Proverb of the Day 5/31

This is our last Proverb of the Day for the month of May!!! (Collective “awww…”) I hope that these have been a blessing to you! I know, and the other authors can attest to this as well, that these postings have been an amazing encouragement to me! We do not provide them to try and flaunt something that we wish we knew, but rather because they hit our hearts and God touched us about changing in an area, or maybe He encouraged us..etc., and we want to share what the Holy Spirit has laid on our hearts. With that said, here is May’s last Proverb of the Day…

Proverbs 31:27 - “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.”

I’ve only got one word for you….YUM!!! Doesn’t that bread look…scrum-diddly-umptous??? That is chocolate chip bread!!! OH!!! My mouth is sagging on the floor!!! lol That bread sure looks tasty and I’m sure it is…BUT…it’s really not good for me :( It has sugar and chocolate chips! Yummy, but devastating for my body! My taste buds love it, but my digestive system has a hard time not storing it as fat! There is a lesson here that God is trying to teach us and he used the illustration of bread. Let’s continue and make an application for our lives…

God mentions, “the bread of idleness.” This bread is obviously something that we are not supposed to partake of, seeing how the woman in Proverbs 31:27 was praised because she “eateth the bread of idleness.” What is idleness? The word idle means, “inactive; doing nothing.”, according to Webster’s 1828 Dictionary. We are admonished and commanded not to be idle. Another word which is a synonym of idle is slothful. The person who is idle is slothful because they are doing nothing, when they very well could be doing something productive. When a person stops being productive, he becomes idle, and then is in danger of becoming slothful. How does this fit it with the illustration of bread? Why did God use bread as a way of communicating His point?

Bread is a symbol for food in general. Food is something that we MUST HAVE in order to survive, but not all food is good food. There is good bread and bad bread. There is food that taste good, and food that is disgusting…you know brussell sprouts, beets, radishes, etc…(sorry mom). And there is food that taste awesome…spaghetti, Mongolian beef from my favorite Chinese restaurant, lasagna…ok….ANYTHING ITALIAN OR CHINESE!!! There is also, to our great regret, food that is good and BAD for us. :( There is food that is good tasting, but is not good for our body…hence, the tempting picture of chocolate chip bread! It might taste good, it might be satisfying for a little while, but after a few too many pieces of said chocolate bread, we’re going to notice some “love handles” are getting some more “love” put on ‘em then we want! It might have tasted good, and still does, but it really wasn’t the best thing for us!

Idleness is the same way. It is no fun to work sometimes…it is no fun to stay productive sometimes…sometimes we just wanna be lazy!!! Sometimes we just wanna take a day and do nothing…be idle! That idleness feels really good too!!! It is great to stay in your PJ’s all day and watch movies!!! That is fun and it “tastes” great…BUT…is it really what is best for us? Unfortunately not… :( However, just like one piece of chocolate chip bread will not break the bank…neither will some time of idleness. Idleness, like chocolate chip bread, however, has a quality that makes you want more and more. After too much time of idleness, you will find yourself with nothing to show for it but excess “weight” stacked up in your life, that you could have taken care of day by day, but instead you chose to put it off and be idle.

We live in an idle society. Don’t get me wrong, we are busy…but we are busy being idle! We rush from store to store…being idle. We rush from restaurant to restaurant being…idle! We are like Paul said,

2 Thessalonians 3:11 - “For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.”

Notice, they were busy, but they were not working!!! What about us? Are we working? Or, are we just busy being idle? What have you accomplished today? Does your house need cleaning, but instead you were too busy being idle? Does your lawn need mowing, but instead you were too busy being idle? Does your Bible need reading but you were too busy being idle? Do souls need to be won buy you are too busy being idle? No one has ever been hurt by a lack of idleness, but many are destroyed by it. I know that idleness looks good…just like that bread…I know it will taste good, but afterwards I will have nothing to show for it. But, if I am productive and I work today, I can look back with a smile.

Don’t you want to look back on yesterday and say, “Wow! Look at how much I got done!” Isn’t that a better feeling than knowing that you wasted a whole day of your life? Again, it is totally great to spend some “idle time” relaxing, but try to even make your idle time productive…read your Bible, pray, be with the family and kids, call a friend and let them know you care about them, READ THE BLOG (sorry, that was a shameless plug lol), etc… “Today is the material with which Yesterday’s are made.” ~ Dr. Jack Hyles Don’t you want a good yesterday to look back on? You won’t get it by being idle. Those of us who may say, “Yes I will! I am just going to do nothing all day long…I LOVE IT!”, will regret it when we see all of those “pounds” of undone things stacking up on the body of life. That person has nothing to look back on. Nothing to see and say, “Look at all that God did through me today!” So that, when tomorrow comes, we can look back on yesterday with gratification in our hearts and say,

“to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.” Isaiah 56:12