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Throughout the years many people have observed the close relationship between wisdom and work. Here are a few examples:
• When Pope John Paul XXIII was asked how many people work in the Vatican, he replied, “About half of them.”
• The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work—Robert Frost
• Some people would do anything to be able to do nothing—Frank Tyger
• A personnel manager rejected a job applicant because the firm was overstaffed. But the would-be employee persisted, “The little bit of work I’d do won’t even be noticed!”
• On an employee bulletin board: In case of fire, flee the building with the same reckless abandon that occurs each day at quitting time.
• I learned from experience that if there was something lacking it might turn up if I went after it, saved up for it, worked for it, but never if I just waited for it—Sam Levenson
• The best preparation for work is not thinking about work, talking about work, or studying for work: it is work—William Weld
• The harder you work the luckier you get—Gary Player
• Bear Bryant was a legend as a head football coach at the University of Alabama. One reporter sarcastically asked Bryant if it was true that he could walk on water. Bryant said, “Well, I won’t say I can or I can’t. But if I do, I do it before most people get up in the morning.”
Work is one of the chief marks of wisdom, and Israel’s teachers would never let their students forget that! Their doctrine of creation took seriously the human role in God’s care of the earth. They were no longer living in Eden, and therefore, if they were going to survive, it would be by the sweat of their brow. Tilling the soil, tending the vines, and taking care of the livestock were essential tasks for survival.
We must remember that God himself worked hard for six days creating the earth and rested on the seventh day. He has set seasons of sowing and harvest in the pages of our calendars, and if we ignore them it is to our own detriment. In a world where God has called all of us to work, it is indeed quite dangerous to be lazy. We typically don’t think of laziness as a sin, at least not on the same level as murder, sexual immorality, or even lying, but violating God’s creation order by refusing to work is like kicking Him right in the teeth! (Hubbard 155)
God’s attitude toward hard work and laziness are seen all over the Bible, but maybe nowhere more clearly than here in the book of Proverbs. The sheer quantity of Proverbs dealing with work and laziness is astounding. We will examine six of them together this morning and I have given you a host of others to read by yourself later. Even this is not a complete list.
Proverbs is simply intolerant of lazy people: they are considered the epitome of foolishness. On the other hand, hard work is considered as one of the greatest signs of wisdom. The central idea of each of these Proverbs is: Wise people work hard, but foolish people are lazy! So, let us consider some Proverbs!
Proverbs 14:23—This simple straightforward Proverb contrasts the results of actual hard work from mere talk about hard work. Talk is cheap, but actions bring profit. Hard work is guaranteed to bring at least some profit, but those who talk all the time and don’t do any work end up in poverty.
Are you the type person who really works or just talks about work? Do you actually study during your study hall or do you just sit around talking to your friends? Are you the one digging the ditch or standing around holding the shovel and talking to the guys?
Proverbs 12:11—This Proverb essentially says the same thing as the previous one, but this one situates lesson in agricultural terms. Hard work is practical and beneficial—it fills the stomach. On the contrary, chasing fantasies is neither practical nor beneficial—it just shows a lack of judgment.
Disney’s latest film, The Princess and the Frog, is a perfect example of this proverb. It is about a little girl named Tiana who grows up in New Orleans. The story begins with Tiana and her father making a pot of shrimp gumbo that is so good that the whole neighborhood comes out to have some. Tiana’s dad had a dream to open a restaurant but he died before he could make his dream real. The restaurant was going to be called Tiana’s Place and he already had the location picked out. Throughout the rest of the movie, Tiana adopts her father’s dream learns that there are no shortcuts to success.
For years, Disney has expressed in song that, “When you wish upon a star…anything your heart desires will come to you,” but this film shows that wishing for a dream is only half the battle, the other half requires hard work and determination. In other words, the real “magic” behind a wish is the effort you exert to make your dreams come true. Some people sit around wishing on stars while others put in the hard work. Which one are you!
Proverbs 10:4-5, 26—These Proverbs continue to build upon the contrasting results of hard work and laziness. Hard work brings wealth and laziness ends in poverty and deprivation. The farmer who gather’s his crops at harvest time is wise, but the one who sleeps when there is work to do is foolish. Just as vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes causes irritation, frustration, and annoyance so it is for those who have to wait for a lazy person to get a job done.
