Laziness

 

Are you a lazy person? I’m not talking about enjoying times of rest; we all need that. But rest is actually a break from activity. The lazy are inactive, so they cannot actually rest. The lazy are the people who would do anything to never have to do anything. When there is work to be done, they cannot be found. 

 

Solomon had nothing good to say about the lazy, and nothing but good to say about those who work hard. In Proverbs 6 he uses a loathsome insect as an object lesson, writing, “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest (v.6-8).” Solomon was right; as far as we know, ants have no overseers in the field making sure they do their work, yet off to work they go. To the best of our knowledge, there is no recourse for an ant not doing his job, but you will never see one lounging around with his feet up. In fact, ants can be seen carrying an astonishing fifty times their own body weight with just two arms. No wonder Solomon pointed to the ant as an example of work ethic.

 

Turning his attention back to the lazy person Solomon continued: “How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man (v.9-11).” Ants always have plenty to eat because they work for it, but if the sluggard isn’t careful, he will walk to his pantry and discover its shelves to be bare. Poverty will come upon him like a bandit, and he will have no one to thank but his own inactivity. 

 

What have the lazy ever contributed to society? I have never walked through a museum and heard the tour guide say, “And in this room we have all the accomplishments of lazy people.” I have never seen a monument erected to honor a lazy person. There are no museums or monuments for the lazy. On the other hand, we honor people like George Washington and his men for crossing the Delaware because they were exhausted and low on rations. We honor people like Thomas Edison for not letting his earlier failures keep him from perfecting the lightbulb. When the going got tough, they pushed through. 

 

If you want to do something significant then you can’t be lazy. Aside from the fact that laziness is a poor testimony for Christians, it reduces our lives to insignificance. God made us on purpose for a purpose, and He expects us to work. If He was done with us He would have already called us to heaven, so as long as He leaves us here, we need to be busy. 

 

 

Something New

Wise King Solomon famously said, “There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).” He continued by adding, “Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? It has been already in the ages before us (v.10).” 

There is nothing new under the sun, and that applies to theology as well. It troubles me when I hear people talking about their church or their pastor who always have a “new” message. I have heard people say things like, “At that church, its always the same old thing.” Please don’t misunderstand me; I am not talking about preaching timeless truth in a fresh way, for that should be our goal. Neither am I talking about bringing something to light, such as a cultural nuance that may help 21^stCentury Westerners understand 1^stCentury Middle Eastern life. That information may be new to us when we first hear it, but the truth of the message is not new. It is dangerous when we become bored with the gospel and go out searching for something new. 

Sermons on grace, mercy, love, the Golden Rule, heaven, sin, repentance, the cross, or the empty tomb should never get old to us. According to the Talmud, “One who repeats his lesson a hundred times is not like him who repeats it a hundred and one times (Hagigah).” In other words, the more we study the Bible, the more sermons we hear on the same topic, the better we will become. The Talmud continues: “He who studies the Torah but does not review it is like one who plants and does not harvest.” In the Jewish culture, the Bible was committed to memory by constant recitation. 

The Shemah of Deuteronomy 6 (that God is one, and we should love Him with all of our heart, soul, and might) is to be spoken of when we lie down and rise up, when we sit down and walk. The truths of God’s Word produce a harvest in our lives when we not just read them, but when we constantly review them. That is the idea behind Psalm 1, which says the blessed man is one who meditates on God’s law both day and night. We need to chew on God’s Word just as a cow chews the cud. Have you ever seen a cow that was not chewing? Every time I see one she is chomping on a bite of food. That is the picture the psalmist was painting, and it is how we are to reflect on the things of God. 

The Greeks loved to hear something new (Acts 17), but they did not give the words much reflection. Any new message or deity would tickle their ears, but it would go in one and right out the other. We need to reject any ear-tickling “new” doctrine, and instead constantly reflect on the timeless theology that God recorded for us in His Word. 

The World Series

The 2013 World Series is underway in a match that pits the Boston Red Sox against the St. Louis Cardinals. You might be thinking, “Who cares?”

I don’t mean that as a jab at baseball. I say that because that is what a Fox News poll indicated. The question posed was “Who will win?” Here is how people voted in the poll:

A.     Boston (28%)

B.     St. Louis (30%)

C.     I don’t care (42%)

This poll does not mean that Americans hate baseball. It is, after all, America’s pastime. The numbers might mean that people who happened to vote on Fox’s poll don’t like baseball; the numbers might have been much different on ESPN’s website. The numbers could also reflect that people “don’t care” because their team didn’t make it to the World Series (like my Rays).

But still, put yourself in the cleats of the ones playing on baseball’s largest stage. This is the event that these guys spent their childhood years dreaming of: stepping to the plate with a chance to bat your team to victory; standing on the mound trying to strike out the competition; diving for a ball in the gap and jumping up in time to throw the runner out. This is as big as it gets. And the majority of the people voted that they “don’t care.”

Whether or not this poll is really reflective of what Americans think of the Fall Classic, it still illustrates the point that some things in life aren’t as big of a deal as they seem at the time. Not that these things are wrong, sometimes our priorities get out of order. Here is how Solomon concluded his thoughts on life:

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all.”

Ecclesiastes 12:13

Some of those things that seem so important can really just be a distraction. Make sure that at the end of the day you are serving God and keeping His commands.

By the way, the Red Sox won Game 1 by a score of 8-1. Not that you care.