Proverbs 31 Challenge: Don’t Do Nothing

She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Proverbs 31:27

With only four verses to go, we now arrive at the summary of this whole series. All the verses before this have shown us that the virtuous godly woman works to maintain her household.

We’ve seen that the Proverbs 31 woman rose early in the morning to start a productive day. She made clothing, bought food, planted vineyards, sold sashes, decorated her home, and helped the poor. This had to be a woman who didn’t often give into the temptation to just sit there and do nothing.

How many of us can say we’re as productive as this woman? Our daily to-do list may not include planting vineyards or sewing winter coats, but we all have things to do that are more important than the latest Top Model marathon (believe me, its easy to get sucked into those).

I recently had three weeks off of school. On my last day of class, I put together a list of things I wanted to do during my time off. It included painting the hallway closet, doing some work on the kitchen cabinets, re-finishing a couple of pieces of furniture, and keeping the house clean. Even though I had two full weeks to do this (one week was spent in Mexico), I somehow managed to accomplish nothing. These things would have benefited my family, but I instead chose to give in to my desire to waste time.

This isn’t to say that we should never rest or always be so busy we have no time for relaxation. There should be a healthy balance between work and rest. I think the problem is that we tend to lean towards resting more often than towards working.

A big part of taking care of your home and those who share it with you is resisting the urge to always do nothing. Whether it’s the television, the telephone, the internet, or something else that tempts you to forget to do laundry, make dinner, or help someone out, I encourage you to think of others before yourself.