Many people imagine that the biblical view of work is that it is a curse, a punishment imposed by God upon man after his proud disobedience. This idea is in accord with the pejorative interpretation of work and helps to maintain its currency; but it is quite false. As I have pointed out, work was instituted by God before the fall and is presented to man as an adventure, a sharing in the divine activity….
So work, which before the fall was a pure and lovely adventure, is turned into wearisome toil — not as a result of the spirit of adventure itself but because of its wrong use: man wished to conduct his adventure on his own, in his own way, instead of entering into God’s adventure. From then on the burden of toil weighs upon him, and takes on the form of slavery, and often is a crushing and fruitless effort. Man comes to curse his labour, forgetting its true meeting — that it is an adventure to which God and His goodness has called him….
The fact is that despite the fall, despite all men’s disobedience, work still preserves, in part at least, and by God’s grace, the significance He gave it. It is a gift from God, like life itself. (Paul Tournier, The Adventure of Living, pages 74,75)