6 Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
9 How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:11 So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man."
I am such a morning person!! I LOVE to be the first one up ~ alone in my living room, watching the sun come up and enjoying a hot cup of coffee. To me, sleeping in is staying in bed until 7:30 a.m., because usually I am up between 5 and 6. But, the rest of my family thinks I’m crazy!! Around 9 or 9:30 they will start to stir. And by 10 they are all up and about ~ and of course, by then I have been up for hours!
Today’s Proverb always makes me think about my family and I and the differences in our sleeping patterns, because it warns us about being lazy and wanting to do nothing but lay around and sleep. My family isn’t that way (for any of you beginning to wonder) we are actually very active and busy ~ just not all at the same times. I do must of my work before they are up, but by about 9 p.m. I am done! Jeff and my older boys are just the opposite ~ they are going strong then. Jeff does his best studying after the kids and I go to bed.
One thing though ~ I don’t ever want my children to be what Solomon calls a sluggard. What does the word "sluggard" mean? It comes from the same root word that our word "sluggish" comes from. It has the meaning of one being slow or lazy; actually a habitually lazy person. In these verses there is a comparison made of those who sleep, because they dislike work, and those who are workers and provide for their house.
In verse 4 Solomon isn’t talking about what time you get up after getting a good night’s sleep. He is talking about someone who wants to sleep their time away and choosing to be IDLE instead of being productive. Do a study sometime on the word IDLE in the Bible. God has NOTHING good to say about it.
Do you know that the ant is one of God's hardest working creatures? So, it is no surprise that Solomon tell us to use the ant as our example of a hard worker. We are told to be wise like the ants. They work hard without having to have a guide, overseer, or ruler standing over them. Some people only work when they have to or when somene is watching them.
I don’t ever want to the Lord to say to me, "How long will you sleep?" or "When are you going to get to work?" There is too much that needs to be done and not enough of us to do it. Make sure your awake today and ready to go to work at whatever it is that God has for you to do. There are things we must do in our lives, things we need to do for our families, things waiting to be done for the Lord. We need to ask the Lord for His strength to do them all, just as Jesus declared He must do the work of His Father.
John 9:4: "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work."
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