A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man. (Proverbs 6:10–11)
All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. (Proverbs 14:23)
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? Those who linger over wine, who go to sample bowls of mixed wine. (Proverbs 23:29–30)
In our world, poverty is often viewed as some cosmic curse visited on totally undeserving victims, and government taxation and the dole are perceived as the rightful remedy for this horrible injustice. Solomon and his sages held a different viewpoint. In a book in which a score of passages deal with poverty, key principles are set forth to cure this malady.
The first is hard work. Proverbs 6:10–11 is a portrait of a lazy person—sleeping, slumbering, and folding his hands to rest. This must have been an important principle to reinforce, as the same Proverb is repeated later in the book! If Proverbs were written today, the phrase might be, “Too much lying around, too much time on the couch watching TV, too much time on the Internet, and poverty will strike like lightning.” Again and again, in this book, hard work is lauded as central to elevating the poor out of their situation. Naturally, some cannot work or secure jobs because of physical or emotional impairment or political oppression, but these are not the majority of the poor in most cultures. One transcultural character attribute is laziness until it is driven out by parental instillation of the work ethic.
Principle: Working and eating are flip sides of the currency of life; without eating one cannot work and without working one cannot eat.
I love the expression, “ten-gallon hat”, that Texans have for a man who is all talk and no show, all bluster and no delivery, all image and no substance. They refer to this loser as “all hat and no cattle”! Note the principle listed above, “Mere talk leads only to poverty.” In the entertainment business, it seems that big talkers predominate, and hard workers are in the minority—especially when it comes to funding promises. One media pro says, “In Hollywood, money talk is trash until it’s cash.” Avoiding poverty is a matter of backing words with actions and dealing only with others who do the same.
Principle: Not only is talk “cheap”, without the backing of integrity and hard work, it creates deficits that can never be repaid.
A survey of homeless people in Los Angeles some time ago found that they fell into three rather equal categories—mentally impaired; those who legitimately had fallen on hard times through divorce, job loss, etc.; and substance abusers. That third category is addressed by Solomon and friends as “folly.” A modern word would be stupidity.
Those who through sheer stupidity succumb to drunkenness, substance abuse, and gang connections take giant steps toward poverty. Solomon identified substance abusers by “woe,” “sorrow,” “strife,” “complaints,” “needless injuries,” and “bloodshot eyes.” An interesting mix of descriptors and hardly marks of whole, healthy, and prosperous people! The wise person avoids intoxicants, hallucinogens, substance abusers, dens of intoxication and addiction, and hangouts for fools.
Principle: Every person is designed to be intoxicated by God alone. Those ”under the influence” of any other person, substance, motivation, or power which does not draw them closer to Him are cruising for a bruising.
[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]