STAND STRONG
STAND STRONG
6.8 - Counsel for Couch Potatoes
Proverbs has a lot to say about laziness. However, it doesn't just talk about the stereotypical "lazy bum," and instead it challenges us to consider what it means to be truly diligent. Join us as we discuss what counsel the Proverbs can offer the couch potato.
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Paul and Noah both preach and teach with the Cedar Park church of Christ in Cedar Park, TX. You can visit our site at: https://www.cedarparkchurchofchrist.org/
Well, good morning. And it's good to be back in the studio on this wonderful day. I've got Noah in here with me. We're on the Proverbs project, Noah, and we're moving into a discussion today. I, we finished on me, my money and my master. And so that was a subject that we, we saw is mentioned quite often. In the Proverbs and something that is a subject that we need to regularly talk about with our money. But today we've titled this council for couch potatoes, counsel for couch potatoes, and everybody's listening and they're laughing because they know where we're going today. Yeah.
Noah:Yeah. This one's not a, not shrouded in mystery. There's no doubt, but this is another one that like last week's topic, this is something that the Proverbs has a lot. To say about it comments on the idea of laziness very frequently. And and I think it's something that we struggle with. I, maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but in 21st century America where we are blessed to have lots of comforts and lots of conveniences. I think we sometimes struggle with understanding where diligence versus laziness fits in. What is an acceptable comfort or luxury to have? And what role does our heart and our attitude play in all of that and how to balance those kinds of things and understand them. And the Proverbs has a lot to say, so I think it's going to be very valuable for us.
Paul:Yeah, I agree with you because, I mean, there are numerous lazy people in the world. The challenge is we just don't think that we're one of them.
Noah:Oh. I
Paul:don't think, of course, you know, we have a picture, we have an image in our head. I mean, I did. And when I first started going through the Proverbs, thinking about preaching on laziness or dealing with this subject, and I had a picture in my head, and there's some Proverbs that clearly paint that picture of the guy who never wants to get out of bed, give me five more minutes, every reason and excuse why he can't get out of the bed or do that. And we say, okay, we're stereotyped. The lazy person is the person that's in the, their parents basement. Still at the age of 40, playing video games and sleeping all day long and never has a job or wants a job. Well, that's clearly part, but there's so much more as I think we'll see, and we won't even be able to cover it all.
Noah:Oh yeah.
Paul:Well, perhaps there's a side of laziness that gets missed or okay. So I, people listen to this podcast, the lazy person who's clearly the one that never gets out of the bed. It's not going to listen to this podcast. I don't think unless a parent or a grandparent is saying, you better listen to this if you want to get severed tonight. And if you are that guy, good for you. You need to pay attention to what. Wisdom is designed for your life. Turn your life around, but we just don't always think we're the lazy guy.
Noah:Yeah, no, we, we don't. And, and part of that I think is that we primarily, when we think of, even in the context of the wisdom literature, when we think of laziness versus diligence, we primarily think of it in terms of where the end result of it is. And that's for, for fair reasons, the, the Proverbs talks a lot about what the end result of laziness looks like. Right. And, and it uses those pictures to warn about what laziness will cause what the end results of those are. And we've got plenty of examples of that. Proverbs 12, 24, the hand of the diligent will rule while the slothful will be put, put into forced labor. Just a few verses later in verse 27, whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but a diligent man will get precious wealth. So, and we could keep going and we, we will reference more of those, but that's an important discussion and it's something we're going to touch on today. But if all we think about is, well, what does laziness or diligence produce? What's the end result of it? Then we're going to miss other passages in Proverbs that help us understand where does it come from and how can we combat that or change that in ourselves. And those are important discussions to have too.
