Lazy Mary

"The sluggard says, 'There is a lion in the road!  

There is a lion in the streets!' 

As a door turns on its hinges,

so does a sluggard on his bed.

  The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; 

it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.

  The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes

than seven men who can answer sensibly."

Proverbs 26:12-15

Sluggard:  n. [from slug and ard, slow kind.] A person habitually lazy, idle and inactive; a drone. (Noah Webster)

Somehow lazy sounds much nicer than sluggard, but it isn't.  Sometimes I find myself feeling lazy; sometimes I find myself being lazy--okay, a sluggard.  That word really does make me want to move.  Have you ever watched a slug move?  He's slow, but there is also another quality of a slug that is disgusting:; he leaves an unpleasant trail behind him.  He's also very unattractive, a slimy sort of fellow. Does that sound like something that we want to be compared to?

These verses tell us a few things about a sluggard--a lazy Mary, if you would:

1.  Lazy Mary has an excuse (or makes one up) for her lack of discipline to get up and do what she should.  "There is a lion in the street." 

2.  She is in love with her ease, as Matthew Henry puts it.  She would rather make the effort to turn over in her bed when she gets tired of one side than to get up and do what is her duty.

3.  When she does get out of bed, her hands are so slow to move that she accomplishes nothing.  She wears herself out with the feeblest of things.

4.  She thinks she knows more than anyone else.  Her excuses to her are wiser reasoning than that of others who wisely try to counsel her.

More than just laziness for physical work, I believe there is a deeper sin that a sluggard possesses.  If one is too lazy to get out of bed, then that same person will be slack in spiritual growth, in prayer, in reading and studying  God's Word, and in ministering to a needy world.  There is no valid excuse for being a spiritual sluggard.  

Out of bed and ready for the day ahead,

Gloria