Not So Sudden Death

Proverbs 6:10-11 -- "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest - and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man."

image: recoveringevangelical.com

Looking around the room I took in a deep sigh and could feel the weight of the world cause my shoulders to hunch in exhaustion. I have no idea how the nice clean kitchen of yesterday looks as if it erupted dirty dishes from some weird volcano that sprouted mountains and foothills on every single flat surface. 

Actually. . . that's not true - I know exactly how it happened. I took a lazy day. Just one. A day when I decided to do absolutely nothing. I declared it a "mom's day off" and drank slow cups of Earl Gray, read some Clive Cussler, diddled with a cross-stitch project, and watched a BBC production narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Well, I'll certainly pay for that little extravagance today. It feels as if the keeping of hearth and home has suddenly become monumentos and every single normal chore secretly conspired to generate chores of its own.

Ugh!

The truth of the matter is - the kitchen did not become the dish equivalent of Mount Everest over night. No single person uses twelve plates at the same time. If I'd been diligent and done a few things on Mom's Day Off, I wouldn't be looking at a herculean chore day today. At the very least, I could've ensured the clean dishes in the dishwasher had been put away so the growing number of humans that eat in this house could place their dirty dishes strait into the machine.

I'm thinking that maybe Solomon knew about this build up of things to do - and I look at Proverbs 6:10-11 with a fresh set of convictions. There are several verses prior to these two wherein Solomon refers to the ant. I don't know about you, but I've never seen an ant take a Mom's Day Off.

Now obviously I'm not saying a person should never rest. Even God took one day out of seven for some R & R after creating the universe. But I DO think we tend to talk ourselves into more breaks than we do actions - as a general rule. If we didn't, this great country of ours wouldn't have so many non-working people living off the hard-earned income of others. [please don't shoot the messenger on that last statement].

But far beyond the physical aspect of daily living I can see how this verse applies to us - as spiritual creatures. There is a deep need to be ever diligent when it comes to our walk with Jesus. Do we take time out every day to read God's Word? Do we pray and listen? Do we tell ourselves we are too tired to go to church this Sunday - maybe we'll pick it back up next Sunday? Each time we take a spiritual day off, it's easier for us to become complacent. If I can skip church this Sunday, maybe two weeks in a row won't be so bad? Maybe I'm too tired or too busy with the dish mountain to do my daily devo today -- perhaps, tomorrow I'll get a better handle on it?

Each and every time we "take a break" it becomes all the more easy for us to continue to do so. And the little snowflakes of self-indulgence become a giant snow ball that grows so big - it becomes nearly unmanageable. So the truth is - we didn't become spiritually starving and unproductive people over night. It took the accumulation of what may have seemed like small, unimportant steps. It's actually not sudden spiritual death at all - but a long, slow, painful decline in what should have been daily up-keep.

I think I understand where Solomon was going with these verses. And as I end this blog entry to tackle the dish volcano, I am reminded that each day I can don my spiritual armor and maintain a sturdy front in battle for Jesus - I guard against a not-so-sudden death of soul.