Daily Devotional For Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Well, today is “hump” day. Your week is about to be half over. Work is a God-given blessing. We now have a whole younger generation who believe that work is some kind of curse, a responsibility they do not need to accept. Maybe Kim Kardashian is right when she said, “Nobody wants to work these days.”  We now have over 2 million able-bodied young people who are refusing to get a job and work. Last year, 33% of 18-29 year olds received some kind of government assistance (i.e., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, unemployment benefits or food stamps).

Sociologists who study this call it “The Great Resignation.” More and more of the younger generation are content to go off to college, get a degree and then come back home and live off of good old mom and dad or government assistance — 2 million of them. 

This includes some who are Christians. They incorrectly base this on Genesis 1:28, Genesis 2:15 in comparison with Genesis 3:17-19. Look at these verses below:

• Genesis 1:28, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, `Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (ESV).
• Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (ESV).
• Genesis 3:17-19, “And to Adam He said, `Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’
  cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; (18) thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. (19) By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken” (ESV).

After the Fall, God cursed the ground. The Hebrew word used here is [אֲרוּרָ֤ה, arura]. Victor Hamilton says the origin of this specific Hebrew word means “means “to bind (with a spell), hem in with obstacles, render powerless to resist” (Source: Victor Hamilton, Theological Workbook of the Old Testament, p. 75). That is what God did as a result of the Fall — He hemmed in humanity with obstacles, and rendered powerless our ability to stop nature’s resistance to us. God had warned Adam and Eve that the worse consequence of disobedience was death. The Apostle Paul tells us that when Adam and Eve sinned, creation immediately began a long, slow, and agonizing death that continues to this day. Look at Romans 8:19-22:

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. (20) For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope (21) that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (22) For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (ESV).

What does this mean. God had created the world prior to sin to respond without opposition or resistance to the cultivating hands of people. Now, all of creation would resist humanity as a unified and solidified act against humanity. It would appear that nature had a mind of its own and was going to punish humanity for bringing sin into the perfect and sinless world God had originally created. We see this today. We have to have our yards treated to kill all kinds of weeds. Pests and insects now eat our crops. Briars and thorns grow everywhere without even planting them. All of this to bring us heartache and headache and hardship. 

Chuck Swindoll puts it this way:

“The curse that followed the fall is also behind the hassles—the thorn-and-thistle-like irritations—that now frustrate one’s work. Work itself is a privilege. It is also a challenge to indolence, an answer to boredom, an opportunity for personal growth and development, and a worthy place to invest one’s energy. And, perhaps most important of all, work provides for our physical needs” (Source: Charles R. Swindoll, Living the Proverbs: Insight For The Daily Grind, Kindle Edition, pp. 160-161).

Read the following Proverbs. The words sluggard, “sloth, slothfulness” are old terms for lazy and laziness or a lazy person::

• Proverbs 12:24, “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor” (ESV).
• Proverbs 12:27, “Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth” (ESV).
• Proverbs 13:4, “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied” (ESV).
• Proverbs 15:19, “The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway” (ESV).
• Proverbs 18:9, “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys” (ESV).
• Proverbs 19:15, “Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger” (ESV).
• Proverbs 22:13-16, “The sluggard says, “There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!” (14) The mouth of forbidden women is a deep pit; he with whom the Lord is angry will fall into it. (15) Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. (16) Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty” (ESV).

To me, work is not a curse. It is a blessing and an honor to serve God as His co-custodian over the world He created. Maxine Berstein writes this about the laziness of our culture:

“A local law enforcement officer was recently disciplined for slacking off on the job. His name? Officer Doolittle. Sergeant James A. Doolittle served as the K-9 handler for the West Linn police department. During the entirety of 2012 and 2013, he responded to exactly one police call. Nevertheless, Doolittle was paid $8,000 in premium pay, and during that time was also allowed to use an official police cruiser, with gas and insurance paid for by taxpayer funds. Doolittle claimed he was attending training exercises twice a month, developing his capacity as a dog handler. However, very little of his time could be corroborated by other witnesses, and investigators could not reliably confirm the veracity of his claims.

As a result, Doolittle was given a 30-day unpaid suspension; however, the city of West Linn allowed Doolittle to retire in 2014, keeping the dog and $2,000 to support vet expenses. Inexplicably, the city also agreed not to divulge any of his misconduct to the press or other police agencies. The Oregonian, the state’s main daily newspaper, found out about Doolittle after making a public records request from the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training” (Source: Maxine Bernstein, “West Linn paid off lazy K-9 officer, then agreed to hide his misdeeds” Oregon Live (3-21-20).

If you think this is crazy, look what is happening in Japan:

“A Japanese business called "Family Romance" has actors for hire, ready and willing to be anything from your baby to your grandparent. "In an increasingly isolated and entitled society, the CEO [Ishii Yuichi] predicts the exponential growth of his business and others like it, as à la carte human interaction becomes the new norm," wrote Roc Morin in The Atlantic.

There doesn't seem to be any ask too big for Yuichi's company. He's played a dad to children who don't know he's been hired. He's been a groom in faux weddings that the attendees didn't know were staged. His company even provided a baby for a pregnant woman—who hadn't yet delivered—who was desperate to have her dying dad meet his "grandchild."

And as outlandish as the idea might sound now, it's ultimately believable that this trend could one day come to America: if Yuichi is right, the desire to rent loved ones comes from a longing for control combined with a vast laziness—two sentiments alive and well in our current culture. Describing why women choose to hire him as a boyfriend, Yuichi says:

The women typically say that in a real relationship … it takes years to create a strong connection. For them, it's a lot of hassle and disappointment. … It's just easier to schedule two hours per week to interact with an ideal boyfriend. There's no conflict, no jealousy, no bad habits. Everything is perfect” (Source: Katrina Trinko, "Will Renting Friends Be As Popular As Calling Uber?" Acculturated blog (11-17-17).

Questions To Consider

• When it comes to work, what is your typical attitude and why? 
• Read over the Proverbs above. Which one impacts you the most and why?
• Do you view the world as a God-given responsibility or a curse to endure? Why?
• Read Colossians 3:23-24, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, (24) knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (ESV). What does this verse say to you about the type of work ethic you should have and why?
• Everyone tends to have some kind of “Achilles Heel” with something they are lazy about in their life. What is it you tend to be lazy about and why? Based on Colossians 3:23-24, is there anything you should now do differently with that area and why?
• Do you give your best to everything you do, or do you slack off, cut back, compromise and/or not fulfill completely what is expected of you? Why did you answer this the way you did? If you applied Colossians 3:23-24 to this, what would you do differently and why?
• Adam and Eve had no way of knowing the consequences their sin would bring to the world. And what is true for them is also true for us. In your past, when was a time you were lazy and you had to live with the unforeseen consequences of your laziness? What lesson did Jesus Christ teach from this? Did you learn the lesson? Why or why not?

Scripture to Meditate On: Colossians 3:23-24, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, (24) knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (ESV). 

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, based on Colossians 3:23-24, whatever I do, no matter what it is or how insignificant I think it is, I should do as if I am doing it personally for You. Jesus, I don’t want to be lazy and be a economic vampire drawing my life from others nor do I want to be a workaholic, working myself to an early grave, forsaking my family, friends and faith. Help me have a work ethic that honor You. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you, Pastor Kelly