Victory in Virtue Part 13: Fight the Vices Part 2 — Sloth

The vice of sloth is fatal to our lives because the temptation to avoid hard work or effort stops us from working toward our goals. And if we don’t work toward our goals, we will never reach them. And if we never reach them, we will never get anywhere new in life, but will instead stay stuck where we are.

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The Victory in Virtue Series

Intro

Part 1: Faith

Part 2: Hope

Part 3: Charity

Part 4: Piety

Part 5: Prudence

Part 6: Justice

Part 7: Fortitude

Part 8: Temperance

Part 9: Self-Discipline

Part 10: Chastity

Part 11: Patience

Part 12: Fight the Vices Part 1 — Gluttony

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Hello Readers, hope all’s well. Today I present another entry in the Victory in Virtue series. Today is the second part of Fight the Vices. This is where we look at the vices we need to avoid as Christians. Today’s post is on the vice of sloth.

We have a lot of hard work to do, here on earth. It might be the work we do to earn a living, or it could be the hard work we must do to reach a personal life goal. No matter what, while we’re here on earth we’ve got a lot of hard work to do. But the natural desire of our flesh is to rest, and be comfortable. The vice of sloth exploits this. The vice of sloth is a dangerous vice that tempts us to rest, to avoid or put off the things that need to be done because they’re difficult.

If we want to get anywhere in life, if we want to reach any of our goals, we must fight the vice of sloth. The vice that tempts us to put things off for one more day. To rest, to give up. This is a vice that can kill all our dreams.

And even worse, this vice is Spiritually fatal too. The vice of Spiritual sloth can tempt us to avoid the hard Spiritual work it takes to grow in our Faith. If we fall to the vice of Spiritual sloth, we aren’t going anywhere on our Christian Spiritual journey.

So that’s what today’s post is about. Let’s get straight into it.

What Is the Vice of Sloth?

Sloth. Noun: Reluctance to work or make an effort; laziness.

This reluctance to exert oneself is usually habitual.

We’ve all fallen to this vice before, I know it. I had to battle this vice when writing this post, in fact. I didn’t want to sit down and start writing. Even though it’s always my goal to upload three posts a week on this blog, sometimes the work that goes into reaching the goal is so daunting and unattractive. The day I started this post, I spent the morning doing shopping and other errands. I was tired, and I wanted to rest.

But it wasn’t the time to rest! It was the time I had planned for writing. I don’t have infinite time, so I need to make good use of my writing time. What if I had chosen to rest during my writing time, instead of writing this post? The Book of Proverbs gives an answer to that question:

(10) A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the arms to lie down—
(11) and poverty will come on you like a prowler,
destitution like a warrior.

Proverbs 6:10-11 (CEB)

Now, it’s not like I’m getting rich off this blog (not yet 🙂 ), so poverty isn’t the issue. If I stopped writing this blog now, it wouldn’t be any financial loss … for now. What I would be losing is whatever this blog will gain me in the future if I keep writing it and don’t give up.

You see, the real issue is that since writing this blog is my goal, if I fall to the vice of sloth and rest then I’m not working toward my goal. The vice of sloth tempts us to rest or even give up on the hard work we need to do to reach our goals and level up in life.

So if we never fight the vice of sloth, we will never reach our personal goals, whatever those may be. These goals don’t have to involve money, a career, or other things like that. They can be any kind of life goal for things we want to achieve, things we want to become, or places we want to get to.

If we reach them, most of these goals will give us more opportunity, confidence, satisfaction, and so on. Reaching life goals like this lets us “level up,” becoming stronger and better. Then we can keep reaching for higher goals, and keep getting better and better. Who wouldn’t want this? You already know the answer to that: The devil.

The devil doesn’t want to see us level up in life. He doesn’t want to see us succeed or enjoy any happiness if he can help it. He wants to see us stuck in the same place, dealing with the same problems, struggling with the same sins … in other words, he doesn’t want us to make any progress in life at all. So when he sees what our goals are, and how they will cause us to make progress both in life and in our Spiritual growth as Christians, he will do what he can to oppose us.

