BLOCKED WITH THORNS

“The way of the upright is blocked with thorns but the path of the upright is a highway,” v. 19

Growing up in Kenya, I often came across stately acacia trees. They make a welcome canopy from the sun and shelter hundreds of chit-chattering weaverbirds. They boast formidable thorns which I would break off as a child to scrape some inscription on a piece of wood or clean out my dirty nails. Locals used branches of the acacia to form a temporary enclosure for a herd of small animals.

The problem this verse poses is a funny one. The thorn fence may keep a chicken or a couple of small sheep contained but a determined goat would blow right through it. When my nephew Kale was about 3, he was offered a platter of vegetables at the Thanksgiving table to help himself. With a most disgusted look, he shook his head slowly and declared, “I can’t like that.”

He spoke for the sluggard, who may think, ‘I really, really want to work, but I just can’t.’ In Proverbs 22:13 the sluggard says, “There’s a lion outside! I’ll be killed in the street!” We catch him again in 19:24 and 26:15, “A sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he will not even bring it back to his mouth!”

We may laugh but this is actually lamentable. It is ridiculous to hear the excuses a lazy person comes up with to get out of work. It seems that it takes more brain power to come up with the endless reasons for his laziness than he would expend in just working. Were he determined, he could move the thorns with little effort and go about his way, but no, there might be a lion out there!