QUESTION TO CONSIDER: What do ants teach us about laziness and diligence?
BIBLE LESSON: Read Proverbs 6:6-11. We can learn a lot by observing nature and the way God created things to be and to work. Solomon instructs the sluggard to go watch the ants to learn a valuable lesson from them. What is a sluggard? A sluggard is simply a lazy person, one who does not like to work. If a sluggard will take Solomon’s advice and watch the ants for awhile, what might he learn from them? Ants work hard and stay very busy. They are constantly moving in order to gather food and store it in their mounds. The lesson to learn from the ants is to get busy and prepare. Do you think a sluggard takes steps to make sure he has enough food? Why or why not? A sluggard’s laziness costs him. Solomon says that the sluggard likes to sleep a lot instead of working, and then when he needs something, he does not have it. What comes on him like a robber? Poverty! It’s hard for a sluggard to have enough money to pay for the things which he needs if he is too lazy to work and earn the needed money. This proverb is probably where Aesop got the idea for his fable: The Ant and the Grasshopper. In that story, the ant worked hard all summer constantly storing up food to prepare for the coming winter while the grasshopper sat around or just had fun because he didn’t want to work. When winter came, guess who was hungry? The grasshopper had failed to work and prepare in summer and was forced to beg food from the ant who had plenty stored up. The grasshopper should have taken Solomon’s advice and watched the ant more closely. Instead, his poverty came upon him like a robber.
Read Proverbs 30:25. The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their food in the summer. Ants are not strong, but they still work hard. They don’t use their tiny size or weakness as an excuse to do nothing. They have a job to do, and they do it well. No excuses. That is diligence!
What do you demonstrate in your life – diligence or laziness? Proverbs teaches us a lot about the importance of working hard and being dependable, and avoiding habits that lead to laziness and its consequences.
Memory Work:
Proverbs 20:4 – The sluggard will not plow because of winter; Therefore he will beg during the harvest and have nothing.
Lesson Activities:
- Try solving this printable Rebus Puzzle.
- Ant Colony Observation – Get up close and personal with some ants, taking plenty of time to watch their habits, and/or watch a documentary about them to see what goes inside their tunnels and habitats.
- Read the story of The Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop.
- Draw or paint a picture of Proverbs 6:6-11 then show it to someone and explain its meaning.
This lesson and activities are contained in the “Growing Up in God’s Word” Proverbs study.