Well, it's been a while since I posted a devotional, so here's one to enourage you!

 The lazy man will not plow because of winter; he will beg during harvest and have nothing.

Proverbs 20:4 

Have you ever noticed that lazy people are expert at making excuses? I am dead lazy by nature, and can think up an excuse for anything that I don’t want to do. The sad thing is that I can be taken in by my own excuses, and feel that I don’t really deserve the natural consequences of my laziness.

Most lazy people are like me. The excuse given in this verse in Proverbs is typical. The lazy man thinks he can’t plow because it’s cold outside. It’s not convenient for him to work—it would be a hardship—and so the plowing doesn’t get done. Other lazy people make up excuses that are so lame that no one would take them seriously. For example, a lazy man described in Proverbs 22:13 says that he can’t go to work because there might be a lion in the streets that would kill him! This excuse could only appear reasonable to a fool, and that’s what the Bible says: “The lazy man is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly.” (Proverbs 26:7)

What sort of excuses do you make when you are feeling lazy? Are you waiting for a more convenient time to do something? Do you tell yourself that there’s a risk in doing this particular thing? (Even though it’s a risk you would think nothing of if you really wanted to do this thing.) Are you just “too tired” to do it now? The sort of rest that a lazy person uses to avoid working is not the kind of rest that brings refreshment. It is the sort that leads to more laziness: “Laziness casts one into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger” (Proverbs 19:15).

Now, there are times when we simply cannot work, and there is a valid reason. Another passage in Proverbs deals with excuse-making. When God asks His people to deliver others from danger, and the excuse given is that they didn’t know what was happening, the writer of this Proverb says, “Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?” (Proverbs 24:12). God is the one that will determine if your excuse is valid or not. Most of the time, when I examine my own excuses (“I can’t organize my bedroom yet because I’m waiting to get those special baskets to put things in”) they are pretty pathetic. May God help us to look at our excuses through His eyes, and make us honest with ourselves.

For further study:

 James 1:24, 25 “For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

Ecclesiastes 4:5 “The fool folds his hand and consumes his own flesh.”

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Taken from Wisdom from Proverbs: Devotions for Homeschooling Moms. All proceeds go toward bringing our little orphan home!