Proverbs Experiment: Day Six

Writing this actually on Day Seven, but oh well...

Proverbs Chapter Six:

Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and be wise! (vs.6)

My daughter has this computer game that she got from Chick Fil-A. At first she was kind of annoyed with the kids' meals at Chick Fil-A because they are usually games or books and not actual toys (although right now McDonald's has My Little Ponies and that's the only place she wants to go!) - but the two games we got last year from there are pretty good. One is an Artist Game, where you get to draw things and make movies and all kinds of stuff. The other one is an Animal Adventure Game, where you go to different locations around the world and learn about different animals. Last year, in preschool, her teacher was talking about bats, and how they spot prey and everything, and my daughter raised her hand and said, "I know what that's called Ms. Stephanie. It's called "echolocation." She didn't learn it from me (I had no idea what it was called), she learned it from this game!

The Animal Adventure game spends quite a bit of time teaching about leafcutter ants. It's rather interesting, all the info you learn about these ants. One thing is sure about them: they don't stop doing what they are supposed to be doing! If your a worker ant that is supposed to collect leaves, you keep doing it. If you're an ant that is supposed to make the leaf paste, you keep doing it. If you are the one that is supposed to bring the paste down to the lower levels of the ant hole in order to grow the fungus, you keep doing it! (See, now you've learned a little bit about ants -good huh!)

The above verse is a good reminder that work is good. It's not that fun sometimes, and it can be tedious (I just finished painting our master bedroom, and decided to tape the ceiling and floorboards and everything before painting; I'm glad I did, but it took forever!) but we are not supposed to be lazy.

I can easily fall into laziness, however. Whether it be the baseball game on the X-Box, or whether it be watching a T.V. show, or whether it be hanging out at Barnes and Noble, I can become a lazybones in no time. One thing I'm trying to do during this time of having no job is keeping myself busy - like with paint projects - so that once I do get a job, I still have the work ethic thing going.

There are six things the Lord hates - no, seven things he detests:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that kill the innocent,
a heart that plots evil,
feet that race to do wrong,
a false witness who pours out lies,
a person who sows discord among brothers. (vs. 16-19)

No mincing words here. You don't have to wonder, "What does God hate?" Here's your answer right here.

I thought it was interesting that the first five things all involve a body part. Pretty easy way to remember this list.

A few interesting things:
- interesting that pride is the first on the list, since pride was the downfall of Satan and his angels; and you could say that pride was the downfall of us as well ("You shall be like God himself" was the temptation that Adam and Eve succumbed to.)

- a heart that plots evil is in the middle of the list. Why can't I stop thinking of Dr. Evil when I read this one on the list?

- interesting that there are two on the list that relate to the tongue - lying with the tongue, and bearing false witness with the tongue.

- I'm not surprised that the last one is on this list. There are way too many churches that are torn apart by people who cause disunity in the body of Christ. Although I think this can be taken out of context (sometimes, people need to be held accountable for their actions, like leaders, and bringing this to the forefront of a church community can cause there to be a split of opinion. Hopefully that's not the case, but it happens), it hurts the witness of a church in its community when someone ruins the church through division.