By Dr. Jimmy Braswell
Chaplain, Home Hospice of Odessa
When I was in high school, I worked in a plant nursery. I learned from orchard owners that there was a time when a plant was sickly, that you took a strong fertilizer and spread it on the plant. In their words, “it will bring it to health, or kill it.”
The Bible warns us about a lot of things that can steal our spiritual growth. Among those, is what is referred to as the sin of sloth. Sloth is laziness, but not laziness in the conventional understanding.
It is not simply being lazy – it being lazy spiritually. It is not being concerned enough for the spiritual that we simply allow ourselves to flow along believing our spiritual health will take care of itself. It will not – we are called to be Holy to glorify God by reflecting Him in our lives. To reflect Him requires transformation and that transformation requires nurture.
We feed our new nature through basic discipleship of Bible reading, prayer, worship, fellowship and sharing our walk. These can be pleasures but they are also exercises. We flex our spiritual character through feeding on the Word of God, prayer, fellowship, worship and sharing. We meekly submit to God as Sovereign over our own lives, we hear the wisdom of those God has given us to walk the journey with and pray for the fulfillment of His purpose in us.
