I think God has a sense of humor. I seriously think He does. Who has heard of the Dodo? It is a ‘flightless’ bird that used to be found on islands such as Mauritius. It is now extinct. It flew nowhere, and cannot be found anywhere anymore. And Tola’s ancestor is called ‘Dodo’. What interesting connection between the ancient and modern. If you fly nowhere, you will die off the planet sooner than later.
There is a reason for life. We are to do something with it. Doing something with all that you are and have is a necessary response to the gift of life. This is evident from the fact that growth and addition or subtraction is the natural direction of life at every point in time.
So we start life from blobs of liquid. So miniscule that originally we cannot be seen with eyes. Then the multiplication happens so effectively that soon, we are a bundle of tissue. And the liquid begins to turn into bones, hair and all forms of organs. It is an incredible process. The very fabric of every form of life expresses that life requires constant growth, and action. At some point in time, growth means subtraction. Hair loss, even height. But still, something happens. Life is never nothing.
So what happens when we choose to be lazy and stagnant? The answer is also evident in the fabric of life. Inertia brings decay. Unused houses fall apart. Untended gardens invite weeds, rodents and snakes. Unused limbs begin to cause trouble to the whole body. If you do nothing, it is not nothing that happens. It is destruction. You get overtaken by wrong. So laziness and doing nothing is never an option in life.
Closely related to laziness is the temptation that empty hands place on us. For if you do nothing and get nothing, how do you take care of your needs? Many turn to the abuse of things they were meant to take care of. Corruption is the lifestyle of the reckless, negligent and incompetent. For when they find their hands empty of gain, reward and benefit, they turn to the siphoning of what does not belong to them.
Of course, the greedy, who has more than he needs for his personal use and wants more for just his own house, is a companion in corruption. The antidote to emptiness is work and reward. The antidote to corruption is a life lived to serve others. Incidentally, this combination formed God’s first command to man. ‘Work and take care of it’. I wish we would remember this charge. Because if we obey it, we will not need to be constantly reminded of any other law. We would love God, and love our neighbors as ourselves. And this is the whole law.