Putting Off Mowing the Lawn
Have you ever had a task that you didn’t want to do, so instead of doing it you came up with excuses why you couldn’t? Maybe it was mowing the grass or vacuuming, which aren’t normally considered a ‘huge’ task, but the more you thought about it, the more you didn’t want to do it.
Monday goes by, and it rains. You’re safe…after all, you can’t cut the grass while it’s raining! Then Tuesday comes, and you once again put off the task, pointing out that the ground is now wet so you still can’t mow the lawn! Wednesday arrives, and you get busy with work and by the evening you’re tired. Besides, it’s getting dark, and you won’t have enough time to mow before nightfall anyway! Thursday’s up and—You see the pattern here?
This is very similar to a proverb in the Bible, Proverbs 23:13, which discusses a lazy man and an excuse he uses to get out of work. “There’s a lion in the road!” The sluggard claims, figuring it’s a justifiable excuse to skip working that day. But is there really a lion? Or is he just creating an excuse to get him out of doing something he needs to do?
The next verse in the chapter points out something else about the lazy man. It says that ‘as a door turns on its hinges, so does the lazy man on his bed’. Or in other words, the sluggard is as useful as a door, that is only able to move back and forth. The door can’t move past the hinge, and neither can the lazy man move from his bed.
Continuing, Proverbs 26 explains that to the lazy man, dipping his hand into a bowl is too much work. To a sluggard, bringing the food from the table to his mouth is ‘too much work’. Forget about actually making the money to purchase the food or growing it himself, the lazy man decides to complain about EATING itself.
The last characteristic of a lazy man is that he believes he’s ‘wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly’. (Proverbs 26:16) in other words, the lazy man not only believes there is nothing wrong with his actions, but he ALSO concludes that he must be wiser than not one, not two, but SEVEN men who can answer sensibly.
To sum it up, he believes that he’s smarter than seven intelligent men.
What to others might be obvious as wrong, to the person committing the sin themselves, it might be invisible. The lazy man shows this by speaking and thinking highly of himself when in reality, he’s worthy to be judged and called out for his laziness.
So, why is being lazy not a smart decision?
Well, not only are we called to do our work, “as unto God, not man”, but also laziness will have earthly consequences as well. Proverbs 10:4 sums this up well by saying, “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” If we don’t work, food and money won’t just appear, and we’ll find ourselves in difficult, poor situations.
Don’t be like the lazy men. Some excuses are valid, but other times when we find ourselves putting off work or procrastinating about a project, we need to remember that being diligent and doing a good job with our work will honor God and get the job done.
