We are in a contest- a race, a battle, an acquisition. There is a prize to be won, an enemy to overcome and a treasure to procure. In most races there is only one winner. The difference in our race is everyone gets to win, you don’t have to be the fastest or the strongest but you do have to finish. The one great opponent we face, the one thing that will keep us from winning the race, overcoming the enemy and purchasing the treasure is our own laziness and sloth.
Idleness and lethargy if gone unchecked will divert us from the course. The way to be assured of winning is through perseverance. Faith never gives up. Simply finish, and you win!
That being said how important is endurance? It is everything. How dangerous and damaging is sloth? Saint John Chrysostom describes sloth as the greatest evil. “There is no greater evil worse than laziness, none greater than sloth.” Sloth is the great enemy, all else has been overcome by the Resurrection, but sloth requires us to act.
In the words of St. Basil: “Inaction without fear of God is a teacher of evil and wickedness to those who spend their time without purpose. Sloth is the foundation of wickedness.”
Sloth does more damage than simply leave us inert. The slothful person does not know themselves.
To know oneself, to see oneself as God sees us is essential to moving forward. Saint Isaac the Syrian tells us: “He who senses his sins, is greater than he who raises the dead with his prayer. He who is made worthy to see himself, is greater than he who is made worthy to see angels.”
Advancement in the spiritual life requires repentance, which leads to the purity of heart and the vision of God. Without knowledge we have no vision, no hope and no impetus- we remain in darkness and lethargic apathy. Idleness is a vicious circle we cannot break free from and have no desire or energy to break free from. Lethargy is a feedback loop which only begets more lethargy.
God our creator acted, the immovable moved out from Himself in a migration of love, the Eternal Word leapt out of heaven- now we must act. Faith is a courageous movement up the mountain toward God
The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.
Proverbs 13:4
St. John Chrysostom warns us that “sloth is the source of all evil, since it teaches all evils, and those who love it become from the beginning teachers of wickedness… There is nothing, absolutely nothing that is not destroyed by sloth. Even stagnant water becomes spoiled, but that which runs and goes everywhere retains its properties … And uncultivated land can be seen to possess nothing good, except wild grass and thorns and shrubs and fruitless tress, but that which is cultivated is full of fruit.”
The five foolish virgins where tragically shut out of the the Kingdom of God for no other reason than their own sloth.
Our Lord condemned the “wicked and lazy” servant in the Parable of the Talents for burying what he had been given instead of multiplying it through industriousness.
We have been promised a Kingdom and a crown. Our mortal foe has been destroyed. The race is ours with all assurance but we must run, God will not run for us although he has already given us everything we need to finish. “Press on… in the power of His might”