Tag: Lazy

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Nap champion verses decision maker

Reading Time: 3 minutes

“If you love sleep, you will end in poverty. Keep your eyes open, and there will be plenty to eat!” ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭20‬:‭13‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Ramble Warning!

I often tell people that I could win a gold medal in napping if it ever became an Olympic Sport. I love sleep, so shouldn’t I be poor? As a teen, my body grew so fast that I had the growing pains of leg cramps often. For a while, my mom thought I only ate and slept. I remember going through junior high and high school constantly feeling tired. Once I hit my college years I was up early, working, going to school, and staying up late with homework and friend conversations. While in college I was a school bus driver at 19 years old! In between my route pickups I learned to take 10 minute naps. Parked by the side of the road, I would sit in the drivers seat, and take a quick nap. I got so good at it that I didn’t need an alarm, I just woke up refreshed and ready to go. They call it a power nap, but I saw it as a super power!

I write all this to say, this is not what this Proverb is talking about. This Proverb is among the collection of wisdom principles that deal with the fate of the sluggard! Isn’t the word “sluggard,” a visibly-visceral word. A very slow, oozing worm. Its cousin is to be slothful. Pour Sloth, they can’t help it. Both are wonderful word pictures of how NOT to do life! To quote Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Life does move fast, but do you know what moves even faster? Opportunity! The point of these Proverbs is to not let a sleepy, slothful, sluggish eye or way of life rob you of the good things God has in store for you. One commentator said it well, “Open your eyes – Be vigilant and active. That is the secret of prosperity.”

Being an enneagram nine, with its shadow sin of SLOTHFULNESS, means that indecision and peace at all cost oftentimes leaves a person like me – STUCK. Frozen! Trapped by indecision. And, more times than I care to admit, a nap seemed the only way to save my sanity. I could not make a decision so I put myself on pause, my own personal time out. And in that beautiful, blissful, insulated world, I was free from the pain of making the wrong decision or a decision that seemed to cause someone pain. To the outside world it would be seen as though I was being a sluggard, a sloth. I was just defending myself from difficult decisions.

I have been on a journey to push against my sins, my fears, my tendencies to avoid or shut down. It’s still very hard. For those of you who have been mislabeled as lazy, slothful or a sluggard, I understand. Be patient with yourself as you grow and learn to lean into those tough indecisive moments. Sure, take a power nap if needed. Then, ask God for wisdom and make the decision. Just keep moving forward!

Prayer

Dad,
It was certainly a shock to discover you made me this way on purpose! I don’t like being overwhelmed with indecision or feeling the deep pain of being misunderstood when a decision must be made. And, I did feel far more at ease with retreating into myself than I did boldly asking for wisdom. It has been difficult to make the hard choices and decisions that come so fast in life. Yet, where I am weak you have promised to be my strength, and in my weakness your power is made perfect.

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The law of lazy.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

“Lazy people are soon poor; hard workers get rich. A wise youth harvests in the summer, but one who sleeps during harvest is a disgrace.” Proverbs‬ ‭10‬:‭4‬-‭5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I can’t stand the word lazy. The reason; my mother swore I was lazy and told me so. The truth; in comparison to my adopted mother, I was lazy. She worked very hard, ALL-THE-TIME. She was a line-worker at a thermostat company in Long Beach, California – Robertshaw. She was an assembler. Think Lucille Ball on the candy conveyor belt episode. She was a union gal and a fierce advocate for herself and those who worked hard for very little money. She was up and out the door of our house everyday weekday at 4:30am and didn’t get home until 3 or 4pm. Saturdays were clean the house day, so she slept in until 7am when she would flip on the alarm clock/vacuum cleaner announcing that a day of chores had begun. Cartoons on Saturday were always a negotiable luxury. IF all basic, daily chores of bed making, room spotless, teeth brushed, face washed, hair combed, and breakfast (at the dining room table only) was finished. PLUS, the promise of hard-labor, yard work, then and only then was few morning cartoons an option. Mom would continue vacuuming in the back of the house, but we knew it was eventually coming to the living room where we had the one and only television set. So, yes, comparatively, I AM lazy! But I was just a kid, then I was just a teenager – you get the picture.

What my mother was trying to teach me, but I never got it, was this principle: laziness and work yield results! Laziness yields ZERO results. Work yields results like resources, money and opportunities. The Biblical principle is a law of nature. If you put the phrase, “sowing and reaping” into a search engine, it will give you pages and pages of Christian responses. However, if you put “gravity” in the same search engine, you’ll get pages and pages of secular/scientific responses. You know that sowing and reaping is a scientific fact, right? If something isn’t planted, nothing is the guaranteed result. Planting is necessary to reaping. In the odd parable of the talents that Jesus told, the person given one talent, yet buries it, is scolded by the owner. In a very one-talent, defensive response, the one talent person says, of the owner, you are a hard man “reaping where you have not sown.” What? Really? This parable is a lesson of God’s expectation that His kids inherently know. God sows into us and expects to reap results. Those results are certainly salvation, but also to whom much is given, much is required. The last thing I’d want to be is lazy with what God has given me!

Also, what a tragedy if I were to be so busy sowing and find myself sleeping when it comes time to harvest. Again, I’m no farmer, but I have seen some great movies about living off the land. To think of all the work, money and time it takes to prep and plant seed in a field and then to watch it all rot because it was not harvested. When it’s harvest time, everything and everyone makes it the top priority to bring it in! God has been planting seeds of the gospel in the culture right around us – even today. He has been working long hours cultivating the soil of human hearts. Some of us have been participating with him in this endeavor. I tell you, there is a harvest coming. There is another revolution on the horizon. Who knows, it may be the last big one! I do not want to be lazy nor unprepared to get out into the fields and reap God’s abundant harvest that’s coming.

Prayer

Dad,
I not only want to be a part of sowing seed, the good news of your love, salvation, rescue and redemption. I also want to be a part of the great harvest. I want to be the Dad who goes out to the road everyday, looking for signs that our prodigals have returned. And with fast legs, waving open arms and rejoicing voice, I want to say welcome home.