laziness

     Upon entering the little country store, the stranger noticed a sign saying "DANGER!  BEWARE OF DOG!" posted on the glass door.  Inside he noticed a harmless old hound dog asleep on the floor beside the cash register.

     He asked the store manager, "Is THAT the dog folks are supposed to beware of?"

     "Yep, that's him," he replied.

     The stranger couldn't help but be amused.  "That certainly doesn't look like a dangerous dog to me.  Why in the world would you post that sign?"

     "Because", the owner replied, "before I posted that sign, people kept tripping over him."

     When we mentally make a list of the "worst sins" in the Bible, laziness doesn't usually come to mind.  But sometimes those people most "dangerous" are those are just lie around and do nothing but get in the way.

     Solomon had much to say about the sluggard, or lazy person.

     "As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to those who send him." (Proverbs 10:26)

     "As a door turns on its hinges, so does the slothful turn on his bed." (Proverbs 26:14)

     "The lazy man says, 'There is a lion in the road! A fierce lion is in the streets!'  As a door turns on its hinges, so does the lazy man on his bed.  The lazy man buries his hand in the bowl; It wearies him to bring it back to his mouth." (Proverbs 26:13-15)

     Talk about lazy!  When you're too lazy to eat, there's no hope for you!  These are all absurd pictures.  But pictures designed to make us think, to realize how "dangerous" it is to become lazy.

     How does laziness show itself in the life of a Christian.  Three ways:

1)   We sometimes have trouble getting started.  We mean to; we really do.  We're going to do more Bible reading, more praying, more teaching the lost, more fellowship with other Christians, but we keep putting it off and putting it off and we never seem to get started.

2)   We sometimes have trouble finishing what we start.  We have a great project in mind and we get started with a bang, but we lack the disci­pline necessary to stay with it to the end.  Our attempt to read through the Bible in a year ends sometime toward the end of January several chapters into Exodus.  We’re excited about getting started; it’s the staying with it that we have trouble with.

3)   We're good at making excuses for things that we don't want to do.  We have excuses for not attending services, excuses for not teaching a Bible class, excuses for not doing all the things we ought to be doing.

     That's why there are so many New Testament passages that encourage us to "be diligent" -- "We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.  We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." (Hebrews 6:11-12, NIV

-alan smith