Thursday's Comfortable: Are you a sluggard?

When I was in elementary school, I remember a little story about a little red hen. The little red hen finds some grain and asks the other animals to help her prepare it for food. She asks a question over and over: "Who will help me plant this grain?" or "Who will help me water the grain?" And the answer from the other animals was always the same. Each one would say, "Not I." So the little red hen does it all herself.

Planting, watering, harvesting, grinding, and baking.

The little red hen brings that grain from seeds all the way to the kitchen. And then, when the bread comes out of the oven, she says, "Who will help me eat the bread?" and everyone says, "I will!" But the little red hen told them all no. They didn't help with the work, so they didn't get to eat the bread.

Classic American work values, right? You get what you deserve.

Scripture seems to back the story up, too. "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Work hard, pull your weight, and you earn your place at the table.

This is probably how most of us think about laziness. So when we read the book of Proverbs, and we meet a character called "the sluggard," we step into our little red hen framework and think we know his issue. He's lazy. He needs to work harder. He needs someone standing over him to make him do it and hold him accountable.

Take this proverb, for example:

Go to the ant, O 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. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? 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. (Proverbs 6:6–11, ESV).

At first glance, you probably think, "Yep, he's lazy!" The ant will teach him about diligence in work.

Well, brace yourself. I want to show you a secret about your work ethic, because you might have more in common with the sluggard than you think.

But to do that, we first have to know what his problem actually is.

The Solution for Laziness?

We usually think that the only solution for laziness is to have someone stand over a lazy person and push him. Lazy people need to be managed. A better boss. A stricter schedule. Somebody checking on him at nine o'clock every morning. That's the solution our work culture usually assumes will fix it.

The proverb suggests studying the ant. It "prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest" without having any chief, officer, or ruler.

You'll notice that the poet doesn't name one office, but rather three different ones. A chief is the leader you'd call in when things get serious. An officer is a slightly stronger word, referring to someone specifically assigned to keep you in line day to day. Ironically, this is the same word the book of Exodus uses for the men Pharaoh set over the Israelite slaves to enforce their daily brick quota, men who were beaten themselves when the quota came up short. And then a ruler, which is a more general term for anyone at all, at any level, with any degree of authority.

The ant has no supervisor. Not a taskmaster. Not so much as a single oversight person telling her what to do. And she still gets the harvest in.

The point is, handing a sluggard over to a supervisor and calling the problem solved is not the solution. The ant proves supervision doesn't produce the outcome. Whatever is actually wrong with the sluggard, it isn't solved by better management.

That means it might not be a laziness problem.

The Composite Portrait of a Sluggard

So what is it? Well, I realized that the book of Proverbs introduces us to the sluggard multiple times. I paid attention to each appearance, and it became clear that a composite picture evolves; each passage adds another piece to the portrait.

Start with Proverbs 20:4: "The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing." Notice the timeline. He isn't necessarily lazy in some vague, permanent sense. He skips the work of plowing the cold autumn ground, but he puts in the work to go look for a harvest that was never planted. He apparently wanted the harvest. He just wasn't willing to work for it in October.

And then Proverbs 13:4 and 21:25: "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing... for his hands refuse to labor." Notice that his soul craves something. I thought that was important because it speaks to his motivation - just in case you might think that is what is missing in him. But he wants an outcome as much as anyone does. It's just that his hands refuse to work. "Refuse" isn't a weak word, by the way. It's the same verb used of Pharaoh's own hardened heart refusing to let Israel go (Exodus 4:23) - it is a willed, repeated choice.

And the most interesting one was this: "The sluggard says, 'There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!'" (Proverbs 26:13). In case it's tough to catch without the surrounding context, let me be clear that there was not an actual lion in the street. Lions don't normally show up in a crowded market square in broad daylight. Nobody hearing this was expected to believe it was a fact.

That's the point. It is an absurd excuse.

In none of these passages is the sluggard hemmed in by his circumstances. The field is right there. He has motivation - he wants a harvest. And he is very aware that there's actually no lion.

What each of these snapshots tells us, however, is that the sluggard's real problem is his own unwillingness to trade immediate comfort for what he wants. That's why he would rather invent an absurd imaginary lion than lose personal comfort.

And this is where the light bulb went off for me. He's not lazy. He doesn't lack motivation. He isn't a victim of circumstances. He's just comfortable. And that is a problem closer to home than we'd like to think.

Let me explain.

The Sluggard in the Mirror

We like to be comfortable. And when we are being challenged to grow, to produce, to move with purpose, we often have to surrender comfort.

To protect our comfort level, we try to dress up our excuses in respectable clothes.

Think about that dream you've been sitting on: the business, the ministry, the degree, the move you know you're supposed to make. What have you told yourself? Have you said something like, "I'm waiting for the right season." Perhaps that is wisdom. But I would wager that more often "waiting" simply meant you'd rather stay where you are than take that starting step. Like a sluggard who just sleeps a little bit longer.

Or think about the conversation you've been putting off, with your spouse, your adult child, your business partner, or maybe the friend who hurt you. You tell yourself you're being considerate, giving them space, choosing the right moment. Maybe you are. But how many times has "the right moment" simply meant you'd rather not deal with the confrontation, and face what the conversation could cost you? Like a sluggard in October who says, I'll do it later.

Or think about the calling you know you received years ago, the one you now explain away as waiting on "God's timing." Sometimes it really is His timing. But how many times has "God's timing" become a spiritual-sounding lion in the street - a respectable excuse for staying where it's comfortable?

Real wisdom, real patience, and real discernment exist, and they matter. But every one of us has a comfort battle, a fight for homeostasis. If you will, each of us has at least one lion standing in our own street right now, an excuse dressed up in language that sounds careful, or considerate, or even holy, while underneath it is merely protecting our comfort from cost.

This is where I think the sluggard and the modern-day Christian in the workforce have a lot in common. The sluggard is described as fighting for comfort. Fixing the root of that issue requires more than a behavior change. It requires a change in your nature.

The Cure Is a New Nature

Let's take the proverbial advice and go back to the ant one more time. She isn't diligent because a chief told her to be; she's diligent because that's simply who she is. What I mean is that the ant has an internal orientation that drives her to gather her food - which will not only be for the ant alone, but for the colony. The ant is built for the colony before she's built for herself.

The ant doesn't need a supervisor because her nature, her design, governs her behaviors. And frankly, the biggest problem in the workforce is that the worker needs a new nature. You need a new nature. Without the right internal transformation, you will forever be a slave to comfort.

Scripture indicates that God is in the business of changing our nature. The prophet Ezekiel recorded God's promise to "give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you... I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes" (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

So what does a new heart actually change about a Thursday on the construction site? Everything.

If you recall the first two articles in this series, you'll remember how we discovered that work is worship — specifically when you realize who you work for. The major key to the paradigm shift we've been talking about requires that we experience a new nature. That same transformation causes us to stop working to protect our own comfort. All we do, we begin to do for God alone. We become colony-minded, or to complete the analogy, we become Kingdom-minded in our work.

On normal workdays, we look forward to the weekend. Thursdays are nice because they are only one day away from Fridays, right? After all, the weekends are . . . comfortable. Thursday is the day to slide a little closer to comfort. But comfort was never meant to be the thing you protect most. A transformed nature changes that. It changes everything - especially how you work.

Only God can give you a new heart - and He's not waiting for a more comfortable day than this one. Ask Him now.