More Like Sheba

My dog is lazy. If you have a dog, you could probably say the same thing. She's almost 7 and spends her days sleeping on the couch that she knows she is not to be on. (I watch enough CSI to know the signs: hair, pillows on the floor, messed up cushions. Yep, she is sleeping on the couch!) But when you walk into the house, she is at your feet, wagging her tail, putting her head under your hand, her nose pushing your leg. Although she is lazy all day, when it comes to important things for a dog, she is as energetic as can be. She knows what's important to her and how to work at it.

"A lazy person is as bad as someone who destroys things." (Proverbs 18:9, NLT)

There are days that I am ashamed of my own actions. Even the good I do turns out not to be as good as I had desired and the things I don't want to do, I continue to do. This doesn't make me a bad person, it makes me normal, but I don't like the results. And sometimes the reason I am ashamed of my actions is I haven't worked very hard to achieve the results I wanted.

Albert Einstein once defined this practice as "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Now I'm not lazy, I work hard at important things. I've said I am a procrastinator, but that's different from lazy. Lazy just does things half-heartedly (if at all). No, hard work is what most of us do every day...for someone else, for a living, for a vocation, for compensation, for upward mobility, for status, for honor. We work hard to take care of our families, but we might be lazy to know them. I want to be more like my dog, Sheba. She has it right. When I am with my family I should have the same excitement and energy that I have for my work, maybe even more. I can't wag my tail (I don't have one last time I checked.) but I can show my excitement to see them, my desire to be with them, to love them. I want to be more like Sheba.

I'm gone many evenings for meetings, appointments, weddings, worship, Bible Study, etc. Some nights when I come home, my kids are ready for bed, or are already in bed and it makes me very aware that I've been lazy. Lazy to take care of the important relationships in my life. And just like the proverb, I might as well be trying to destroy them because it can have the same result.

When we think about being lazy, we generally don't consider relationships. But these are just as affected by our laziness. Relationships are built on intentionality. It takes hard work to make and keep friends, to make and keep a spouse, to nurture and keep your children close. To ignore this hard work is to lose something very precious.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and all of next week. It's spring break (even though it is snowing right now.) My kids have the week off, plan on sleeping in and enjoying some time to rest. I'm looking forward to take a day or two to share with them, to do something exciting. I am going to nurture my relationship with them. They haven't said it or complained, but I realize that I've been lazy with my family and I have to do better, for them and for me! I'm going to be more like Sheba.

Take some time from your normal busy schedule and work on something really important today, a close relationship with a friend or family. They need it and so do you!

Peace ><>
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