Can satan encourage hard work ?

Liba Hopeson *

"Run away from laziness: work hard", says Alber Elbaz. Cyril Connolly writes, "A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he set out, will have condemned himself to second-hand thoughts and to second-rate friends."

Charles Spurgeon says, "There is no fatigue so wearisome as that which comes from lack of work". A saying goes, "Some men are so lazy they won't even feed themselves".

Idleness is a character which we loathe. The Bible teaches us not to be lethargic. Proverbs 13:4 says, "The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich". He who is slothful in his work is a brother to him who is a great destroyer (Proverbs 18:9).

To achieve success we are frequently taught and reminded to be hard working. We learn laziness is the work of the devil. Hard working individuals are often eulogized and applauded. Many talk a lot about the goodness of hard work. Beautiful quotes have been written on it.

Pele says, "Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do". According to John Carmack, focused, hard work is the real key to success. But is laziness only the work of the devil? Can Satan encourage hard work?

To me, Satan can encourage hard work for different reasons. So, it is wrong to think that all the diligent people are with the Holy Spirit. All hard work is not of God or accepted by Him. The belief that God loves every hard working person is an illusion.

Satan won't tempt all people to be lazy. He could entice us to be assiduous and do awful, catastrophic and inglorious things in life.

Satan could employ hard work to produce:

i) People who invent dangerous and hazardous things for humanity to exist.

ii) People who oppress and suppress the weak and the ignorant.

iii) People who discriminate and subjugate others with their knowledge acquired.

iv) People who steal, siphon off money for the poor and involve in all scams and corruptions.

v) People who bring disunity and hatred in the society.

vi) People who indoctrinate and deceive God's children.

vii) People who distort the truth of the Scripture and sway the believers.

It is said that well learned people can do ruinous things more than the uneducated ones. They can steal, lie, steal, kill and create more problems. D L Moody says, "If a man is stealing nuts and bolts from a railway track and in order to change him, you send him to college, at the end of education, he will steal the whole railway track".

Irrefutably, hard work does not always produce desirable and good results. Thus, when a person is hard working, we should not always be glad thinking that he is a nice person and he will do well in life. We ought to know why a person works hard – the purpose of doing things diligently matters.

Today, many are so busy that they don't have time to go to Church, read Bible and pray. Such busy life would be acclaimed and welcomed by the devil. Due to hard work, many don't have time for their friends, families and neighbors. They often say they are busy. The question is, busy for what and for whom? Are they busy only for their personal lives?

Yes, some can labor without spending much time with the people so that they could invent something good or do a productive job for the people. Such visionary individuals should not be misjudged and denounced. We are good at judging those people who do not join social work, but we hardly realize that at times, some do not join societal activities for higher social cause.

But, many are always busy for acquiring knowledge for the sake of acquiring; for accumulating more wealth so that they could get richer and richer; for building palaces without having any concern for the society. They live a greedy and selfish life – life without purpose. Hard work is not absent in their life, yet they do not have love, care, mercy, kindness and goodness.

All hard work is not good. We should be toiling hard to live a meaningful life. We should encourage one another to work hard for good purpose. If somebody is simply laboring busily without any good intention, we ought to help them realize their purpose.

A kind lazy person is better than an antagonistic hard working man who brings problem in the society. Can the devil encourage us to work hard so that we become heartless and belligerent? Think!