Something in My Craw

Proverbs 21:25-26 ESV

²⁵ The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor.

²⁶ All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back.

I let the proprietor know that I was praying against his business. Specifically, against it on Sunday, because I wanted him in church. He had just opened and it was great food but his schedule was still in flux. Going to visit for lunch again I asked again about his schedule and he let me know that it was firm now Tuesday and Wednesday off. Apparently, I didn’t pray as hard as was needed for the quality of his fare! After some friendly banter back and forth I found out that he would like to be open those days also but is simply unable to find someone willing to cook those days. The all too familiar song these days, “Help Wanted”.

Then again, why should they work, if all their needs are provided for? Being content with less should they be forced as slaves to work for someone else that they might receive that which they didn’t want? The demonic line we have been fed for so many years, work until you can afford not to (retire), has taken up roost. The desire of so many is not to work. Not to produce anything or love their neighbors but simply to feed the desire for “peace in [my] time”.

Studying the Proverb presses us. At first glance I would think that it is saying that he is eaten from the inside because he wants something and can’t have it. As Louis L'amour would say it “gets in his craw” and he can’t let go of it. Never taking the action needed to actually achieve it. The second verse seems to add another layer to what Solomon is trying to convey. We know it is connected because the “he” in the second verse means it can’t stand alone but requires the first. If had said “the wicked” or even repeated “the sluggard” the two would not have to be put together but the pronoun links the two and we are left with the second verse juxtaposing the craving of sluggards against the giving of the righteous.

Not only does the righteous labor, but he labors that he might give, not merely to satisfy his desire. I would argue that the desire of the sluggard is killing him today even as he is given what he wants, money without labor. He is being destroyed by his desire even as he has achieved it, at another’s expense. We are created to work, to prize creation (production) over consumption. David Bahnsen points out in the book mis·inflation that the servant who failed to wisely invest his talent was not reckoned wicked because of poor management or an investment that went south but because of a disdain for his master and the other two were not considered worthy because of the gains but because of the faithful service they rendered.

Are we the kind of people who long to work that we might give and never worry about giving too much or the kind that only works as little as possible that our desires might be provided for?

Coram deo