So i talked about slothful relationships. Slothful personal habits. A slothful walk with God.Then i ate two cupcakes. And hit my snooze button two times the next morning, effectively avoiding both my run and my time with the Lord. Impressive.
i am realizing that "comfort" is my idol. The comfort of my warm bed. The comfort of a peppermint mocha with whipped cream. The comfort of easy friendship. The comfort of familiar worship.
It seems the sloth and i are not so different. Ugh.
i do not like to get up early. So i sleep in.
i do not like to have hard conversatons. So i "fake peace" (to quote Tara Barthel)
i do not like to miss out on a tasty treat. So i have a cupcake. Or two.
i do not like to take awkward initiative. So i turn down an aisle in the store rather than meet you face-to-face.
i do not like to talk on the phone. So i procrastinate on returning calls.
i do not like to pray day after day for the very same thing. So i don't.
i do not like to dig deep and think. So i read what someone else has said.
Ridiculous, i know.
The sloth moves slowly, and only when necessary.
He will often die rather than search for a new food source.
He sleeps 12-15 hours a day and spends 90% of his life hanging upside down.
The parallels are painful.
i have spent years perfecting the art of "avoiding hardship" so that no one knows i'm doing it. Most people who know me have no idea that i am a sloth. But this is the hidden motive of my heart: aversion to work or exertion. In other words? Ease. And it's enemy? "Hard". i hate hard.
In his devotional My Utmost for His Highest, on the date July 7, Oswald Chambers has said: “If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all noble things are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but the difficulty does not make us faint and cave in, it rouses us up to overcome.”
i'm ashamed to admit how often i "faint and cave". Which, i guess, calls my nobility into question. No surprise there.
As i think about the week ahead, the desire of my heart before the Lord is that i would "rouse up" more consistently. That i would resist the temptation to hang upside down, asleep and unmoving, However comfortable that may seem, i know that its end result is a bad perspective (upside down, get it?), a worthless life, and algae growing in my hair (that really happens to the sloth).
Scripture repeatedly calls us to hard things, and to work. The idea that we would be working people was woven into our DNA at the time of creation (Genesis 2). God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, works (Genesis 1). Jesus worked in the name of His Father, and on our behalf (John 4, 17)... when He broke into a sweat in the garden, it was not the salty sweat of physical labor but the bloody sweat of emotional and spiritual exertion that would eventually cost Him his life (Luke 22). The Apostle Paul spoke most strongly about work throughout his ministry, the harshest indictment found in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 "If anyone is not willing to work, let Him not eat."
Clearly, ease is not an option offered the Christ-follower. i know this in my mind. My slothful will must be diligently disciplined. Sigh.
All that said, if you see me this week, check for algae. My hairdresser will thank you. And if i happen to have a cupcake in hand, tackle me and retrieve it. Nothing says "faint and cave" like a fresh cupcake with lots of icing.
