“The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth.”
~Proverbs 19.24
The image is a comical one. A platter of food rests in the middle of the table. If the dish to which Solomon refers is a common one for that day, it doesn’t have any sides to negotiate. It is not a bowl that one would have to reach into and pull out of. Those at the table could simply reach and retrieve food with a minimal amount of effort, scraping it to themselves if they had to. Here is this man who has exerted just enough effort to get his hand to the plate of food, buries his hand in the food, but now he has neither the will nor the energy to bring it back to his mouth. All that he needs to sustain him and bring him joy is literally at his fingertips (actually, all over his fingertips), but his torpor keeps him from it. He will starve even though everything he needs is easily accessible.
He started the whole arduous process of eating, but he didn’t have the energy to finish it. Not finishing what one starts is the way of the fool. Solomon characterizes this as having a “slack hand” in Proverbs 10.4 He puts his hand to something, he takes hold of a commitment and, therefore, a responsibility, but then he lets it go before the job is complete. Maybe he had good intentions. He made commitments. He may have even been excited at first about what he was going to do. His hand might have been the fastest to get to the dish, but he quit on the project as quickly as he started.
The slack hand is careless. This carelessness is rooted in the heart and comes out through the fingertips. In Proverbs 24.30, Solomon characterizes the sluggard as one who literally has a “heart-lack” (translated “lacks sense”). He has no mental or physical energy for the project after he gets started. If he does anything at all, it is half done like getting his hand into the dish but not bringing it back. His work is slipshod and incomplete ultimately accomplishing nothing. He abandons his work, and the result of indolence is a vineyard field that is covered with thorns and nettles. His hand refuses to work to push back the effects of the curse (Gen 3.19), so the curse overtakes him.
This is not to say that every project you begin must be finished in the way you first imagined it. Some projects need to be abandoned along the way. You may discover that what you thought would be good and productive was just the opposite. Providence may erect roadblocks along the way that tell you, “This is not the way to go.” There are times when it is wise to abandon certain projects, pull back, and re-think what you need to be doing.
But there are times when you don’t finish things merely because you grow weary or bored with them. You become apathetic toward your commitments and want to quit. Making babies is fun. Having a new baby is exciting. Having lots of babies is exciting, and the Reformed world rises up and calls you blessed. But then those little tikes become increasingly challenging. What happened to my “me time,” my dreams, my aspirations? The sloth quits when rearing the children becomes difficult. The parents may not abandon the children in some open field or at the doorstep of an orphanage, but they abandon the day-to-day diligence to the discipline and instruction that it takes to finish well. It’s just not fun anymore.
Parents foster this sloth in their children as well when they believe that their little darlings ought not to have to do anything that they don’t feel like doing. We are fed these lines about people “chasing their dreams” and “finding their passions,” and we have taken that to mean that our children should be able to quit when they see a shiny object somewhere else and become bored with what they are doing. We will excuse it all, as any good sloth will, with a culturally “wise” reason that they ought to be able to follow their passions (see Pr 26.16).
Quitting like this is allowing what you are feeling at a particular moment in time to dictate to you the course of your life instead of having your responsibilities do that. Sticking with nothing will accomplish just that: nothing.
The answer to foolish slack hand is wisdom’s diligent hand (Pr 10.4). Diligence is that steady, earnest, determined, energetic effort that is devoted to the painstaking work to accomplish a task. The diligent hand takes hold of the project and doesn’t let it go until the mission is accomplished. The diligent hand, with purpose in mind, refuses to let go through the difficulties and distractions. The hand has taken hold of the plow and doesn’t look back.
Those children are my responsibility until they move out to form their own households. Whatever else I was dreaming about before they came along takes a back seat or is thrown out altogether. God has put them in my hand, and he expects my hand to be a diligent hand. That responsibility I have taken on in business, at the church, or wherever is now in my hand. My hand must tenaciously hold on to it until I have completed the task. My children must also learn this diligence. (Proverbs is, after all, written to instruct a young man coming into his adulthood.) This means that they should see their commitments through, even when it isn’t fun anymore.
Finish what you start. This is the way of wisdom.
