The Old West wasn’t tamed by farmers who quit work at lunchtime.
Instead, there was feeding animals at sunrise, planting seed in the morning, plowing and mending fences in the early afternoon and repairing barns and checking on animals in the late afternoon until it was dark.
Though the order might have varied from farmer to farmer, the basic framework of responsibility was the same.
Keep busy. Keep progressing.
We’re a better nation now because of what those diligent folk did there and elsewhere around the country.
Of course, the principle of never slacking off applies in a spiritual sense as well.
Solomon — a lover of the soil — knew about keeping busy and productive.
Here’s what he had to say about the diligent lifestyle:
“Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both.” (Ecclesiastes 11:6)
If you’re in sales, you know that your livelihood depends on heeding this principle.
If you’re a fisherman, you know it applies on the water as well.
Virtually every endeavor we can imagine reveals the same truth — those who stay focused on their mission all day are the ones who succeed most frequently.
Please apply Solomon’s principle at your job. You’ll be a better employee. Your supervisor and co-workers will appreciate how you’re helping the company to succeed and have more revenue to share with workers.
Apply the principle if you’re in school. You never know if the additional review of book chapters you do in the afternoon before a test will help you score the A rather than a B or C.
And keep looking for opportunities to share news of God’s blessings in your life. Or keep looking for opportunities to pray with somebody about a pressing need in his or her life. We never know when a door is going to open for such opportunities.
What IS certain is that if we never look for them and if we never prepare for them, then we won’t go through them.
And what profit is that to us? Or to the Kingdom?
Let’s keep busy for Jesus. It’s how the Kingdom progresses in its mission to lead people to Christ.
As always, I love you
Martin
