The Toil and the Choice
What is broken will be restored
“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.”1
Genesis 3:14-19 NIV
I wonder what went through Adam's mind.
It was an unfortunate trade. A life beside God, work filled with purpose, traded away in one moment of passivity.
A moment is all it takes.
Toil. That’s the word Scripture uses. Human disobedience led to toil. Ground that won’t plow. Soil that won’t sustain. The pain of scarcity, of striving.
We toil and struggle and wonder if any of it matters.
But hope survived, because our Good Father continued the story. Every word after this moment in Scripture works to undo what was done.
Our toil isn’t in vain. No, that's not how our God works.
Good can come from the toil.
Hard labor strengthens our bones. Brain-breaking problems become stepping stones.
The food we grow, the work we do—it can be multiplied.
It will be multiplied.
Because Jesus meets us in our toil.
He bore it with us.
He bore it for us.
He multiplied loaves and fishes. He set captives free. He healed the sick. He comforted the oppressed.
He toiled on the cross. And darkness didn’t win.
What was lost in a moment of disobedience was undone in a moment of surrender.
We are all called to a moment like that.
Some day, we all find ourselves at a grand moment of choice. Like Jesus in the biggest moment in human history, will we surrender—trust that He is good, even when we don’t understand?
Or will we hold onto our own idea of what’s good and acceptable?
If we choose surrender, the toil isn’t all that bad. We start to see glimpses of paradise again.
We see eternity in the eyes of our neighbors.
And then, the moments of choice keep coming.
Do we serve the stranger on the street?
Do we love the family member we disagree with?
Do we set our pride aside?
Do we love outside of our comfort zone?
May we remember our grand moment of choice this week.
And may it guide us in all we do.
May God bless our hands, our work, and the world He’s restoring through us.
The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ge 3:17–19.
Every word after this moment.. God seeks to undo what was done... What a crazy thing to think about. Great reflection of what toil really means!