Faith, Anxiety, and Sloth

Send us Fan MailA few years ago, I was diagnosed with a form of cancer andwas treated. The treatment was successful, but I found it hard to enjoy thatsuccess because I was afraid my cancer would return. Once a year I am requiredto take a blood test to make sure that my condition hasn’t changed. During theweeks that lead up to the test, I always find it hard to concentrate. I feelagitated and unfocused. I am busy but not productive. In Luke 21:34 Jesuswarned: “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing,drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenlylike a trap.” According to Jesus, we can waste our energy in worrying just aseasily as we can on carousing. This anxiety is a peculiar form of sloth. The stereotype of sloth is a lazy person. Someone who won’tget off the couch or get out of bed in the morning for work. But sloth is muchlarger than the stereotype. The way of sloth is a path of ill-conceived short-cutsand ignored responsibilities. Sloth practices neglect under the guise ofsimplicity and mistakes apathy for ease. Sloth is a sin of omission, but thatdoes not necessarily mean that sloth is inactive. Sloth is a sin ofrationalization. Those who ignore responsibility always have an excuse for notdoing what they are supposed to do. Sloth is a sin of omission, but that does not necessarily mean that sloth is inactive. Sloth exerts the minimum required effort and would prefer to exert no effort at all. When sloth makes an effort, it is usually under duress. Sloth is listless and half-hearted. Imagine the worst stereotype of the sort of service we receive at a bureaucratic hub like the division of motor vehicles and you have a picture of sloth. Sloth seems like a pretty harmless sin compared to the sort of things that others do. We kind of admire it. That is until we have to depend upon a slothful person. Or are put into a position where we have to work with them. Or are waiting in line. The sin that the ancients called sloth includes laziness,but it involves more. Sloth can manifest itself in many forms. At times itlooks like ennui, an immobilizing lethargy that leeches away our interest inthose things that ought to concern us. But sloth can also be active andprofligate, causing us to squander our time and energy on meaningless triflesat the expense of other obligations. Sometimes sloth is the person who can’t get up off the couch, but it is also the person who won’t sit down. When sloth manifests itself as agitation, it is filled with the kind of empty activity that fails to provide results, rest, or even pleasure. The agitation of sloth is to work what junk food is to nutrition. It burns hot but adds no value. We are busy but busy with the wrong things. In its agitated form, sloth is a particular form of dissipation, squandering our energies in empty pursuits. These may be pursuits of the flesh, the concerns of ordinary life, or even misguided spiritual pursuits.  Sometimes sloth is the person who can’t get up off the couch, but it is also the person who won’t sit down. Sometimes this agitated form of sloth is situational. It isthe result circumstances. Some situation comes into our lives over which wehave no control: a family crisis or a medical diagnosis. Things change at work,and we are uncertain how it will affect us. Suddenly we find ourselves in a newnormal that is a cause for worry. In other cases it is result of temperament. Someof us have a natural tendency to worry about things that are purelyhypothetical. Our anxiety does not spring from things that might take place. Itdoes little good to remind ourselves that none of these things has happened tous yet. It is possibility that grips us not the actuality. In these cases slothis not so much a matter of laziness as it is paralysis. Anxious sloth can alsohave the opposite effect so that we exhaust ourselves in an attempt to prepareDr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Praying the Word column for the Lifeway publication Mature Living and is the author of 16 books. His latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is available from Amazon.  You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.