One weapon in his arsenal is the vice of sloth. Any goal we want to reach takes a lot of hard work, determination, and persistence. When we think about all the hard work it will take for us to get from here to there, it can be intimidating. Some people will give up right there—is that the vice of sloth at work? I think so, yes. In part, at least.

But where the vice of sloth comes in with great force is when we start doing this hard work, and see how hard it is. When we realize that we have to do this painful task all the way to the finish line, whatever that is. That’s when the vice of sloth gives us a bitter fight, tempting us to give up on what we’re doing, because it’s too hard. Tempting us to rest from our labor, and put it off for another day, and another, and another, until we give up on our goal because we left it aside for too long and got distracted with other things.

So the vice of sloth is far more dangerous than “if you don’t work, you’ll fall into poverty,” like the Proverbs quote above says.

The vice of sloth is fatal to our lives because the temptation to avoid hard work or effort stops us from working toward our goals. And if we don’t work toward our goals, we will never reach them. And if we never reach them, we will never get anywhere new in life, but will instead stay stuck where we are.

So fight the vice of sloth! Don’t avoid hard work**, and don’t put it off for another time. Do the hard work that needs to be done, when it needs to be done. If we do, we’ll thank ourselves later! We’ll be happy later if we don’t give up on our goals now because of the hard work involved! But the devil wants us to think in the short-term. He wants us to focus on what feels good right now, which is usually resting and not working. God wants us to think more long-term, setting a good goal and working toward it every day.

** It’s OK to find ways to be efficient with our hard work. It’s good to figure out how some job we need to do can be done easier, faster, less costly, and so on. It’s not a sin to be efficient or think about how to make our work more efficient. And becoming efficient can even turn “hard work” into regular “work!”

And there’s one more danger to the vice of sloth, which could be the worst danger: Sloth leads us into worse sins. Why is that? Well, have you heard the expression “idle hands are the devil’s plaything?” That expression comes from the TLB version of Proverbs 16:27. This phrase is only found in the TLB version of the Bible, which is a paraphrased version of the ASV and not actually a translation. But that’s where this expression comes from.

(27) Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece.

Proverbs 16:27 (TLB)

The point is, if your hands are idle because you aren’t working, the devil will give you ideas for other things you can do. And all his ideas will be sinful, leading you farther from God.

Almost all other versions of Proverbs 16:27 say that sinful people “dig up trouble.” Here’s the CEB:

(27) Worthless people dig up trouble;
their lips are like a scorching fire.

Proverbs 16:27 (CEB)

And the KJV:

(27) An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire.

Proverbs 16:27 (KJV)

Think about the visual image of “digging up” trouble. Digging up something is a task, isn’t it? That involves labor. If we don’t occupy ourselves with good work that either moves us toward our goals or earns us a living, then the devil will give us ideas for other things to do. We’ll go looking for trouble, and devote our efforts and energy to trouble. Just because we’re avoiding our work due to the vice of sloth doesn’t mean we aren’t going to do anything. The devil will encourage us to do something with our time, and it won’t be good.

So falling to the vice of sloth leads to falling to more sins. It’s like a chain reaction or a domino effect. Imagine if we decide to skip a planned workout one day (which is hard work that’s part of reaching a goal), and then go lounge on the couch, watching TV and eating junk food. We fall to the vice of sloth when we choose not to do our workout (choose not to do hard work), which leads to us falling to the vice of gluttony (eating junk food on the couch).

One sin, one vice, leads to another, and another. Since the vice of sloth is such a common “starting point” for that chain reaction of sin and vice, we need to be extra careful. We need to be on the alert against the vice of sloth at all times, and do what we need to do, when we need to do it.

Spiritual Sloth

Like any other vice, sloth also has a Spiritual element. The vice of Spiritual sloth can stop our Christian Spiritual growth in its tracks! If we fall to the vice of Spiritual sloth, we won’t be going anywhere on our Christian life journey.

Here’s a good word to summarize what the vice of Spiritual sloth is: Prayerlessness.

That’s right, in the same way that the vice of sloth makes us want to avoid hard work, the vice of Spiritual sloth makes us want to avoid hard Spiritual work. Prayer, fasting, and so on take effort and are hard work like any other task. And these things are not always pleasurable. The vice of sloth comes in when we avoid hard work because there’s no pleasure in it and we don’t want to do it. Well, our Spiritual labor can be the same at times. Our Spiritual labors, like prayer, fasting, Charity, and Service must be given our determined effort same as our physical labors.

