Growing up Independent, Fundamental Baptist I heard very little about the 7 Deadly Sins, except in relation to Catholicism, which we were taught were anti-Christ Mary worshippers. But one cannot deny that the 7 sins listed in the 7 Deadly Sins are mentioned often in the Bible, and therefore one cannot deny the importance of recognizing these sins and abstaining from them as much as possible. I do not believe that Catholics are anti-Christ Mary worshippers, but I don't necessarily agree with the church as a whole. I do think their insistence on giving an understanding of these 7 sins that infect our lives in various ways is something to admire. Without knowing what a sin is we cannot know how to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to overcome said sin in as much as we can do so in this fallen world.
The list of sins, if you don't already know, is:
1. Lust
2. Gluttony
3. Greed
4. Sloth
5. Wrath
6. Envy
7. Pride
The thing I like about this list is that it encompasses something everyone struggles with in different capacities. I can say I have struggled with each one at certain points, pride mainly, but the others usually have stemmed from that. The thing I've always felt more guilty for struggling with because I never cared to try and fix it was my slothfulness. I can be a pretty lazy person. I know growing up I never woke up before noon if I didn't have to, and I still frequently sleep in, though not nearly as late. I could sit and watch TV or movies or noodle around on the internet for hours upon hours. I prefer to feed my mind than move my body. So it was interesting when I learned the true meaning, the original meaning behind slothfulness in terms of the 7 deadly sins.
In the Latin, sloth is translated as Acedia. It had various meanings, all surrounded by a general apathy, but the one the struck me the most was Dante Alighieri's (Author of The Divine Comedy- which includes Inferno). Dante believed it to not only be a general apathy towards life, but "the failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul."Dante's interpretation of this sin means we've misinterpreted sloth to simply mean couch potato, although that does play a part in it, it is a much deeper, much graver and of much more importance than simply getting off your ass and doing something. Dante is basically saying that slothfulness is our lack of seeking God.
Once I heard this I couldn't help but think about America and how this could be our most heinous sin. Yes America is full of pride and gluttony and a slew of the others, but it's more afraid of loving God and seeking Him. I am more afraid of that myself. So many Americans attend church, we're a very "religious" nation, but we go to church for ourselves, we go to church for the community, we go to church because it's societally expected or we grew up going or we think that makes us better people. It's all surface and no heart.
The problem is, we can't even talk about Acedia in America because it's offensive. I'm not saying that we need to "Bring God back to America" or anything. So many people think just because a teacher doesn't pray for the entire class at the beginning of the day or because the Bible isn't taught in public schools, that God has been taken out of America. These are outward things that honestly I feel we place too much importance on. People don't become Christians because they were forced to pray or forced to learn about the Bible, they become Christians because they realized they couldn't survive without God. Their desire for God outshined every other desire in their lives. We cannot legislate morality, we can only seek God for ourselves, and show people what has happened through our finding God and hope they can see that He loves them through what He has done for us and many others throughout history because we sought Him.
God is described in the Bible as a jealous God, and to some this comes across as a petty attribute to apply to God. But God's jealousy isn't like the jealousy of a teenage girl over her best friend dating the guy she has a crush on, or a boys jealousy over some other guy getting the starting spot on the football team. God's jealousy is that of a husband's who loves his wife with all his heart and only desires to give her what is best, give her all he can, and she cheats on him constantly. The jealousy isn't from the husband thinking, "she is mine, not yours, I own her!" but instead, he is hurt because he knows what he is offering her and it's so much more than these affairs. He is offering her a lifetime of love and commitment, or in God's case an eternity of love and commitment.
Acedia is offensive in our churches because we come to build ourselves up rather than build God up. People go to church and we learn what to do. We learn that you shouldn't do these things and you should do these other things. But do we learn to seek God? Can a desire to seek God be taught?
I believe when someone is truly seeking God, the other things come more naturally. This isn't to say one doesn't mess up and lose sight of their seeking God, but when someone is seeking God they aren't thinking lustfully or pridefully. When you're truly seeking God your thoughts are aligned on that.
In my life, whenever I have sought a girl, my mind can hardly think of anything else. This happened when I began to seek Tasha. She became all my mind could think about. There was something to that because before she entered my thoughts in such a way, I thought often about beating a certain video game, watching movies, hanging out with friends for the weekend, but once my heart was filled with love for her, I thought only about her. Every time I was doing any of those other things, I might have been enjoying them to a degree but there was always a peak I would reach to where I would be wondering how much more fun I would be having if I were with Tasha right now. We should do this very same thing with God. Seeking God doesn't mean you must become a monk and give your entire life to prayer, in fact, I think that is wasting a lot of what God would have you do for others. Seeking God, to me, means that in every other thing that you do, you always yearn for God. If our hearts are always set on God, we would more readily serve others because we would be thinking of God and we would realize that Christ would act a certain way in a certain situation and then go on to act that way. It's easier said than done, but that is why this is such an important thing to realize.
In thinking about Acedia I can't help but think about us Americans and how we have squandered the desire in our hearts to seek God. Seeking God would mean to serve others; we serve ourselves. How about we stop going to church to fill up ourselves and then going home to watch TV and never allow any life change to happen. You can keep your eyes clear of all the rated R movies, your ears clear of all the dirtiest rap music, your tongue clear of all the liquor and your mouth clear of all the dirty jokes you can but if you're not serving others you're not serving God and therefore being a sloth.
Let's kill the sloth in each of us and begin serving others as Christ served us.
