Slow Motion Suicide

“The desire of the lazy man kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. He covets greedily all day long, but the righteous gives and does not spare.” (Prov. 21:25-26)

We often think that the problem with lazy people is that they don’t want anything. They have no ambition, they have no direction in life. They’re losers because all they care to study are the ten latest secret codes to Halo 500. But this proverb says otherwise. It’s actually the “desire” of the lazy man that’s killing him. In other words, it’s not that he hasn’t any desire. It’s not that he hasn’t got a mission. It’s just that he’s got the wrong one. His mission is sedentary passivity and hot damn! his mission is being accomplished. And that’s what’s killing him. Laziness is suicide in slow motion.

The second part of the proverb reveals more about the lazy man’s desires. Again, it’s not a lack of desire that makes a man lazy, it’s having the wrong desire. In fact, the lazy man is obsessed it seems, “coveting greedily all day long”. Far from being directionless, the couch potato has non stop dreams of glitz and glamor. But this is all an additional indictment. Not only is a lazy man a fool, but a lazy man is also a law breaker, a covetous man. Laziness is greed. The sloth, by refusing to work, is refusing to be generous, refusing to help those in need. Not only does a lazy man refuse to lift his own hands to feed himself, but he clenches his empty fists in greed, refusing to defend the weak, refusing to feed the hungry. While his children are neglected and his wife bears the weight of the family needs, he’s busy surfing the internet, slowly castrating himself with the nothingness of cyberspace.