Paul:Yeah. And you're right. And as you go through the wisdom literature, especially in Proverbs, it's quite apparent that Solomon uses hyperbole. In these various illustrations. And the point that's being made is simply the life of the lazy person is ridiculous. That's not to say that the lazy person that realizes they're ridiculous. In fact, here's where I think is the challenge Noah is it's in Proverbs 26. It's verse 16. There's several verses connected together in Proverbs 26 that we may look at with regards to the lazy person. But I'm thinking of verse 16, Proverbs 26, 16, the lazy man is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly. And so that's the point that Solomon is making is I think in that point, here's what makes it so hard to reach. The chronic lazy person is he considers himself so, so inventive in his genius that he's smarter than you because he's figured out a way how to get out of work.
Noah:Right. He's beaten
Paul:the system.
Noah:Yes. Which that in and of itself betrays a perspective that is not reflected in scripture, which is that the shortest, easiest, route to prosperity is the best route. And that's just when we, when we look at the broader scope of scripture, that's just not supported. And yet in not just, this is not unique to our society, but it is certainly true of our society. If you were to ask somebody, you know, tell me what's what's the right path to prosperity, the quickest, Easiest with the fewest roadblocks, most efficient. That's the route. Find it. And you're golden. Proverbs says not necessarily, not necessarily.
Paul:Yeah. Here was something that this was a challenge for me and I had missed this. And it was my fault. But years ago, I used to back the stereotype stereotyping lazy people. I used to say, well, see, here's the thing. All lazy people are just, they have no desire. They have no drive. They have no ambition. Hence they are lazy. And that's not necessarily true. So back where, where I said in the beginning, sometimes we don't see ourselves as a lazy people. Or lazy person. Well, in fact, in Proverbs 13 and verse four, the appetite of the lazy craves and gets nothing while the appetite of the diligent is richly supplied. Proverbs 21, 25, the desire. You can see in those two passages that both the lazy and the diligent, they do have ambition and desire and appetites. The point that Solomon is making is while lazy people have ambition, their desire ends in frustration because they refuse, here's the point, to do the work that's necessary to make that desire a reality.
Noah:Yeah, yeah. There's a passage that goes along well with what you're talking about. Yeah. Proverbs 28 19. He says, whoever works, his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty, which is a great turn of phrase, by the way, but it's not that it's not the contrasting here of what we would typically typically talk about in diligence and laziness. They're both working at something, but one person has chosen to work his land. And the other has chosen worthless pursuits. And I think that goes along really well with what you've talked, you're talking about where there is, there's an ambition, there's a pursuit, but it's either in the wrong way or for the wrong ends. And it, that comes from a sense of laziness that, that is in opposition to the diligence that, that Proverbs speaks so well of.
Paul:Yeah, there's there's a proverb here. It is to the point. I think about the person who's trying to count that we call this counsel for couch potatoes. So you're, you're trying to give advice. You're trying to give wisdom to the person who's the couch potato, who's, who's not working. And because you know, the end result. You know, the consequence of their laziness, they don't want to see it. They're unwilling to see it. And you're trying to counsel them and you get so frustrated. And then Solomon gives us this proverb Proverbs 22 in verse 13, the lazy person says, there's a line outside. I will be killed in the street. There's the ridiculousness. But what Solomon is trying to say. Look, you're just going to continue to be frustrated because there are lazy people who have convinced themselves that there is legitimate reason for why they're not working. Right. Yeah. You didn't see a line. He's not speaking about an actual line in the street, but they're convinced. Here's why. I mean, I can't go out and get this job or I can't do this. Or more importantly, we may see some of these, I can't do it today or now,
Noah:right? Because
Paul:there's here, here's the problem is the obstacle is going to make the situation worse.
