THINK TOGETHER.
Do you ever make up excuses to get out of doing work?
READ TOGETHER
Proverbs 22:13. The sluggard says, “There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!”
This proverb is meant to be a bit funny. Solomon sees the sluggard (do you remember what a sluggard is?) making up an absurd reason for why he can’t go to work – there is a lion outside and it will eat me.
In America we might say something like “a bear might get me.” Yes, bears are real, but the odds of a bear biting you while you are at school or work is pretty farfetched.
What about you? Do you make up silly reasons for why you can’t do your school work, or yard work, or chores? Are you always full of excuses for why a job is only half done? Do you put hard things off hoping that they will magically go away (or that someone else will do them)?
Why is this so foolish? Because the sluggard (lazy person) fails to see that their laziness is far more dangerous than any lion, or a bear, or any other danger you might come up with as a reason to go to your room and avoid hard work. The sluggard is not living in reality. They are living a lie. There is no danger of lions, that’s a lie even if it’s a joke. But the more we tell ourselves these kinds of silly excuses the more we begin to actually believe them.
What’s the better way? The wise way?
No excuses. No lies. Instead work hard. Why? Because God made us all to work hard for his glory. Hard work is not a curse, it’s a gift from God. And with Jesus, as we learn to trust him and begin to image him, we will look more and more like what we were supposed to look like in the Garden of Eden – hard workers without laziness, lies, or excuses.
Because of Jesus we will be what God made us to be – hard workers.
With Jesus we can stop making excuses and work hard for him.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Make 1 Corinthians 12:31 a family memory verse. Talk about how doing things for the glory of God can keep us from laziness.
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus, keep me from being lazy and making excuses to not do my work. I know with you I can work hard not for your love but because you love me. Amen.
TLICfamily 