Walk of Life- Day 26- November 2020- Thoughts from the Book of Proverbs.

Proverbs 26:14 “As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed.”

A door can go only till its hinges allow it to go. It cannot go beyond its limit. We can say that the hinges control the door. This has been compared to the life of a lazy person being controlled by his bed.

We might be thinking that this verse does not relate to us but to those who wake up late and always sleep. It is not so. Here the bed refers to our comforts and desires. Is it not true that most of the times when we are given a task, we check whether doing that task disturbs our comfort zone or not? Based on the results, we take an action.

We all might be having a comfort zone of our own. For instance, when I was in my eighth standard an uncle very close to us visited our family. Accidentally few of the contents from his plate fell down and he asked me to clean it with the broom. It is not a tough task for an eighth standard girl. I was worried that uncle might find fault in my work. Instead of being criticized, I felt telling him that I do not know to sweep would be comfortable. So, I lied. I find it uncomfortable when someone examines my work while I do it. in this way, we all must be having comforts of our own which do not let us to go farther in our lives.

We will be called as stagnant believers in that case. We refuse to obey God’s commands and try doing things which make us feel comfortable. There is no scope of spiritual growth if we possess this kind of attitude.

I was reminded of prophet Jonah while I was meditating on this verse. When God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, Jonah preferred to go to Tarshish. Jonah explains his version in Jonah 4:2 saying,” O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country?” He knew that God would graciously forgive the people of Nineveh if they repent after listening to the message brought to them by him. What would he be doing staying in his country? He would be taking rest probably. Jonah was comfortable serving the Lord in his country. He did not want to take up any task given by the Lord which would counter his beliefs or that would disturb his comfortable life.

Are we not like Jonah many a times? We question God, “Why do you always give me a task that requires me to sacrifice something or the other?”. We find excuses and bury ourselves in our comforts. The saddest part of the story is that we feel we are working for the Lord by doing what we can do. However, we fail to realize that God wants us to do what He says, not what we want to do.

Until and unless you step out of your comfort zone you cannot be doing what God actually wants you to do. Do not sit measuring your efforts in doing a work. It is never “more the efforts, greater the work” in the eyes of the Lord. God rewards us according to our willingness to do and our faithfulness in doing the work.

Be always willing to do Lord’s work with faithfulness. Our comfort should be sealed in doing God’s work. Only then we can grow spiritually.

“Make sure you are doing what God wants you to do. Then do it with all your strength.”