31 Days of Wisdom: Work Hard and Avoid Debt

 

Oh, this is an interesting passage to read on a sleepy Saturday morning 

1 My son,if you have put up securityfor your neighbor,
if you have shaken hands in pledge for a stranger,
² you have been trapped by what you said,
ensnared by the words of your mouth.
³ So do this, my son, to free yourself,
since you have fallen into your neighbor’s hands:
Go—to the point of exhaustion—^[a]
and give your neighbor no rest!
⁴ Allow no sleep to your eyes,
no slumber to your eyelids.
⁵ Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the snare of the fowler.

⁶ Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
⁷ It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
⁸ yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.

⁹ How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
When will you get up from your sleep?
¹⁰ A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest—
¹¹ and poverty will come on you like a thief
and scarcity like an armed man.

I come away with these verses with two four letter words.   One is wise and one is unwise.  The first word that is wise is WORK.  Solomon says to consider the ant.  Ants are the most annoying bug on the planet, maybe other than the fly, because they don’t stop.  They crawl everywhere.  You don’t ever just see an ant sunning on a rock.  They are busy, busy, busy.  That’s how we should be.

And perhaps it’s obvious why it’s wise to to work but Proverbs does point out the consequence for not working hard is poverty.  I was thinking on this and I don’t think it’s just that Solomon didn’t want us not to have the latest and greatest cable package but I think as Christians when we are poor, we are a drain of grace, not a fount of grace.  How can we be a light shining on a hill when we’re being lazy and sleeping and only taking from others?

And if you take that one step further, the four letter unwise word is DEBT.  That truly is like a four letter word to me.  Scott and I have always paid off all our credit cards every single month.  The only thing we’ve owed for is our house and cars and when we did owe on our cars, I had that gazelle like intensity that Dave Ramsey talks about from verse 5 to get it paid off. 

Verse 5 talks about freeing yourself as if you were enslaved.  That’s what being in debt feels like to me.  I owe someone and they have charge over it. I can’t enjoy what I have not knowing I own it outright.  Scott has tried to talk me into even doing things at 0% interest and I can’t do it. 

I always say you never know what’s going to happen in the next 12 months.  You can’t guarantee that you will have the same income and same circumstances that you do, in even 3 months.  It is wise to save for 12 months until you have it and then get it.  Now, I understand people’s fridge’s go out and you are forced into situations but that gazelle and ant-like working hard intensity should kick in to get it paid off just as soon as possible.

The cool thing about these verses is that the unwise thing, debt, is overcome by the wise thing, work.

And even more interesting to me is that Solomon calls out sleep as the number one hindrance to work.  While I completely believe in getting your due rest, not having the proper sleep patterns and habits can put you in a bind faster than you know.  You start missing work and not getting things done and bam!  No job! No income!  And then, debt!

Today is Saturday and a great day to work hard around the house and get things done!