Being lazy leads to painful consequences! Just open the Bible and turn to the book of Proverbs and read it. Highlight how many verses there are that address being lazy or a.k.a. “A sluggard!” Just to quote a few:
Proverbs14:23, “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.” Proverbs 10:4, “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.” Proverbs 12:24, “The hand of the DILIGENT will rule while the SLOTHFUL will be put to forced labor.”
You can even google, “Scripture on laziness” and see what God has to say about being lazy or slack in your work.
I am so very grateful to have grown up with parents who obviously were trained to work hard. To this day my almost 84 year old Dad still attempts to work, even though it would be better and safer for him to stay home and slow down. He doesn’t understand the concept of being “slack in work” and neither does my mom. It is very hard for them, and for me, to watch them not be able to do all that they are accustomed to doing. For years my mom has cooked, cleaned, helped the needy and run our house, while my dad has gone to work around 5:30 a.m. for years from Monday to Friday. In my younger years he also worked on Saturdays, if necessary, to get ahead or catch up. The whole time I lived at home and through college, my Dad took one week’s vacation, which was the week of the 4th of July, and took off a few days at Christmas and that was it. He never complained about work much, only when people would “lay out of work sick,” and then find that they weren’t really sick and were seen doing other things.
On the “Back 9” of life, I am so appreciative now of how he taught me to get up and work. It was rare if my sister and I ever got to sleep late on Saturday. He would come home and, if my mom had decided to let us sleep, he would get us up and say, “You can’t sleep the day away!” Sometimes, I will admit, he took it to the extreme. I think he wrestled with the “fear” that we would grow up and be lazy. He knew what is was like to grow up hungry and without much. He also lived through the “Depression” and had experienced things that he never wanted us to experience. Many times he would say, “The one thing I never got to do was go to college. An education is something that no one can ever take from you and I want you to get one.” He also said he would pay for it and only required that we would not get married until we completed college. (which my sister and I both honored)
He also STRONGLY pointed out that an education would not make us successful. He said success comes from an” INWARD DRIVE AND WORK ETHIC!” He pointed out that even though our education was free to us, “nothing was free”. Someone had to work and pay for it. Even though my dad was not formally educated, he is a very WISE MAN! He also stressed an education gave you knowledge but it did you no good if you were unwilling to work.
With our own kids we allowed them to pursue their dreams of earning their college tuition through athletics. That was something foreign to me, but not to their dad, who had earned his tuition through a “football” scholarship. Even though golf is a game, to earn money for college through athletics or academics, or both, is a form of work and has served our kids well. I look back now and the only regret I have was that I should have allowed more “balance”.
What I mean by this is that I should have limited their time on the golf course. I should have realized they could get as much done in less time and instead made time for other things. Hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it? I would have allowed them to play in fewer tournaments and been more picky about those tournaments. I would have allowed them to develop other hobbies, work at other things a little more and experience a few things like summer retreats and things that would build their “inner faith”. Experiences that would have strengthened them more for the challenges that come with college and being on their own. They learned to get up early, to work hard, to lose, to win, to have integrity, discipline. All those things came from playing golf, but I see now we were “out of balance at times”. (a double boogie for sure now that I have HINDSIGHT!)
Good work ethic can be learned in many ways. It can be hard labor (my dad), academics, music, (the arts) athletics, and many other ways. The most important thing to realize is the Lord requires us to ” WORK” and NOT BE LAZY. Reading and taking to heart, Colossians 3:23, ” Whatever you do, WORK heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” I can remember my Dad saying and I think he got this quote from the army, “no one ever drowned in sweat!”