The Excuse Maker

The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing.

Proverbs 20:4

The sluggard and the slothful man are mentioned many times in the book of Proverbs.  They both mean “lazy.”  There are many warnings about being lazy in the Bible, and not just in Proverbs.  This verse gives us some insight into the lazy man’s thinking, and that insight can help us avoid his way and his end if we will heed it.

“The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold.”  Being from the midwest, I am well acquainted with plowing and harvesting.  Plowing is done during the spring, and there are times that it is still a little cold outside.  But that is no excuse to not get things done.  What we see from this verse is that the sluggard is an excuse maker.  It might be the cold one day.  It might be too hot the next day.  It might be too rainy or windy or dry the days after that.  The excuse maker is a sluggard.  The excuse maker is lazy.  He doesn’t want to do something and so he finds any excuse available to get out of it.

It has been said that “if you have a good excuse, don’t use it.”  That would be a good piece of advice by which to live.  This Proverb gives us the end of the lazy excuse maker: “…therefore shall he beg in harvest and have nothing.”  The lazy excuse maker is eventually going to have to pay.  Eventually, there will be no more excuses to be made.

Excuses are usually used to either get us out of doing something or keep us out of trouble.  Neither of those things will be good for us.  The point of this verse is this: you can always find an excuse.  But you should not always use an excuse, or you will end up “begging in harvest.”