How to Fight Laziness

Pondering the Illusions Created by a Lazy Heart “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside! I shall be slain in the streets!’”1 This is not what I expected the proverb to say. I would have expected it to say, “The coward says, ‘There is a lion outside! I shall be slain in the streets!’” But it says “sluggard,” not “coward.” So the controlling emotion here is laziness, not fear. But what does laziness have to do with the danger of a lion in the street? We don’t say, “This man is too lazy to go do his work because there is a lion outside.” The presence of a lion does not produce laziness, it produces fear. So what’s the point of the proverb? The point is that the sluggard creates imaginary circumstances to justify not doing his work and thus shifts the focus from the vice of his laziness to the danger of lions. No one will approve his staying in the house all day just because he is lazy. But they might sympathize with him and approve his staying home if there were real danger outside. So, to hide his laziness and justify himself, he deflects attention away from the truth (laziness) to an illusion (lions). Taste and See John Piper Taste and See features 125 meditations by John Piper...