Let’s turn once again to the classic Dark Night of the Soul and see what it says about Spiritual sloth.

With respect also to spiritual sloth, beginners are apt to be irked by the things that are most spiritual, from which they flee because these things are incompatible with sensible pleasure. For, as they are so much accustomed to sweetness in spiritual things, they are wearied by things in which they find no sweetness. If once they failed to find in prayer the satisfaction which their taste required […] they would prefer not to return to it […]

John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, Page 18

There it is. When we don’t find prayer (etc.) satisfying, we don’t want to return to it, because it’s hard. That’s the vice of Spiritual sloth.

I know I’ve fallen to this vice before. How about you?

My daily prayers take me an hour to do. There are many days when I don’t feel like doing this, to be honest. Sometimes it’s thinking about the other things I have to get done that day, and some days I feel too tired to pray. But I can force myself to start, force myself to do what I need to do. Because prayer is too important. Fasting is too important. I know these things need to be done, because they’re a core part of Christian Spiritual growth.

Think about it: Prayer is our lifeline to God, and how we talk to Him. Fasting is how we boost our Spirit and subdue our flesh and its desires. Meanwhile, Charity and Service are Virtuous acts of love toward others, and this is one way we honor God. All these things, if we take them as seriously as we should, lead to becoming more Spiritual and mature in Christ. Prayer especially is something we need to do as much as we can, as often as we can. Prayer is extra important, the most important item on that list.

And all these things are hard work. It’s not always fun to pray. It’s never fun to fast. Charity costs us something we’ll miss, whether it’s time, money, or whatever, and Service is labor. Our flesh nature is already inclined to avoid these things—don’t listen to it!

If we avoid doing the hard Spiritual work we need to do for our Christian Spiritual growth, we won’t grow at all. We’ll stay stuck at the same level of our Christian Spiritual journey. This is the fatal danger of the vice of Spiritual sloth.

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OK. Now let me move on to the “antidote” for the vice of sloth. How do we counteract this vice?

What’s the Antidote?

There’s at least one Virtue that can cancel out any vice. There is no vice that can’t be conquered.

The antidote for sloth is the Virtue of Self-Discipline. The Virtue of Fortitude is also needed.

Whenever we need to get up and start doing some task that’s hard, one we’re tempted to avoid, we need to exert the Virtue of Self-Discipline. The natural desire of our flesh is to avoid hard work and exertion. The natural desire of our flesh is to rest and relax. Well, we must conquer that desire and force ourselves to do what we need to do. We need to force ourselves to get started. The Virtue of Self-Discipline is a Virtue that allows us to conquer the desires of the flesh, and go in another direction.

Working out and exercising is hard. We often don’t want to do it. But every time we get up and actually start doing it, we’ve done a good job because we have defeated the natural desires of the flesh. Every time we defeat our flesh, we get better at it. And this applies to any hard work we’re faced with.

In my experience, it’s getting started on something difficult that’s the hardest part. I need to exert Self-Discipline to get started. But once I get started, it’s not so difficult to follow through till the end because now I’m already doing it. But everyone’s different. Some people may have no problem getting started, but have a problem with quitting before they’re done. When we have a problem with sticking with something until it’s done, we need the Virtue of Fortitude.

The Virtue of Fortitude will give us the strength we need to keep doing our hard work until it’s done. It gives us the strength to endure, to hang in there. To persevere. To keep working hard at whatever it is until the job is done. What more do I need to say?

Our lives are full of hard labors of all kinds. If our workload is great we’re often tempted to rest from it. But if we could only keep going, if we could only keep working for a little bit more, we’d be that much closer to done with our task. The more we work, the closer we get to the end of our work. If we take a rest, we delay the end of our work. So it’s better to attack what needs to be done, and keep working hard until it’s done. If it’s something that will take more than one day, then we should work hard to do as much of it as we can today. That leaves less for tomorrow. If we rest today, we’ll have to do more tomorrow.

With the Virtue of Fortitude, we can get the strength we need to do what we need to do, no matter if it’s hard.

