Lazy days 1: Sofa so good

Bruno Mars sang, "Today I don't feel like doing anything. I just wanna lay in my bed." I find the song irritatingly catchy, but I can echo the sentiment. I'm a naturally lazy person who dreams of a day plonked on the sofa with a stack of DVDs at the ready. But God's word is quick to slap me in the face and wake me up. Especially Proverbs. Solomon really had it in for sluggards!

I went past the field of the sluggard,
past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment;
thorns had come up everywhere,
the ground was covered with weeds,
and the stone wall was in ruins.
(Proverbs 24 v 30-31)

But he didn't simply complain about this lazy guy:

I applied my heart to what I observed
and learned a lesson from what I saw
(v32)

He saw the results of laziness and he took on board the lesson.

A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest—
and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man.
(v33-34)

While God does commend rest, it's clearly not God's desire for us to be lazy and let the weeds grow and the walls fall down around us. If we do, we'll be hijacked by poverty – spiritual poverty as well as material poverty. LIke the writer of these proverbs, we've got to learn the lesson, get off our sofas and actually start living the Christian life, not just contemplating it.

Right, time for me to hoist myself out of this chair...