“I chose Industriousness and Enthusiasm as the cornerstones of my Pyramid of Success.“ – Coach John Wooden

(Without them in place you don’t have a chance of achieving success.)

We all know what it feels like to be lazy at times. While we can and should give ourselves green lights to rest and relax, sometimes this permission-giving can get away from us and turn into far more … a lazy lifestyle. 

When this happens it skews the way we look at four important aspects of life: reality, rest, effort, and confidence. Let’s take a closer look at laziness … 

REALITY: Laziness leaves us on the couch long enough so that we are unable to accurately assess what’s going on around us, if danger is really near or not. And if it is, it renders us unable to respond and protect ourselves or others as we ought. 

Laziness allows the idol of personal comfort to rule our lives and steal our proper worship. This is a reality danger we cannot afford (Proverbs 26:13).

REST: Sleep is a good thing. So is soul rest and mental rest. But laziness leaves us longer in bed than we ought to be. It flaws our view of rest to the point that we do our living in bed and our dying outside it. Rest is our reward for work, not our entitlement (Proverbs 26:14).

EFFORT: Laziness flaws our understanding of effort and destroys our definition of hard work. It makes us live in minimums not maximums. It believes in minimal effort but expects maximum results. 

It teaches us to value shortcuts more than we should. It struggles to lift a finger to excellence or perhaps even a fork to one’s mouth. Living with one’s head in a bowl seems best to a lazy man (Proverbs 26:15).

CONFIDENCE: Laziness creates false confidence. It feeds our pride before we’ve prepared. It tries to convince us that we’re ready before we really are. 

It doesn’t allow us to think deeply about something to be sure of ourselves and leaves us with just one weapon – self-hype. Laziness lies to our sense of self worth and blinds us in our comparisons to others. Laziness kills confidence (Proverbs 26:16).

Reflect:  Is laziness getting the best of you lately? Is it distorting your view of reality, rest, effort and confidence?

A prayer to consider: LORD, energize me to do Your will … to pursue excellence, keep growing, serve others and get beyond the grasp of laziness. Don’t let my sense of reality, rest, effort and confidence get skewed by living lazy. 

I need Your help every day. Keep teaching me by Your Word and Your Spirit and make me strong. May I work industriously and run enthusiastically like Christ. Amen.