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So these are the Virtues that counteract and conquer the vice of sloth. But our most potent weapon against sloth is prayer. So let’s now move on to some prayers we can use to guard against the vice of sloth, and fight it in our own lives.

Prayers against the Vice of Sloth

There are many prayers we could pray to combat the vice of sloth. The best ones of course will be the ones that we create ourselves—the ones that come straight from the heart. Remember: When we pray we aren’t trying to say the right combination of words to unlock something in Heaven. No, that would be magic, which is an abomination to the LORD. Prayer is much simpler. Simply tell the LORD what you want, what you need, what’s on your mind, what’s bothering you, and so on.

Praying for help in fighting a vice is the best way to fight it. So here are a few short, simple prayers to combat the vice of sloth that you can try adding to your prayer routine.

That I may never Waste the Gift God Has Given me

We fall to the vice of sloth when we follow our flesh which urges us to rest instead of our Spirit that tells us to get to work (on whatever goal). No matter what it is we have in mind to do, and no matter how experienced we are at it, we always have to defeat the flesh’s desire for comfort and rest to get started on what we need to do.

Every time we succeed in defeating the flesh and getting started on our task, we become better and better at defeating the flesh. People who never skip their workouts quickly turn exercise into a habit, something they’re used to doing. Once that happens, it becomes very easy to defeat the urge of the flesh for comfort and rest. Once we get to this level, we hardly even think of defeating that urge, we barely notice it’s there. But it is there, and it always will be.

So this is a short prayer asking the LORD for strength in defeating our own flesh and its counterproductive desires. Check it out:

LORD, every moment I live is all thanks to You. I pray that I will make the best use of my time here on earth, and never waste it. I pray I can be effective at working to glorify You here on earth, through good works. My own flesh rises against me to distract me, or entice me into resting from my labor. Please, LORD, I pray that You will grant me the strength I need to defeat the great enemy that is my own flesh, so that I can do good works in Your honor and not let the gift of life You’ve given me go to waste. Amen.

A Prayer Against Spiritual Sloth

The vice of Spiritual sloth is especially dangerous because it shuts down our Spiritual growth in Christ. It causes us to stagnate, and to avoid the tough Spiritual work we need to do to draw closer to the LORD. If we avoid drawing closer to the LORD, though, we’ll never have Spiritual growth.

The Spiritual work we need to do, like prayer, fasting, and other things, is not always easy. Sometimes it’s hard work and we don’t want to do it. Sometimes we’re tempted to the vice of Spiritual sloth. But we can’t avoid doing the Spiritual work we need to do in our lives. We have to do what needs to be done, when we need to do it. Of course this applies to our Spiritual life too.

So here’s a quick prayer asking for protection against this Spiritual vice.

LORD, thank You for the ability to grow in Spirit and draw closer to You. Thank You for the gift of being able to become more Spiritual through determined devotion. Please grant me the will and Fortitude to keep drawing closer to You every day, even when I’m fatigued and would rather not pray. Please grant me the will and Self-Discipline to take on all the Spiritual work I need to do, to draw closer to You for the sake of my own soul. Please, LORD, I pray that You will protect me from the vice of Spiritual sloth. Amen.

Grant me the Strength to See it through to the End

Besides getting started, another time the vice of sloth attacks us is when we’re working hard and we’re getting tired. Although we need to take breaks here and there for our own health and well being (working ourselves to death does not honor God), the vice of sloth tempts us to quit for the day. To rest, walking away from our day’s labor. To leave the rest of the work for another day.

If we allow the vice of sloth to tempt us in that way, then we’ll quit before it’s time. Then we’ll leave more work to do tomorrow, giving ourselves a harder day to deal with tomorrow. What’s the point of that?

Even worse than that, if we allow the vice of sloth to tempt us like this too many times, then before we know it we’ll give up on what we were doing entirely. We’ll get distracted with other things, and that goal we were working toward will slip to the back of our mind, where it will be neglected. If we even think of returning to it, we’ll think of the mountain of piled-up work we need to do to get started again, and we’ll be discouraged from trying.

So in this prayer, we ask the LORD to grant us the strength to see our work through to the end. We ask for the strength to keep working until the day is done, until the true quitting time.