Noah:Right. And, and we see regularly throughout the Proverbs that in the end we, we see where these paths lead. Right. So even, even if there is some good intention, even if it is, if there is some sense of, well, I'm going to get to it. I want to do it. It's going to happen. It makes me think of, and I don't, you read a verse very similar to this. I didn't catch if it was from chapter 21 verse 25 and 26 about the desire of the slugger killing him for his hands refused to labor. There's this idea again, there's a desire. But here's something that I find really convicting. The next verse is all day long. He craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back, which is not the contrast that you would expect. So here you have the sluggard who desires, but his hands refuse to labor. And the contrast is not, but here's the diligent and he doesn't refuse to labor. No, the contrast is here's the diligent and he gives. When we have, even if we have good intentions for our laziness, what we have to recognize is that in the end, those good intentions will never be fulfilled. Through our laziness. If we continue to accept the putting off, no matter how good the reasons sound to accept the putting off of that diligent work, we will never be able to give as the diligent man does here in chapter 21. We will never be able to fulfill those, those good intentions. And and that should be convicting to us because like you, like you said, not every lazy person is just somebody who is self admittedly, I just don't like doing work. There are people who allow themselves to be distracted from diligent work. And that's a form of laziness. And what we have to recognize is, We're cutting the legs out from under our own good intentions when we aren't willing to focus and be diligent and really hone in on what we're trying to accomplish.
Paul:Yeah, you know, I've said this before I would not want to be the manager. of a fast food restaurant or the manager of you know, I'm getting looks in here. Y'all didn't know Noah was a Chick fil A guy and a manager the, the, the kind of people, and, and look, there are hardworking young people out there today. Absolutely. They are, but there's a lot of them that are not. And that's a whole nother subject that could be traced back to how they were raised.
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:Has to do with a world that we're in a very entitled world.
Noah:Sure. This
Paul:position. But I'm, I'm thinking about a lot of people who are hearing this have been, have been in a position where they were trying to manage. A lazy person. And maybe from their standpoint, and I get this, they were trying to be merciful or compassionate and okay, I had a parent come to me. Can you give them a chance? Can you give them a shot? You own a business and that's okay. I understand they're going to work hard for me.
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:And if I see that they're not willing to work hard, they're going to be fired. And so you give this lazy person a task and place upon their shoulders a responsibility and they're going to let you down almost every time.
Noah:Right.
Paul:Until they overcome or see that the root issue is they just don't want to work. Like, like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes. So as a lazy one to those who send him,
Noah:I
Paul:mean, you're going to be continually frustrated because they're not going, you're not going to, Be able to rely on them.
Noah:Absolutely. Yeah I I could spend the rest of the podcast and the rest of the next episode of the podcast sharing stories that support what you're saying
Paul:I've poked the bear
Noah:And I won't do that. I I mean short the short version is yes I I had the the privilege and the blessing to to manage about 70 people in the context of a chick fil a for Several years and some of the hardest working people I've ever seen were in that context. And some of the laziest people I've ever seen were in that context. And, and they remain in my mind as an example of what that looks like. And I, I'd be happy to share some of those stories in a different context, but you just quoted Proverbs 10, 26, talking about how, for those who, who send a sluggard, how it's. Vinegar to the teeth, smoke to the eyes. And that is something that's really important for us. If we struggle with this, our laziness will affect how other people view us. It will reflect on our character and not positively. If you are someone who struggles with this, yes, your superiors at work, your your family who relies on you. You are, every time that part of your character is reflected, it is vinegar to the teeth. It is smoke to the eyes. I think another verse that describes this is in Proverbs 18, 9. He says, whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys. That's an accusation. Yes. If, if you are slacking your work, you, the Proverbs writer's saying you might as well be the one who's coming down and tearing stuff. D tearing stuff up. Mm-Hmm, You're the one who's you, you might as well be working against the people around you if you're gonna be lazy.'cause it, it equals the same thing. Ouch. That's going to reflect on our character. That's going to reflect on how other people see us. And ultimately then that's going to reflect on our God. If we claim to be following him and claim to be Christians.
Paul:Yeah. The way of the lazy man is like a hedge of thorns. Proverbs 15 and verse 19. They're going to have trouble their whole life.
Noah:Yeah.
