Some people always have an excuse, always blaming what they didn’t get done on someone else. Students (and too many parents) blame bad grades on teachers. Workers blame their bosses. Bosses blame their workers. Today’s proverb tells of a person who fears a lion may attack them if they actually get up and go outside. 

Proverbs 22:13 

The sluggard says, “There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!”

Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. The sluggard is full of them. “I am overqualified.” “I am underqualified.” “That’s too challenging.” “That’s not challenging enough.” “I am waiting for the perfect job that fits my gifts and training perfectly.” It’s too hard; it’s too soft; it’s too hot; it’s too cold. “I can’t work today. I am sure there is a lion outside just waiting to pounce on me or someone waiting to murder me. I’ll just stay at home and play video games.” Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Sadly, those fueled by “I can’t” mindsets are content to waste the precious gifts of time and talents with their manufactured excuses. Matthew Henry, the great seventeenth-century Bible commentator, puts excuses in perspective. He wrote, “[The sluggard] talks of a lion without, but considers not his real danger from the devil, that roaring lion, which is in bed with him, and from his own slothfulness, which kills him.”

Lord, may we never waste your gifts of time and talents with manufactured excuses.

For Jesus’ sake.

Amen.