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Don’t Use Your Rest as an Excuse for Laziness
The Vineyard of the Sluggard
I passed by the field of a sluggard,
by the vineyard of a man lacking sense,
and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns;
the ground was covered with nettles,
and its stone wall was broken down.
Then I saw and considered it;
I looked and received instruction.
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man. (Prov. 24:30–34)
One of my favorite theologians (my husband) used to say: “Don’t fool yourself.” It’s a warning that is worth considering continually. The reason is that human beings like to get their way, even if it means deceiving themselves in the process. We do it with our productivity: I’ll do it tomorrow; it’ll only take five minutes. We do it in our relationships: Yes, yes . . . we send each other flirty texts all day long, but we’re just friends. We do it about our phones: I’m not looking at anything sinful; don’t be a legalist. The Bible doesn’t say how much time we can spend on the internet!
We also fool ourselves, as we see in Proverbs, by abusing our rest: Hey, don’t judge me. God calls us to rest; it’s time to slumber. We use the fact that God cares about our repose to justify our lack of diligence. We deceive ourselves all that we can—until reality hits us in the face.
Make the Most of Your Productivity
Ana Ávila
In this user-friendly guide, Ana Ávila teaches 6 principles to help you honor God with all you have and reflect his character through your creativity.
A Vineyard Falling to Pieces
We all have different areas of responsibility that demand continuous diligence in order to properly flourish. We’re probably not managing a field, but we have homes, churches, ministries, or workplaces in which we’re called to use our gifts, energy, time, and attention.
God created us in his image to reflect his glory, subduing the Earth as his representatives, loving our neighbor as we’ve been loved, and making disciples who know and live the gospel of Jesus. Many times, though, we forget the wonderful privilege of this calling, and we settle for doing the minimum that’s needed for our homes, churches, ministries, and workplaces to function. We don’t work as for the Lord. Things move forward, but they don’t move forward well.
The pile of dirty dishes has been growing for two weeks and is about to break down, just like the sluggard’s stone wall. The rushed sermon, written in two hours, is covered with nettles. Emails and half-completed projects fill our to-do list like thorns. We haven’t been diligent in cleaning, organizing, repairing, and preparing. In the beginning, it doesn’t look like anything is happening; we tell ourselves they are minor details we have “accidentally overlooked,” refusing to admit that they’re evidence of our laziness. If we ignore them without repenting and making changes, our metaphorical vineyard will start to fall apart, and we’ll be forced to deal with the more severe consequences of our negligence.
It happens suddenly, as the attack of a robber or an armed man (Prov. 24:34). The son who grew up without listening regularly to the truths of the Bible announces at dinner that he doesn’t believe in God anymore. The woman who has been a member of your church for fifteen years calls to announce she’s getting a divorce, and you didn’t even have a clue that she had been barely speaking to her husband for the last decade. Your boss calls you to let you know this is your last month at the company and that you shouldn’t add him to your CV as a reference—he doesn’t have anything good to say about your work.
Of course, there are times when our vineyards fall apart because of the sin of others—because we’re trying to do too many things, because we don’t ask for help, or because your expectations are not realistic (No, you don’t need an Instagrammable house. No, you don’t need to preach like John Piper. No, you don’t have to be #1 in sales every month). But there are also times—more times than we’d like to admit—when our vineyards are collapsing because of our negligence, laziness, and lack of understanding.
We all have different areas of responsibility that demand continuous diligence in order to properly flourish.
Are You Like the Sluggard?
One clue that we’re living like the man lacking sense in Proverbs 24 is that we don’t have regular times of effort and repose. We have not sought wisdom to discern when it is time to work and when it is time to rest. Or we might know when it’s time for each, but we don’t follow through. In either case, we end up half-working and half-resting, saying “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest” (Prov. 24:33) when it’s time to be diligent. Besides, when we “rest,” we don’t actually do activities that fill us with energy; rather, we saturate our minds with entertainment to quiet the anxiety coming from the weight of everything we have left to do because we didn’t work well at the proper time.
Another clue to our negligence is what others learn from us. This is better revealed by what people are not telling us. When we admire someone’s diligence, we can’t help but ask, “How do you do it?” When someone accomplishes their responsibilities with excellence in the home, in their ministry, or in any other labor similar to ours, we want to learn from them. If no one has approached you to get advice or guidance, maybe it’s because—by simply looking—they’re learning from you what not to do: “I passed by the field of a sluggard . . . then I saw and considered it; I looked and received instruction” (Prov. 24:30, 32).
Christians should be able to say—in humility and awareness that our godliness comes from the work of the Spirit—“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1).
There Is Hope
Proverbs 24 confronts us, but not without hope.
The perfect Servant paid for our failures and gives us everything we need to be more like him every day. In Jesus Christ, we find the wisdom we need to help us not grow weary of doing good and to repent of our laziness and walk in diligence, knowing that our work is never in vain (Gal. 6:9–10).
This article was originally published as “No uses tu descanso como excusa para la pereza” by The Gospel Coalition on August 7, 2024. https://www.coalicionporelevangelio.org/articulo/descanso-excusa-pereza/
Ana Ávila is the author of Make the Most of Your Productivity: A Guide to Honoring God with Your Time.
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