NO WORK, MORE WANTS

Work is a physical or mental effort or activity directed towards the production or accomplishment of something, and such effort or activity by which a person makes a living. It is also any meaningful and productive daily life activity – doing, making or performing something, serving someone, or providing something of worth to others – which is not an occupation or a paying job. As these definitions suggest, there are different kinds of work: physical or manual, mental or creative, occupational or organizational and chores. The opposite of work is idleness, or better put, indolence. This is an attribute that God detests. The Scriptures tell us in Genesis 2:15 that God created humans to work, “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” You’re made in God’s image and likeness, and God is a worker (Genesis 1:1-31). He is never and will never be idle; therefore, as a reflection of Him, you must work and not be idle. 

When you’re idle and don’t work, you defeat the purpose of your existence; that is, you’re not fulfilling your purpose of living. Not just that, you create room for Satan to manipulate and lure you into something evil, for an idle hand is the devil’s workshop, says an old cliché. Also, you impoverish yourself, for the Scriptures say, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man” (Proverbs 24:30-34). If you’re a sluggard – a lazy person who avoids work or physical exertion – and you don’t have any gainful employment, you don’t give any humanitarian service or preach the Gospel, you will be physically and spiritually poor. 

Economists posit that human wants are insatiable, and they are right. We have catalogue of wants ranging from spiritual, financial, material to emotional, but God has provided one means of meeting our most pressing needs – work. As a man or woman, you cannot sit down idle without working. God wants you to work in order to support yourself and not to depend on others for sustenance. The Bible commands, “If any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). This is a just maxim meaning you shouldn’t be supported by anyone or organization, be they close relations or the church, unless you’re willing to fend for yourself by working. Actually, the maxim, which is foundation on the words of the Lord in Genesis 3:19, was a proverb among the Jews that an able – bodied person who can work but would rather support himself by begging from door to door should not get one morsel of bread.

Idleness or laziness brings more wants. As a sluggard, you desire or crave to have but get nothing because you don’t work (Proverbs 13:4). Aside from more wants, idleness or laziness is a sin. The word of pronounces Christians who don’t work to fend for themselves and their families as backsliders, “If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8). Now, what will you rather do: be idle and be in want or work and be satisfied? The choice is yours to make.