As a leader who’s passionate about helping people discover and develop their purpose, one of the hardest things in the world for me to watch is when people sabotage their own destiny.
It’s one thing to see potential in someone who hasn’t seen it in themselves yet, but its an entirely other thing to watch someone who knows deep down inside what their purpose is, but choose to neglect it or reject it altogether.
Today I’m going to start a series of posts on what I believe are the 3 most common “purpose killers.” I want to tackle these one at a time so let’s get started with the first and perhaps most dangerous one.
For some people, the choice to not cultivate their potential is nothing more than a case of good old fashioned apathy (also known as laziness).
And please don’t underestimate the destructive power of laziness in your life. To borrow the words of King Solomon,
“A lazy person is as bad as someone who destroys things” (Pro 18:9 NLT).
I often wonder how many times “The Devil” is blamed for the destruction of something that was caused by our own laziness. No doubt you know or have known somebody in your life that had some sort of undeniable talent. It was obvious to everybody around them that they have what it takes to go to the next level, but they weren’t willing to cultivate (aka “Work” at developing) their gift.
And have you ever noticed that when we struggle with feelings of apathy towards our purpose, we always tend to blame the time? We say stuff like:
Whether it’s putting together a budget, organizing your life, working on your relationships or going back to school to get that degree, when laziness is embraced and purpose is pushed aside; people often times go through life expecting everything to be done for them.
Perhaps the most dangerous thing about laziness is that it’s a choice. It’s an attitude rooted in a spiritual disease called “pride.”
While not all prideful people are lazy, I’ve never met a lazy person that wasn’t prideful. We’ll talk more about pride later on, but in the mean time here’s what you need to know about laziness: the longer you embrace it, the harder it will be to break it. Either you destroy it or as King Solomon said, it will destroy you.
[shareable cite=”PastorTHall”]While not all prideful people are lazy, I’ve never met lazy person who wasn’t prideful.[/shareable]
Look, we all deal with it from time to time. Every once in a while in some area of our lives it just seems easier to make excuses than it is to make progress.
But if we’re going to pursue our purpose we’ve got to stop waiting for some mysterious force of energy to blow into our living room and pick us up off of the couch. To once again quote King Solomon:
Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper.(Proverbs 13:4)
It’s time to believe in yourself and invest in yourself.
Resist the urge to put off your purpose for “a more convenient time” because the pursuit of your purpose will NEVER feel convenient.
Make up your mind today to get back to investing in and developing the potential of your own amazing purpose. It’s NOT too late.
[shareable cite=”PastorTHall”]We can make excuses or we can make progress, but we can’t make both at the same time.[/shareable]
What are some ways that you’ve learned to beat the lazy bug? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Equipping leaders to Start well, Stay well, and Finish well.