17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 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.” Genesis 3:17-19

Adam had it easy: eat fruit all day, play with the animals, look up at the stars at night, look out onto the ocean – and do it all again tomorrow and the next thousand years. That all changed with sin entering the picture. Now he would be required to labor day after day to grow the food. Was it such a harsh punishment? Probably not but he would be paying for it the rest of his life. In fact, men today derive purpose from the work they do. When men meet each other, “what do you do?” is often one of the first three questions they ask of one another.

The trick today, however, is for the man to be fulfilled in the work he does – whether it is a saleman, construction worker, professor, or a programmer. Contentment is a very underrated emotion.

So Gentlemen, are you content doing what you’re doing? Ladies, are you contented with loving your husbands just the way they are? Those two questions are more related than you know.