Occasionally I find myself in a rut of general laziness.  Do you ever get to that place?  As a homeschooling mom of four little ones I often tell myself that I deserve a much-needed break.  Sometimes I say to myself that I’ve earned this time to read for five hours a little while.  If I’m being honest, there are days my break times are exceptionally long and my work times exceptionally short.  I can easily fall into this trap of allowing myself time to “rest” or telling myself that I’m relaxing, when in reality I’m just wasting time.

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Wow! There’s a lot of depth in this proverb.  Let’s consider for a moment that we’re looking beyond the obvious overgrowth of thorns and disorder that encompass my home when I’m in my “resting” time.  I’d even like to look past the deeper implications this has on my relationship with my husband and my children.  Let’s look past my husband’s dissatisfaction when he finds himself scrambling for work clothes through days-old stacks of laundry. Look past the broken hearts of young children whose favorite things have been trod on and broken by scurrying feet that are undisciplined by the keeper of the home.  I’d like to look all the way inside my spirit as it sits unattended and unfulfilled during my laziness.

And there it lies, the very scene this proverb spoke of.  I see the thorns sprouting and covering over any beauty that once was.  I see the weeds poking through, disrupting the order that could still be.  The stone wall that Jesus so carefully guided me in erecting around my soul as a veritable fortress is crumbling.  Little bits of mortar have flaked off and lie sprinkled across the ground as stones begin to sag in defeat.  When this fortress of diligence was left unattended it began to break down.  And each day I choose to neglect it in favor of laziness, it crumbles a little more.

Building Back Up

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  We are so very blessed to serve a forgiving Savior.  Just as a parent continues to guide their child after making the same mistake over again, so the Lord guides us back to Him.  The beauty of my relationship with Jesus is that I can repent and be set right immediately.

My dear friend challenged herself, and I challenged myself to use August as a fast against laziness.  The premise was simple: As we looked through our days and saw ourselves doing something lazy in place of something useful, we would work to choose the useful thing instead.  The very first day that I woke up twenty minutes early and opened my Bible to spend some time with Him, my Savior began to trim back the thorns.  Throughout the day as I chose to be diligent in teaching my children the word and how to apply it, He began to pull the weeds.  As I went about my work within my home with a happy heart and a soul contented, He gently pushed back the sagging stones and patched up the holes.

The glory of my Savior can radiate through me when I have a firm foundation of discipline and diligence.  When I choose the next right thing to do at each turn of the day, I am blessed by my work and by His work through me.

Do you find your diligence slipping in your time with the Lord like I do?  Don’t despair!  It only takes one right choice to get back on track.

Can we pray for you today?

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