I’m writing on the subject of SLOTH today and, honestly, in all my many years as a Christian, I never had this subject come up in my life, more than in the past few years. I really didn’t even know what SLOTH was, until now. I researched in Holy Scripture, SLOTH which is one of the 7 deadly sins God hates. Here’s what I discovered.
Imagine a wife and mother whose teenage child gives her constant anxiety, a pit in her stomach when she’s dealing with a child’s disobedience to God’s laws (Exodus 20) and the child is nothing but completely lazy. Never reward bad behaviors is the first step to resolution and discipline. The effects of persons in our lives that are SLOTHFUL are so heavy. It’s a draining weight, with a dark force behind it. Laziness causes emotional friction on the one victimized by it.
Basically speaking, sloth is LAZINESS that comes from carelessness about the commands and priorities of God, a lack of love for God and His ways that undermines a biblical doctrine of vocation. Ecclesiastes 10:18 reads: “Through laziness the rafters sag; because of idle hands, the house leaks.” I’m going to use this scripture to describe what a married Christian woman would endure if she continuously asks her husband, “please please fix this or that,” and he does not. She can’t fix it, or she would. She’s industrious and hard working. The wife feels utterly perplexed. She asks herself, “why can’t he just fix it and be done with it?” Instead, the wife remains baffled, and endures her husband calling her a “nag,” or whatever, and then floor boards cave in or the plumbing leaks. Or, the Christian wife with children and her husband “does not work,” and they’re living in abject poverty. How can a woman cope with such ignorance, such low standards, such laziness ? She leaves it in the hands of the Holy Spirit who guards her and directs her; takes care of all problems for her and family.
Sloth is a craving for personal comfort at all costs. Sloth isn’t just laziness. There is a deeper inner motivation to sin that, at its core, is a defective love. It’s a spiritual apathy, disinclination toward good works. Sloth is associated with a lack of love for God and His ways. It’s a failure to use ones gifts and talents leading to spiritual poverty.
Imagine a Christian woman working diligently in every aspect of her spiritual life carrying her cross with Jesus, but her carnal Christian husband wears his heavy dark spirit of laziness, his sloth is draining energy from her light. He’s even throwing words against her good works saying, he’s “born again, saved (John 3:3), and good deeds don’t matter cause he’s going to heaven regardless and just waiting on the rapture.” All his insistence on stagnation for his personal comfort at all costs; and emotionally draining his wife.
What is God’s direction for the wife of a slothful man ? The woman is to “stand firm” for her Lord Jesus and make it clear she will not tolerate any slothful low energy lazy persons in her life, and she continues with Holy Spirit in good works and carries her cross behind Jesus. That’s what she does.
Basically speaking, sloth is laziness that comes from carelessness about the commands and priorities of God. A lack of love for God and His ways, undermines a biblical doctrine of vocation that all Christians called by God are to follow in their daily lives. That means every day.
Unlike the rest of sins, which are committing immoral acts with others, etc. sloth is a sin of omitting responsibilities. Slothful behavior involves laziness, inactivity, and a lack of engagement with responsibilities. It can manifest as a reluctance to work, a failure to fulfill obligations, or an indifference to duties and tasks.
Slothful individuals do no belong in a spiritual Christian’s life, whatsoever or anyone’s life for that matter. Therefore, we are to free ourselves from associating with slothful people, making clear to them what they are, and carry our cross diligently running the race for everlasting life. (John 17:3)
Always Christian with LOVE at Anne Fisher-of-Men Foundation. Amen