And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. – Genesis 2:15, KJV

I don’t care how hard we try, we cannot escape the way God designed us. We were designed by God to work, and when we don’t work, we will feel unfulfilled. Take, for example, this excerpt from the Business Insider article, Europeans Are So Sick Of Being Unemployed That They’re Working Fake Jobs At Fake Companies:

While Europe battles long-term unemployment, some people have grown so restless that they’ve started working fake jobs at fake companies all around the continent.

The New York Times’ Liz Alderman reports that thousands of fake companies across Europe hire fake employees to sell fake products to fake customers. Products like perfume, porcelain, and exotic pets.

They make the work environment as realistic as possible: some of the fake companies have even fallen into fake bankruptcy, and the fake staff went on to set up new fake companies, taking out fake loans from fake banks.

Other fake companies have even held strikes.

The companies started out training programs to help students at the outset of their careers or people between jobs gain workplace skills.

Now, for some people, they’re just a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

The Times described Sabine de Buyzer, a French woman at a fake furniture company in Lille:

She lost her job as a secretary two years ago and has been unable to find steady work. Since January, though, she had woken up early every weekday, put on makeup and gotten ready to go the office. By 9 a.m. she arrives at the small office in a low-income neighborhood of Lille, where joblessness is among the highest in the country.

While she doesn’t earn a paycheck, Ms. de Buyzer, 41, welcomes the regular routine.

Sounds pretty bleak. But de Buyzer isn’t entirely discouraged.

“Since I’ve been coming here, I have had a lot more confidence,” she told the Times. “I just want to work.”

As Ms. de Buyzer’s story demonstrates, we have an innate urge to be productive, and that urge doesn’t come from evolution or culture or a desire to make money. It comes from our Creator, and it was ingrained in father Adam from the moment of his creation. Long before there was culture or money, there was work – God’s work in the Garden of Eden.

Today our purpose is the same as Adam’s: do God’s work, God’s way, and in God’s timing. When our souls are uneasy – when we are bitter and stressed – it’s often due to our failure to pursue God’s work, God’s way, and in God’s timing.

What about all of those people who live a life of laziness? As the Bible teaches, there is pleasure in sin for a season. But eventually sin destroys, both emotionally and physically, and living life in contrast to God’s design for work does the same. As the BBC reports:

A May 2013 report published by the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs found that retirement increased the chances of suffering from depression by 40%, while it increased the probability of having at least one diagnosed physical ailment by about 60%. That impact was assessed after controlling for the usual age-related conditions.

In the first year of retirement, health actually improved — “It’s nice to get some rest from work,” he said — but two to three years later retirees’ mental and physical conditions began deteriorating.

Though retirement ages may differ from country to country — in China men retire at 60, in India people retire between 60 and 65 and in Norway it’s closer to 67 —studies done in other nations have produced comparable findings. Health problems, both physical and mental, are exacerbated by retirement, whether a retiree is 65 or 75.

There are a number of reasons why health declines after retirement, said Dave, but, mental and social stimulation are a large factor. For many people, work is where they are the most social and do the most physical activity. When that core social network is removed, health declines.

Am I saying retirement is bad? Am I saying that leisure time is evil? No on both counts. I am saying, however, that failing to work – at any age – is a recipe for disaster.

The need to work is ingrained in us. God, our Creator gave it to us. Doesn’t it follow, then, that diligently pursuing the work God has given us is paramount to our inner peace, contentment, and sense of purpose? Undeniably, the answer is “yes.”

So, if I may say so, it’s time to GET TO WORK!