Laziness and Poverty

I walked by the field of a lazy person, the vineyard of one with no common sense. I saw that it was overgrown with nettles. It was covered with weeds, and its walls were broken down. Then, as I looked and thought about it, I learned this lesson: A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber. [Proverbs 24.30-34]

Laziness and poverty go hand in hand.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that is not really trade oriented. Sure there remain a few farmers and ranchers and there are still some who work independently in manual labor trades, but, by and large, we are a society of abstract work whose quantitative value is difficult to determine. This is especially true in our ever-increasing urbanization.

In the case of this passage from Proverbs today, a person's field would have been his livelihood - if he had a field, then he would be a farmer. If that farmer's field was full of weeds and its walls (fences) were down, then that farmer was obviously lazy and would consequently not reap the full benefit of the bounty the field was capable of producing if worked.

Our task then is to determine what our "field" is and what "weeds" are in it. Likewise, we must determine what boundaries (walls) need to be maintained in order to keep our livelihood protected.

This is certainly worth thinking about!

Father, help me to determine what my "field" actually is (or should be) and then get to work getting rid of "weeds" and maintaining "walls" to protect it. I don't want to be lazy and I don't want poverty!