Robert Orben notes a worthy strategy for showing up to work each day. He says, “Every morning I get up and look through Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.”
Proverbs 6:6-11—Here we begin to see some of the sarcastic quality of Proverbs. The sage instructs the sluggard to go and observe the ant and gain its wisdom. If an ant, one of the smallest and most insignificant of God’s creatures, does not have someone telling it what to do, and yet has enough sense to gather its food and store its provisions in a timely fashion, there is no excuse for a human being to be lazy.
While the ant is praised for being industrious and diligent, the lazy person is ridiculed for not getting out of bed. After the satire of the ant, the sage tries to motive the sluggard with taunting rhetorical questions. Then, the sage finishes with the familiar proverb—“a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands” which is set up to be an imaginary statement of the lazy person. They say that they just want a little nap but everyone knows that the little nap will turn into a long slumber to avoid work. These types of long naps make it impossible to sustain life.
Proverbs 24:30-34– This proverb is another satire on lazy people. Since lazy people are the epitome of foolishness, they deserve to be parodied. The short story begins with the sage walking by fields belonging to a sluggard farmer. The imagery describes fields that are in terrible shape: they were covered with thorns, there were weeds everywhere, and the stone wall was in ruins. All of this was obviously caused by neglect. As he stopped to think about this, he observed that laziness leads to poverty. Laziness drains all of a person resources and leaves them destitute like a victim of robbery.
Proverbs 26:13-16– This is my favorite proverb regarding laziness! It is probably my favorite because it is the most sarcastic one of all. It pictures a person who is so lazy that they actually claim that there was a lion in the street as an excuse for not doing any work. While there were lions in Palestine at this time, they were extremely rare and hardly posed a threat to anyone’s life. It would be like one of us here in Vermont saying, “Sorry honey, I can’t take out the trash because their might be a catamount outside in the yard.”
The new signs in the apartment building’s parking lot read: “Speed Limit—11 m.p.h.” When Ralph spotted the groundskeeper he asked, “How come 11 m.p.h.? Why not 10 m.p.h.” His reply, “Easier to paint.”
The second proverb makes fun of lazy people for spending too much time in bed. They are fixed in their bed like a door is fixed on its hinges—they may move, but they don’t go anywhere; they make no progress. By making fun of them, Solomon is trying to motivate the young people to avoid the pitfalls of laziness.
The third proverb points out the fact that lazy people destroy themselves with their destructive behavior. It is absolutely ridiculous to imagine someone so lazy that they cannot even move the food from their plate to their mouth. A person like this is not only lazy but also arrogant.
An example of imagination spurred on by outright lethargy is contained in the story of an old mountaineer and his wife who were sitting in front of the fireplace one evening just whiling away the time.
After a long silence, the wife said: “Jed, I think it’s raining. Get up and to outside and see.”
The old mountaineer continued to gaze into the fire for a second, sighed, then said, “Aw, Ma, why don’t we just call in the dog and see if he’s wet.”
All of these proverbs are essentially saying the same thing: Wise people work hard, but foolish people are lazy! So, let me ask you, are you wise or foolish? Are you willing to work for what you want or do you expect someone else to give it to you? Are you willing to start at the bottom and do a good job or do you want to sit around and wait for a hand out?
I don’t know about you, but it seems to me like we live in such a culture of entitlement today. So many people seem to believe that the world owes them something. Others keep waiting for some fantasy dream job to just drop in their lap. I hear so many people say, “Well, my family will take care of me” or “the government will take care of me.” I hear others say, “I just can’t find a job in this economy” but what they really mean is that they can’t find a job that is worthy of them. It is astounding that people are not willing to milk cows or scrub toilets. Are you willing to labor in a culture of lackadaisical laziness? God tells us that wise people work hard and fare well in the end!
Charles J. Sykes, author of the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add, wrote an article which appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune on September 19, 1996 entitled “Some Rules Kid’s Won’t Learn in School.” Here they are:
• Rule 1: Life is not fair — get used to it!
• Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
• Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
• Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
• Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping — they called it opportunity.
• Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
• Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
• Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
• Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
• Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
• Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.