ACEDIA-THE SLOTH- -ROMANS 12:11

“Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;”
King James Version (KJV)

“It’s so hot in here, turn on the AC.” The taxi driver turns and looks at you, shook his head, and said nothing. You sighed and asked “what?” However he chose not to respond. So you just kept quiet and after some minutes you noticed him slowing down and then he stepped on the brakes. So it’s a halt! “Why did you stop?”You asked. “Miss, there’s a sloth crossing the road” he answered. You tried picturing a sloth only for you to remember that you hated biology back then in High school. You quickly pulled out your phone and searched for S-L-O-T-H.

“Awwww! Such a cute animal. Oh no! This animal is super slow. I just hope it crosses the road fast, I have somewhere to be”. Thirty minutes later and you still in the car. Now you are getting frustrated. “Can’t we like use another route?” you asked. The driver who was already getting tired of you responded “no! This is the only route and we can’t do anything but wait for the sloth to cross.”

You just couldn’t help it, you got out of the car and headed straight towards the sloth. You picked it up and moved it to the other side of the road.

What happened? What changed? How did you go from “aww! what a cute animal” to “I cant take this anymore

Please watch this video

This is not a post on sloths but I just wanted to paint a picture. You see the sloth is known for its slowness. They move slower than any mammal on earth. A sloth can spend ten hours (10hrs) sleeping and the rest of its day hanging on a tree.

No one wants to be tagged “human sloth”. Imagine working with one. A two hours task will end up taking the whole day and quite frankly you might just as well lose your patience in the process.

 I am going to try my best and put it nicely…ummmm…ok! So here it goes…..SLOTHFULLNESS IS A SIN (nice and blunt )…I tried…didn’t I?)

Slothful, lagging in diligence, lagging in zeal are all used in Romans 12;11(depending on the version you using)

Definition of terms

 Slothful: means lazy, idle, slow-moving

 Lagging: means slow, dragging, also an act of staying behind

Diligence: careful and persistent work or effort

Fervent: having or displaying a passionate intensity. Also means hot, burning, or glowing

Why is slothfulness a sin?

Sloth comes from the Latin term “ACEDIA” which means “WITHOUT CARE”. Acedia is one of the seven deadly sins and it finds expression in laziness, idleness, and indolence. Boredom could also be seen as Acedia. I am bored so I spend hours watching movies or basically I just sit around and do nothing productive. This is our generation’s culture and sadly we take pride in it. This sin can prevent you from doing what you have to do at the time allocated. It also leads to procrastination and lukewarmness in your walk with God.

Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger. (Proverbs 19:15)

 By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through. (Ecclesiastes 10:18)

Revelation 3:14-16

 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. ¹⁵ I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

TYPES OF ACEDIA

• Spiritual Acedia: This is being indifferent to your duties and obligations to God
• Mental Acedia: a lack of any feeling about self or others, a mental state that gives rise to boredom, apathy, and a passive inert or sluggish mentation
• Physical Acedia: this is basically the cessation of motion and indifference to work.

Please note that you picking a day or two to rest from your work doesn’t make you a sloth. Slothfulness is more like a lifestyle for some people. They don’t work but are always tired.

One of the things that can make one slothful is a lack of motivation and fear to make a move. Kyle Blevins from crosswalk.com said “when we lose sight of our purpose we tend to become idle thus we lack zeal”. However God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear but of sound mind and of love. Make a move! We are not expected to be perfect before we start. “God’s not interested in our perfect attempts. He is interested in our boldness to practice with the tools that He gave us” (Kyles Blevins of crosswalk.com)

Whatever we do requires effort thus we should endeavor not to lag behind in diligence especially with the things of God.

The cure for Acedia is being fervent in spirit serving the Lord and loving others. However we also have to acknowledge that on our own we can’t do much, so we need the Holy Spirit to help us be fervent. Simply put: When we are fervent we are burning with zeal to do the will of God.

Prayer

Dear father, please help me not to be slothful. I want to be zealous and boiling for you. Teach me Holy Spirit to do the right things at the right time and not to procrastinate. This I ask in Jesus’ name. AMEN!