LORD, thank You for the opportunity and ability to do good works here on earth to glorify You. My slothful flesh tempts me to rest from these works before it’s time. It tempts me to think about how hard the work is, and how tired I am. Please grant me the strength, LORD, to ignore these temptations of the flesh. Please grant me the strength to keep working at my chosen task until the day is done, and it really is time to rest. Please grant me the strength to see my work through to the end. Amen.

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Again, there are so many options for praying against any vice. I could go on and on and on. Everyone is always welcome to leave a comment with prayers of their own.

But once we’re done praying, it’s time to take action (in the physical world). Let’s move on to that now.

Fighting the Vice

To fight a vice, we must change our behavior and be consistent about that. We can’t do something new a few times and stop there. We must stick with our new ways, turning our back on our old sins. This consistency is how we build up a habit. It’s also how we cultivate and strengthen a Virtue, which are the “antidotes” to vice.

So how can we do that to fight sloth? Let’s look at a few practical ideas. And remember: These are only a start! The possibilities are endless. I welcome any comments with good ideas about this.

Here are just a few ideas of how we can fight the vice of sloth in our own lives:

• Remove distractions from the place where we work, making it easier to get started and stay focused
• Create a reward system for ourselves to encourage working toward and achieving our goals (** BUT TAKE CAUTION)
• Tell someone we can trust what our goal is, and our progress toward it, so they can help keep us accountable and on-track
• And other ideas you can think of!

A major part of fighting the vice of sloth lies in getting started on our task for the day. We don’t want to do it, so we avoid starting it. Well, we have to get started if we want to reach our goals, and if we want to fight the vice of sloth.

To help with both getting started and staying focused, clear the workspace of all distractions. Physically remove them from the area. If a distracting item isn’t there, we can’t be distracted by it when starting our work or while we’re doing it. If we remove as many distractions as we can from where we work it helps us stay focused on our task.

For example, my phone is one of the most distracting items I have. It often distracts me in the following way. When I’m writing, I stop for a moment while trying to think of a good word to use, or how I want to phrase a point I want to make. I’m momentarily lost for words, and take a moment to think. In that moment, I would often pick up my phone without even thinking about it, and look at the news or other sites. Before I knew it I would waste ten minutes or more reading news or looking at other sites! And all this because I stopped to think of what word I should use or how to phrase a point, which is a normal reason to stop writing. Well, all those ten minute distractions add up—fast! My writing was taking far longer than it needed to.

So recently I made a change where my phone is on the charger in another room while I’m writing. No one’s calling me, and I don’t need it for any apps or anything. Not only can I write without it, I write better and faster without it. I get distracted less.

Removing this distraction has helped me to combat the vice of sloth. I sit down and start my writing on time more often, because I’m not looking at the phone. I tend to get my writing done faster now, because I’m not looking at the phone while I’m working. I start my task better, and I focus on my task better. This is the benefit of removing distractions from the workspace. This helps fight the vice of sloth.

The next idea … needs a note of CAUTION to go along with it. When we have trouble either getting started on something or sticking with it to the end, some kind of reward system for reaching our goals might help. The idea of a reward we give ourselves could motivate us to start, or to keep going. We want that reward, whatever it is. But our rule for ourselves is that we can’t have the reward unless we do our work for the day. If we’re going to give ourselves this reward every time we complete this task … it had better be something small! This brings us to that note of CAUTION I mentioned.

We don’t want the reward we give ourselves lead us into other temptations or vices. Our goal is to conquer our flesh, so we don’t want the reward we give ourselves make our flesh stronger instead. We also don’t want our reward to counteract the work we’ve done. So our reward needs to be something small.

For example, imagine this. We have a hard time motivating ourselves to exercise. So as a reward for ourselves for exercising, we eat a big slice of pizza or a piece of cake, something like that. Isn’t that kind of pointless? We’re working to undo the hard work we just did to get our body in shape. And now we’re also inviting the vice of gluttony.

Defeating the vice of sloth is meaningless if we invite another vice immediately after!

