Becoming Poor

Bible Reading: Proverbs 10:1-11

Key Verse: Verse 4 – “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand         

                        of the diligent maketh rich.”

Key Words: He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand

You can see from our verse that slackness is the opposite of diligence. The word diligent means a painstaking effort; then slackness would be less than a whole-hearted effort or even no effort at all. It would do us all well to remember about the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age. 

In 1986, a group of researchers published a study of Japanese mothers and mothers in Minneapolis. The mothers were asked to rank the most important things that a child needs to succeed academically. The answers tell a lot about the difference in our two cultures today. The mothers in Minneapolis chose “ability.” The mothers in Japan said “effort.” 

If you have all the ability on the face of the earth but are slack in your effort, your abilities amount to zero – zilch – nothing. 

The female steamer duck can fly, but only about 1/4 of the males are able to, and only before they eat! The rest are too heavy to get airborne. They use their wings as paddles and beat furiously across the surface of the water, never quite able to break into flight. 

Now, the moral is clear: there are some in our society who need to spend more of their life for work than for food. 

Let me encourage you to not be slack in your effort.

 

                                                                                        Dr. Mike Rouse

What to do:  

✞ Remember, he that will not work, neither shall he eat.