Paul:And if you're parenting that lazy person, or if you're part of the problem, then you need to see that this, this is the attention getting passages. with regards to the lazy person. You know, they, they have ridiculous excuses. They consider themselves to be very clever in their laziness and cutting corners they, they can't make a decisive start. They won't make a decisive start at anything inability to complete a task. I mean, we could, Yeah. Solomon does this over and over again. But here's something Noah, that at least when you talk about lazy people, Solomon speaks about laziness sometimes in the context of the person who just ultimately is a procrastinator. Let's see, I can say, Ooh, these lazy people need to get their act together. Don't be that sluggard. Come on, you sloth.
Noah:Right.
Paul:But think about if I am the kind of person that has all these good ideas and good intentions and the I'll get around to it guy.
Noah:Oh yeah.
Paul:Procrastination is just couched in different language but the root issue can be here's my problem. And I come up with excuses as to why I can put it off till tomorrow.
Noah:Yeah, absolutely. And I think for me personally, that is a much more challenging discussion than, again, the stereotypical laziness that we think of. It is easy to keep, maybe this is not easy for everyone, it's easy for me to keep busy. But keeping busy is different than being productive and diligent. Sometimes we can keep busy, just busy enough to be lazy.
Paul:Just busy enough to be lazy.
Noah:It's kind of funny. Here we are, you know, 15, 17 minutes into the podcast. And we have not yet touched Proverbs six.
Paul:You're going to go to the ant,
Noah:go to the ant. We need to do
Paul:that because for people listening to it and say, okay, you know, you haven't given us some positive, something to do to overcome the laziness, something that we need to hear or see. So give it to us. No. And Proverbs six.
Noah:Well, ultimately the positive is that both diligence and laziness is. Our choices that we make. And we can see that evidence in Proverbs six, because the, the Proverbs writer says, these are things you can do. These are things that you can change. These are choices you can make. To avoid the pitfalls of laziness. And, and he uses several different contexts to illustrate that from, from when you find yourself in debt at the very beginning of chapter six, if you've made a pledge, you're in debt. He says, you got to make like a gazelle that's being hunted. You got to be, you got to be intense and you got to go take care of that right now. Well, what is he talking about? He's talking about diligence. You're in a circumstance. It's not a great circumstance, but you get to choose how you respond. Are you going to respond quickly and diligently, or are you going to procrastinate? And then that brings us up to the, the verse that we are probably all familiar with. Go to the aunt of Sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. And then the Proverbs writer says, How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? And so the, the positive instruction is, this is something that can be learned. It can be developed. You can look at examples. He points at an ant. And I know that in my lifetime, people that I've respected, like my parents and, and mentors, have pointed to other people and said, Do you see that? You, you need to watch that. You need to learn from that. Because that's what a diligent person looks like. And to me, that's the, that's the most positive messages. It doesn't matter if, if you're lazy right now, you can be trained into diligence.
Paul:Yes. I like that. You can be trained into diligence. That Proverbs six passage, look to the end versus six, seven, and eight is A wonderful text that I would highly encourage parents who are listening who have young kids. I mean, they, they can understand this. They can color pictures at the age of five and six and seven of the aunt, and you can start having these conversations with them as they start school, as they have. Chores and responsibilities at home, the expectations so that they can understand. I'm just going to read it again. I like from this translation in Proverbs six, take a lesson from the ants. You lazy bones. Learn from their ways and be wise. Even though they, the ants, have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. And, look, our kids at a very young age can understand something about being a self starter. Something about the discipline that it takes. So that they don't have to have mom and daddy looking over their shoulders reminding them all the time. So I get when they're five, six, and seven, but by the time they're 10, they, they should be a self starter.
Noah:Mm hmm.
Paul:They should have that discipline. They should be able to have initiative without constant oversight. They should realize the need to finish the task. Because see, if you don't finish the task in the summer, then you have nothing for the winter.
Noah:Right. Right.
