"I passed by the field of the sluggard and by the field of the man lacking sense..."
The proverb is helping us see the critical error of the sluggard. What the man should be busy at working on and maintaining, he is off doing something else – often indulging his own pleasures of sleep and rest. The field is the important work that the sluggard should be engaged in, but in the mind of the sluggard there is more sleep to have. The field always feels like it can wait or that it is too much work. In fact, the sluggard rarely, if ever, feels like working. He feels like sleeping and resting.
As you think about your life right now, what is the field that you should be busy in? Is it school work; is it your home; is it your job; is it the church? There is, right now, some critical work that needs to be done even while sleep and rest is calling you.
One of the things we learn from other proverbs about the sluggard is that the sluggard is always waiting for things to be perfect. They will never be perfect – the work just needs to be done.
Does your field, school work, job, home, or church look like it has not had your full attention for awhile? Get busy and stop cutting yourself to death slowly by a hundred naps. Eventually your lack of diligence will come to you as poverty and want. There will not be enough money and resources to do what you should be doing because you squandered the opportunities you had to produce work that would pay well.
You end up robbing yourself and end up in want. Write the book, do the work, complete the project, handle the paperwork, clean up the yard, make the call, and realize the prosperity that God is laying before you cleverly disguised as work.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz