The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Genesis 2:15).

Man was created to have seven basic needs. Each of us has a need for dignity, authority, blessing and provision, security, purpose and meaning, freedom and boundary, intimate love and companionship. It is when we go outside God's provision to meet these needs that we get into trouble.

Every man has a need to work and gain satisfaction in caring and seeing something come from his efforts. Many of our basic needs are derived from our work. It was one of the first acts God did for man in the Garden of Eden. He gave him responsibility to care and work the Garden. God knew man needed to be productive. He needed to gain satisfaction from his work.

The danger of this is when we allow our work to be our complete source of purpose and meaning in life. This leads to a performance-based life. A performance-based life says, "as long as I perform in my work, I am acceptable to myself and others." This is a subtle trap for all of us. It can lead us to become work-a-holics if we are seeking acceptance through what we do. Sometimes this can be on a subconscious basis.

Our value must be centered in Christ, not in what we do. If we lose our job or our business, this should not devastate us if we are centered in Him. It will certainly create difficulties, but God is the orchestrator of all the events in our lives for His purposes. Even this has its purposes.

Today, ask the Lord if you have a proper balance in your work life. Is Christ the central focus? If you work long hours, ask yourself "why"? You might discover that God may not be the central focus.