fact. Rather, it is saying that we need to rejoice about the hope that we have in Jesus Christ that HE is here with us during the storms that batter us, but that in the end - there will be an eternity without any struggle.
It also means that because of our hope in Jesus Christ, and our future eternity with HIM - then we should be patient during the storms and trials we face…especially when it is something like having to work long hard hours to provide for our families.
Kids often call out repetitively, and annoyingly “Are we there yet?”….How often must we sound like petulant kids? Where we are constantly praying to God “Is it over yet? Is it over yet?…Is it over yet?”. We also have to consider if that is what we are doing - is that something a mature Christian should or would be doing?
Then in the face of ongoing struggle, whilst we are being patient, we should be praying to God continuously. It is through prayer that we keep our connection with God open…that connection which was broken during the Fall. Is it in prayer that we can petition God for help in our circumstances.
But our hope and encouragement from scripture doesn’t end there. In 2 Corinthians 4:17 it says, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
Even though our worlds can often feel like they are falling apart, and everyday life is a grind - those struggles are both brief (though they don’t seem like it) and light (meaning they shouldn’t weigh on us) when compared to an eternity that we shall spend in the presence of God - in eternal peace and joy.
Our goal is to endure this life so that we can experience the fullness of eternity.
There are however, warnings about when times are good, or that we have laid out intricate plans for our lives based on our dreams and desires. In James 4:13-16 it says, “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.”
When times are good we should not boast about them, in part because we do not know what tomorrow holds. One day we can be in full health, be secure in our finances and housing - and the next we can be struck by significant illness that negatively impacts on our finances and housing.
Our lives are but a momentary blip in the fabric of time and space - so we really don’t have a right to be boasting and proud of what we are doing or aim to do.
Today, if you are having to toil and struggle just to make ends meet, just to provide the basics for you and your family -realise that God has not cursed you, nor is he disciplining you. It is a fact of life because we live in a sinful world, full of sinful people making sinful choices that affect other people. Know that God is with you each step of your journey in this life, call out to HIM in prayer, be patient during those tough times because when it all ends (or HE returns) an eternity of joy and peace will be ours to experience, and all our pains and suffering will not matter.