“The lazy man says, “There is a lion outside!  I shall be slain in the streets!” (Proverbs 22:13).

“The lazy man says, ‘There is a lion in the road!  A fierce lion in the streets!’  As a door turns on its hinges, so does the lazy man on his bed.” (Proverbs 26:13-14). 

If there were an actual lion in the road, that might be a valid reason to stay inside and not venture out of one’s house at that moment.  One might wait until the lion goes away. 

In 2009, while I was living in Alaska, a large moose decided to lie down in my driveway next to my jeep’s door.  I was not going to approach the jeep until the moose moved.  I believed that I started banging pots and pans.  It eventually moved and went elsewhere.  In 2021, a nine-month-old, 175-pound tiger named India was on the loose for nearly a week in a Houston neighborhood (Tiger on Loose in Houston for Nearly a Week Moved to Animal Sanctuary by Julia Jacobo, May 16, 2021, abcnews.go.com).  In 2024, a tiger was on the loose on the Mexico – Texas border after escaping from the Quinta La Fauna Zoo in Reynosa, Mexico, just south of Hidalgo, Texas.  It was captured after nearly a week (Escaped Tiger That Had Texas Communities on Edge Finally Caught by Ariana Garcia, Sept. 10, 2024, chron.com).  In these situations, there is good reason to be very cautious.

However, the words in Proverbs are a lazy man’s excuse for inactivity.  It is as if he is saying, “I cannot go to work.  It is dangerous out there.  I could be killed by a lion” (cf. Proverbs 22:13).

Those who don’t want to do a thing will often come up with excuses that make little or no sense.  Zig Ziglar told the story of a man who did not want to lend his neighbor his lawnmower.  He told him that he couldn’t because all the flights from New York to Los Angeles had been cancelled.  The neighbor wanted to know what that had to do with his borrowing the lawnmower.  The man replied, “Nothing … but if I don’t want to loan you my lawnmower, one excuse is as good as another” (From the book, Something Else to Smile About by Zig Ziglar). What one says and the real reason are sometimes very different things.

Let’s not make excuses.  Let us do the things that we should do.  Many people make excuses for not accepting the Lord’s invitation (cf. Luke 14:15-24).  May we not be guilty.