A man was driving along a road when he overtook a farmer with his dog walking beside him. The man offered them a ride. The farmer got into the front seat and put the dog in the back. After glancing at the dog, who seemed too tired to even wag his tail, the driver remarked, “You must have been walking a long time from the looks of your dog.”
Laughingly the farmer said, “It wasn’t the trip that wore him out. He was running back and forth across the road, sticking his nose into every gate and wrestling with every stone wall. He had to chase every cat and scare all the chickens he saw. If a dog barked at him he barked back ten times in return. No wonder he’s tired.”
The old farmer pushed back the hat on his head. He was silent for a moment, then said, “You know, people are like that. If they get worn out on their joumey through life, it’s usually not the distance they’ve covered that makes them tired. It’s the extra work they asked for themselves by minding everybody’s business but their own.”
…but we beseech you brethren, that ye increase more and more; And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you” (1 Thessalonians 4:10-11).
via Munfordville, KY (1998)
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