Masculinity - Men at Work

 "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." Genesis 2:15

I find it interesting that generationally, from my dad's generation (born 1923) through today, our view of work has changed in terms of culture. My dad found work to be a source of pride. It was his identity, and he wasn't alone. He and his co-workers bowled together, made friends and came over to one another's homes, and when my dad described what he did, he would say, "I work at the Houston Packing Company on the killing floor" with pride. (That was a meat plant in Houston FYI.)

The father saw his role as provider in my dad's generation. Work gave income and benefits (the good jobs did). It was associated with his value of who he was as a husband/father to make money to put a roof over his family's head, food on the table and gas in the tank.

Today? Today we segment our work into a perfect little model designed somewhere.  God, Family, Country, Work. If my dad were still around today and heard that come from my mouth, he'd wonder where he went wrong. Work is family and work is country. It's part of what a good husband/father does and what a good citizen does. Interestingly enough, I heard Rabbi Daniel Lapin on Dave Ramsey's "Entreleadership" podcast recently cite Genesis, Exodus (twice) and Joshua from the Hebrew bible, and the four passages he cited (including the above) had the words "work" and "worship" in the Hebrew. Why was it interesting? Because the word is the same word in Hebrew.

God created us to work and to work in service to Him. Yes, but the passage in Genesis is pre-fall of man. After the fall (covered more extensively in a later devotion about "masculinity"), man was cursed to toil. That is true, but three of the four passages are after the fall. Rabbi Lapin cites Exodus 20 where God commands us to "work" for six days and observe the Sabbath with rest the seventh day. It is the same word used in Genesis according to him. The two using "worship" don't translate exactly in the English bible, but Joshua 24:15 (his citation) is, "As for me and my house, we will worship the Lord." (English bible says "serve".)

What does this all mean? It points us to the idea of vocation (calling). Our calling in life is to serve God in all we do, work, family, community, and church. If you find it difficult to see what you do in work as serving God, the idea is to figure out how that work serves God, which starts with service to your God and family.

We can get in ruts at work, but we can in life in general, a condition of our sinful nature and sin-filled world, but we were created TO work in service to God, and in the Christian realm, we work in response to God's sacrifice of His Son to redeem us from our sin. We pray we can see God's Hand in our lives and in our work as a response to the gospel message and to value what we do in service to him.