September 16, Proverbs 12
Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense. - Proverbs 12:11
Proverbs is a cache of practical wisdom for everyday life. It's hard to imagine something more practical than food to eat and doing what’s necessary to get that food. That brings us to our text for today.
Most of us live quite different lives from our ancient ancestors. These words were written to and for people living in an agrarian economy. We may think our food comes from the store and forget that the store is only the last middleman in a series of intermediaries between the farm and our dinner table. But these people knew they got their food from working the ground, planting seed, cultivating the field and gathering the harvest. They were dependent on God for the rain and sun and fertile seed. But since Adam and Eve were evicted from their garden home, humans have had to work the ground to raise their food. All but the wealthiest or laziest of the ancients knew that bread did not just appear on the shelf sliced, wrapped and ready to eat.
Few of us are farmers. Instead we work at some other task, earn money and spend it for food. That money goes back through the distribution chain until the farmer gets a small portion of it for his labor. Whether there’s dirt under our fingernails or not, we know that work is still the honorable way to provide for ourselves and our families.
The proverb calls it "his land," indicating the farmer either owned the land or had permission to cultivate it. This is the principle of using what you have to be productive. Daydreaming of ways to get rich instead of doing the work you have to do today will not put food on your table. Wasting precious hours of the day in idleness will not bring bread to feed your family. God may not have given you a farm, but he has given us every good thing we possess and expects us to use it. We must not be jealous of what others have or discontent with what we have lest we accuse God of getting our allotment all wrong. We need to "work our land," because it is senseless to waste time and resources doing otherwise.
When I was a young boy, Weekly Reader advised us grade school kids that when we grew up computers and robots would do the work for us, giving us much more free time. That hasn’t happened, has it? If you're like me, you use technology to help you work, but many of us are busier than ever. (That personal jet pack they promised me hasn’t arrived yet, either.) It's true that the harvest comes after the work of sowing and reaping, but not all work is productive. We can be busy to the point of exhaustion and not do what we should have done. Whatever our skill or profession, we need to "work our own land" and not senselessly follow "worthless pursuits."
This principle is true about more than food and jobs. It's true about relationships. If we want our marriages and relationships with our children to be fulfilling, we have to work on them. I know it takes more than one person to build a good relationship, but it will never happen without doing our part. It's true about the church doing its work, too. We need to know what our work is, and not get distracted by 100 other things that might be good, but are not what Jesus told us to do.
When the siren song of worthless pursuits comes to our ears, let's renew our commitment to mind our business, do our work and enjoy the fruits of our labor with thankful hearts to God who blesses us with our "land," our "work" and our "bread."
Copyright © 2021 by Michael B. McElroy. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—September 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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