I am currently in a series through the book of Exodus titled "It's Time to Go!" In preparing to preach chapter 5-7 the Lord prompted me to preach a series within this series called "Winning the War Over Your Wasted Years." I sensed the Lord was moving me to this because some people in the congregation needed to be be free of the guilt and shame of their past in order to move out of Egypt, as it were, unshackled. It has, to this point, yielded much fruit with the call to repent over our past having begun to free many.
What I am about to say in this short blog and the others that follow is how the Lord, today, freed me from something I would have never imagined had a hold on me. As the title states, you know what I am talking about: I used to be a sluggard until about 9am this morning! I will say that being freed from something is a most painful and exhilarating moment. It felt bad and aweful to be picked apart and exposed, but the exposure felt like the healing balm of ointment to a wound. Over the next series of blogs what you will read will transperant and, I pray, by the Spirit of the Lord, transformational.
HOW THIS CHANGE HAPPEN?
A couple of weeks ago I printed out an article on the sluggard that I have had for some time, I have read and shared with others. The first time I read it it was good. Today was different. After reading a psalm I decided to read it again and this time it was invasive and intrusive upon my mind, and my affections. It is amazing how the Lord loves us in such a way that he positions things at the right time - things we've heard and or experienced before - to transform us like we've never heard or experienced at all! That article, and another that I was prompted to read, form the foundation of all that I will say. Where I quote from each article I will note that. Otherwise what you read will be the rumanations of my challenged and changed soul.
WHAT IS A SLUGGARD?
While this answer is multi-layered, there is a passage in Proverbs that, for me, sums up and shapes how we need to view laziness. The proverbs says: "The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back" (Proverbs 21:25-26). The words say it all: the sluggard lives by what he or she feels, sees, craves and desires but in doing so, though they cannot notice it, all of those things are killing them. It is possible that all that you are doing that you believe is working for your joy, happiness, success and security is, actually, doing the very opposite. It may be distracting you with stuff so that you miss the Savior. This, you will see, is a character trait of the sluggard.
AN IMPORTANT POINT ABOUT SLUGGARDOM
Before I get into the heart of the series I want to share a simple, yet profound truth that came to me as I continued to ponder my former life as a sluggard. Please note this because it is this reality that makes being a sluggard deceptive and, in the end, more pervasive in the Body of Christ than most would like to admit. This is not earth shattering but it is paradignm shifting - at least it was for me. Here it is:
Sluggardom (or laziness), while it is often described in actions and or a heart posture, it is much
more. Sluggardom is a worldview and, therefore, to be a sluggard is more than acting like one.
Being a sluggard means to be guided and guarded (captured) in a worldview; a lens from which
we see and understand life, reality and God.
According to NT. Wright in his book "The New Testament and the People of God" worldviews seek to provide answers to the following questions: (1) Who are we?, (2) Where are we?, (3) What is wrong? and (4) What is the solution? (pg. 132, 33). While expounding those questions is not the point here, I mention them because living as a sluggard is the sieve and the result by which those questions are answered.
Wherever you find yourself in the environment of sluggardom here is the truth: God will deliver you because sluggardom is killing you because sluggardom is not the way it is supposed to be. It may not appear that it is doing this in your life at the moment, but I realized today, as one song said, that it was "killing me softly."
I pray the next few installments illuminate and extricate the spirit of laziness out of your life.