Paul:And
Noah:I think that is so important. And I, I would encourage, so I, this is coming from somebody that I know, looking back, I see how much, work my parents had to put in to, to break me out of these kinds of habits. I was not a naturally diligent person. In fact, I would wager to say I'm still not a naturally. diligent person. And so coming from somebody that has had to be trained out of that and has had to continue to work on that and try to try to purify those parts of myself that are still tainted by this kind of lackadaisical I'll get to it later mentality. Don't be afraid. If you are a parent, do not be afraid. To, to bring this up with your children and teach your children this. A parallel passage to Proverbs 6 is found in Proverbs 24. It has the same kind of warning about a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands. But before that observation, the writer says, I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns. Again, this is something that we can look around in our lives, we can learn this, we can learn the difference between laziness and diligence, and as parents, it's our responsibility. You do not need to feel bad about pointing out examples, positive and negative. Did you see what happened there? That's because they didn't, they didn't prepare in the summer. They didn't maintain the wall. Look at how the garden is overgrown. That's the illustration that the Proverbs writer uses. Don't be afraid to do that. And don't be afraid to point to positive examples. Look at what they're able to do because they put in the work to prepare. Because they're diligent. Because they've decided to do it now. Do that. You don't need to feel bad about using real life examples in teaching your children.
Paul:Yeah, laziness lets the roof leak and soon the rafters begin to rot.
Noah:Ooh,
Paul:that's Ecclesiastes 10, 18.
Noah:Oh, we went outside the problem. I know,
Paul:but we get it. You know, so as we're, as we're wrapping this up on the council for couch potatoes, look, I can tell you I can tell you from experience, try trying to, to help the lazy person who has been lazy since they were 10 and now they're 30 or they're 20. Trying to, trying to get them out of that is not an easy task. So we want to try to get out in front of this, but these are things we have to share with people to understand, because this is not something, well, you know, you're going to be a headache and a nuisance to other people, and you're never going to be the, the person that's, you know, getting ahead in life. Like you see others and they're okay with that. So if they're okay with it, I'll just leave them alone. I mean, it's, it's in the text for a reason. God's giving this counsel for a reason because this is serious stuff. I love this one Noah about hard work. Someone said hard work spotlights the character of people and I would agree with that. Hard work does spotlight the character of people. But then he said this, some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses while others don't turn up at all. And don't, don't be the couch potato who doesn't turn up at all.
Noah:Yeah. Well, my prayer has been, again, this is such an important topic and it's a personal one to me. And so my, my prayer is that this has been helpful to either, if you're listening to this and you're recognizing within yourself, the tendencies of the couch potato, then I hope that here in Proverbs you've seen now's the time to, to get up and to do it. Whatever it is. Go do it. And if you're somebody that has somebody like that in your life and you're trying to help them, that's good. I'm glad you're trying to help them. That can be frustrating. That can be difficult, but it is a learned attribute. It is something that can be instructed and trained. And the wisdom of God is here to help you. So I hope that this has been helpful for them.
Paul:Yes. Okay. Where are we going next?
Noah:Well, next week we'll be on episode nine. If I've got my episode count correctly in my head and next week, we're going to be doing an episode called blind spots. And as per usual for this season, we're not giving away too much about what we're talking about. But I think that if anybody. Takes a few moments to sit down and think, what is in the book of Proverbs? That I don't really want to think about, then you might be on the right track for some of what we're going to be talking about in the context of blind spots next week. So hopefully that'll be a helpful discussion as well.
Paul:Well, I hope that we, we can have that one. Thank you again to those. Who are following us in this podcast, in this season of the Proverbs Project, we keep getting feedback. We're grateful for that and thankful. If there's any questions you have, or if there's some subject that you would like Noah or I to address and to address together from the Proverbs, then we want to hear from you. But between now, Lord willing, in the next episode, we just together, Want to seek the favor in the face of God, try to do what He would have us to do so that together inside His will, with His help, we can stand strong.
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