So if we create a reward system to motivate ourselves to work on whatever it is we’re doing, we need to be careful. This reward should be something small, but nice, and something that doesn’t invite other vices. And the more we defeat the vice of sloth, the easier it becomes to get started on our work and keep at it. Working becomes a strong habit. Once we’ve created a strong, positive habit and we’ve gotten experienced at defeating our slothful flesh, we don’t need that motivational reward anymore. So if we ever create a motivational reward system, we should only do so with the goal of one day getting rid of it when we don’t need it anymore.

Last, one way to stay accountable and on-track toward our goals is to let someone we trust know what we’re up to. We have to be careful about who we tell our plans to, because not everyone can be trusted with that info. But if we tell a trustworthy friend or family member about our goal and our progress toward it, this can help us stay accountable.

This works by adding an element of mild humiliation if we fail or give up. What I mean by that is, we will be much less willing to give up on some goal when we know this other person knows we’re working toward it. When we see them, we know they’re going to ask us about it. So we don’t want to let them down, or suffer the embarrassment of telling them that we gave up on it. This is what I mean when I say it can help us stay accountable. Our desire not to let that other person down will give us motivation we can use to fight the vice of sloth.

The other way this can help us is if our friend or family member can encourage us when we need it. Remember that the vice of sloth also tempts us to rest before it’s time, or even to quit before we’re done. When we bring another person into the picture, they can encourage us and keep us motivated when we feel like taking too long a break, or even worse, giving up. This person’s encouragement could spell the difference between giving up and persevering on. So this last idea is something to think about. A trustworthy ally can be a great help in reaching our goals.

Our Rest Is in Heaven, not Here

Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done. Don’t put it off for tomorrow. (Why make tomorrow harder?)

Keep going and stay focused, until we’re done. We can take little breaks while we work, but our time for rest comes when the day is done.

Remember that Satan doesn’t want us to reach any of our goals. He wants us to stay stuck in the same place, never getting anywhere in life. He wants to stop us from doing any of the good things we dream about (he won’t stop us if we want to sin though).

So when we want to reach a goal, Satan will tempt us with the vice of sloth. He will entice our flesh to rise against us, making us want to rest instead of getting up to do the hard work we need to do to reach our goal. Satan will make us think about how much hard work we have to do, and how daunting that is. He’ll tempt us to give up when the work gets hard, tempting us to rest instead of getting the work done. If he can, he’ll tempt us to give up completely on whatever it is we want.

Most of all, Satan will tempt us to avoid and give up on the hard work it takes to get closer to God. Reading the Bible, prayer, fasting, obeying God’s Commandments, fighting our own sins and reforming our lives … all this is hard work, if we take it as seriously as we should. Christianity is a lot of hard work, if we’re fully committed to it. And so is drawing closer to God.

So because this is hard work, we don’t always want to do it. Sometimes we’d rather do something else with our time instead of praying. Sometimes we’d rather not go on a fast. Sometimes we’d rather watch YouTube than read the Bible. Satan will exploit all these desires of the flesh to avoid hard work, and use these to pull us closer to him and farther from God.

Satan will tempt us with the vice of Spiritual sloth, tempting us to skip the hard Spiritual work we need to do for our Christian Spiritual growth. If we fall to the vice of Spiritual sloth, our Christian Spiritual growth will stop right in its tracks. This is what Satan wants.

So fight the vice of sloth! Yes, the work we have to do here on earth is hard. But it’s well worth it. We’ll be happy with ourselves later if we kept working toward our goal and stuck with it. When we enjoy the fruits of our labor, whatever that might be, we’ll understand the value of all our hard work. And nothing will be more enjoyable than the Spiritual pleasure of reuniting with God after a lifetime of hard Spiritual work drawing closer to Him through reading His Word, prayer, and worship!

The time and place for resting is after we’re physically dead, and gone to Heaven. We must not let the devil tempt us into skipping the hard Spiritual work it takes to get there!

The vice for next time is envy. Stay tuned for that and Subscribe to my FREE weekly newsletter with the link below so you’ll never miss a post!!

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Until next time, be strong and do good!

Your new best friend in Christ,

99:9

<<<EXALT THE LORD OUR GOD AND WORSHIP AT HIS HOLY HILL; FOR THE LORD OUR GOD IS HOLY>>>

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