Daily Devotional for Sunday, October 26

The Slothful Man

“The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets,” Proverbs 26:13.

I hate to use any particular platform to inspire our illustrations in these devotionals, but there is one which seems to be a fine example of the absurdity and general depravity of the human condition. The other day, I saw a fellow getting agitated about how charitable money was being spent. Specifically, he was trying to tell churches how to spend their money. The details do not matter. The point is he had an opinion. Some further questioning by others revealed that this man did not get personally involved with others in need or even offer financial support. All he had to offer was an opinion. We see that in our workplaces, do we not? There is a person who has an opinion about how things should be done, but he never actually does anything.

In our verse, a man is sounding the alarm about a lion in the streets. Was there a real lion? Who knows. But using a lion shows us that this was a serious situation. What we also know is what we do not see. It seemed that sounding the alarm is all that this man did. That is the point of this proverb. During a serious situation, the lazy man did nothing but talk about it. Proverbs 26 continues with some more graphic descriptions of lazy men.

What should we glean from this description? This is easy. God does not like laziness. If He inspired the writer of Proverbs to tell us all of this, then He meant for us to put His words into action. Is that not ironic? We could read these words, even teach them to others, and never put the lessons to work in our own lives. We could be just like the fellow voicing his opinion on social media.

When you see unmet needs, are you a talker or a doer? Be a doer.

JUST A THOUGHT

Talk and plans are great, but plans not put into action are just useless.

Wally Fry