“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 76
“The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute” (Prov. 12:24).
Generalizations are just that, generalizations. But there is a God-given reason for advancing them nonetheless. Generalizations are still true. And, as a general rule, dominion advances under the labor of the diligent. Those who are lazy and slothful find themselves under the control of another. And we find that Proverbs reinforces an American proverb-“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
Slothfulness can take various forms. Of course it is seen with some who sleeps in till noon and expects his vocation to prosper. But slothfulness comes in other forms as well. For example, giving yourself to one kind of work when another kind of work is required is slothfulness. A man might be willing to work hard at one thing (because he knows how to do it), and unwilling to work at the harder task of learning something new. And if that something new is necessary, the slothful still comes under the control of his creditors. Suppose a small businessman spends the morning sweeping the walk in front of his shop. He breaks a sweat. He is not lazy in the classical sense. But if he needed to be learning new software for tracking inventory, and he would rather not do that, then the bad consequences that will come to his business will not care if he was sweeping or sleeping.