A Little Effort
Reality Check: 30 Days in Proverbs to Help Recalibrate Your Unsteady Heart / Day 6
When I was teaching high school students, I rarely took a day off. Skipping out on an 8-hour workday required double the work in advance. I’d have to prepare a lesson plan for a substitute teacher who’d be filling my place. Then, when I returned to work, I had to be prepared to teach and catch my students up. Plus, I had to grade whatever work the substitute had collected.
I am going to confess that sometimes I wish I could just play hooky from my long to-do list of responsibilities. But, the laundry and paperwork piles up and becomes unconquerable if I don’t deal with it. I have a million excuses for taking a break, but excuses leave me empty handed and create more chaos than what I am trying to avoid.
Do you have a little excuse that you love to exercise, but it creates more work in the long run? Is God asking you to do something you are avoiding like I wanted to avoid grading my students’ paperwork? Y’all, I totally understand the struggle!
Wisdom tells us we need to get to work and stop making excuses. We can get the hard stuff done, and then we can reward ourselves for our diligence afterward. But if we procrastinate and sleep on the job, we end up with more problems than we can handle.
When we refuse to act in a responsible fashion and give way to lazy behavior, this proverb says we end up in “poverty.” We will lack what we need and leave ourselves defenseless. Our downfall will come unexpectedly quick like a thief who slips in and takes away our treasure. In the face of an “armed” opponent, we will be completely defenseless.
Doing what God calls us to do right now arms us with His strength and protection. When we stop making excuses and get to work, we will be blessed.
A little work, a little effort, a little carrying the load with our hands… It makes an eternal difference.