Proverbs 12:11
Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.
The book of Proverbs seems to be contrasting two types of people – the wise and the fool; the discerning and the undiscerning; the diligent and the lazy. It is regarding the latter that we talk about today. Our text presents two sets of individuals. One puts their hand to work while the other is concerned about worthless pursuits. Some versions interpret ‘worthless pursuits’ as ‘fantasies’. That the one who is obsessed with fantasies, building pies in the sky totally lacks sense. In fact, Proverbs 28:19 sort of repeats this same saying but adds a small detail at the end:
Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty.
You can either have plenty of bread or plenty of poverty, the choice is yours to make. When it comes to work, wisdom dictates that we must *do* it. We can’t forever theorise about what we would like to see.
We must get our hands dirty and get some work done. But also, we must be *diligent* in our work. This is a constant theme in the book of Proverbs. In fact, we are admonished to go learn from the work ethics of the ants and how diligent they are (Proverbs 6:6-11). The other aspect of our work that we need to take care of is our dexterity, which means being skilful. One’s skill, the Bible tells us, brings them before kings (Proverbs 22:29). We must, therefore, continually hone our skill.
The three things mentioned above – doing, diligence, dexterity – are not the only aspects of our work that we need to take note of. There are other areas like integrity, self-control, etc, that we can’t get into for now. However, the wisdom remains that we must exercise wisdom at our work. Guess what? There’s a promise attached to this:
All hardwork brings a profit… (Proverbs 14:23)
Reflections
1. What aspect of your work do you need to work on in order to grow in wisdom?
