Day 6 – Sloth

“The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing” Proverbs 13:4a

Sloth – An excessive laziness, disinclination to action, spiritual apathy and inactivity to act or utilise one’s talents.

The King James Version uses the word ‘sluggard’ for lazy man. Meaning Atsel in Hebrews. (Pronounced Aw-tsale). Meaning indolent and slothful.

Lazing on the couch with a book or taking an afternoon nap is not considered slothful. We need to rest. God invites you to rest with Him. The seventh day was blessed and sanctified as a day of rest.

Sloth manifests in different ways when we lose faith in ourselves and the desire to do anything about it. Fear of failing can have a crippling effect on our effort to even start at all. It could be connected to past failings hindering us from our present actions.

Sloth is also the desire not to develop one’s talents or proactively put them to work for God’s glory and His Kingdom.

Spiritual apathy is feeling indifferent to spending time with God and to be emotionally detached from what is important to God. You stop going to church, going to cell/connect groups, doing Bible study and stopping to read your Bible. It doesn’t happen all at once, but slowly it creeps into your life until you have no desire to grow spiritually.

Prayer: Father, we often don’t want to open our Bible or go to church. We take the backseat in our relationship with You expecting You to do all the work. Forgive us, Lord, for the slothfulness in our spiritual lives. The slothfulness in the relationships with our families and fellow believers. The procrastination of doing what You commanded. Blow into us a new breath, Lord, to run the race to its fullest. Amen.