The Seven

SLOTH

When we consider deadly sins that give birth to all kinds of ruin & destruction, we probably don’t think of sloth as a vice serious enough to make the cut. Today, sloth evokes images of someone decked out in pajamas, glued to the couch, popping M&Ms with pizza boxes scattered across the room while binging Netflix for days on end. An unhealthy lifestyle to be sure, but a deadly sin?

But in the Christian tradition, sloth refers to something far more dangerous than mere laziness. Sloth describes the numerous ways we shrink from the fullness of life God has called us toward. We shrink from our relationships. We shrink from the God who loves us and from this marvelous — yet often demanding and perplexing — life God has placed before us. When we surrender to sloth, we lose our fire, our boldness. When we are in sloth’s grip, we withdraw from God and God’s world, and from our God-given confidence. And when we withdraw, our vision narrows.

Proverbs 15:19 says, The path of the slothful is a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is an open highway.” Sloth drains our energy and hems us in. But when we courageously cast off sloth’s malaise and turn in trust to God, something shifts. Hope returns, and a renewed vigor begins to seep in. God prods us toward a wide-open future.

When sloth does manifest as laziness, it is a symptom of our increasingly wilting soul. Trapped in the quagmire of idleness, we feel helpless to embrace our life, act upon any deep truth, or pursue God with any conviction or fervor. And yet, laziness, we discover, is only one way we shrink from our life. Some ancient believers used the word acedia rather than sloth. The word acedia was used to describe the multitude of ways we allow God’s energy to drain from us, the ways we become numb to God and stop being attentive to the invitation live out of the energy of God’s love. Sloth has more to do with being lazy about love than being lazy about work.

When sloth appears as acedia, it can take the shape of lethargy, a listless sadness. We no longer see the joy in God, in our good life, in those we love, in this wonderful world. We shouldn’t confuse sloth with biological depression. While there may be overlap in symptoms, and each may have both physical and spiritual components, they are not identical and we need to be wise about when to seek help — when we need to talk to a doctor or a therapist. However, if what we’re dealing with is sloth, then it means we’re surrendering ourselves to hopelessness and futility rather than to “the God of hope” who infuses us “with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). Sloth robs us of hope; but God gives hope by the bucketful.

Ironically, sloth’s modern disguise is often the exact opposite of laziness. Sloth can be seen in distraction and busyness that make us unable to be fully present to our life and to pay attention to the many gifts God has placed right in front of us. When acedia reveals itself in restlessness or boredom, we may shrink from our life — not with lethargy but with excessive activity. In my experience, I’ve learned that when I spend a disproportionate amount of time on social media or let go of boundaries between family time and work time, it’s a signal that something’s amiss. Usually, I’m clicking the TV remote or working too late in my office because I’m actually avoiding something, or trying to drum up excitement to overcome my sense of emptiness or lethargy.

Sloth makes us dissatisfied with the people God has placed in our life and tired of the tasks and responsibilities God has put before us. Frustrated and bored, we are always looking for something new — a new place, a new relationship, a new job, a new diversion. In contrast to this mindset, God always pulls us more deeply into the life right in front of us. Unfortunately, when we recognize we’re bogged down in lethargy and despair, we’re prone to heap shame upon ourselves, which is a tragedy because what these temptations to sloth actually reveal are opportunities for healing. Our sloth points us to specific, immediate places where we are desperate to be touched by God’s love.

I once endured a long season (over a year) of sadness that drained my vitality and my hope. I felt useless to my family, to God, to my work. I was also restless, grasping for distractions. I could not pull myself together; and I despised myself for that. Though it came slowly, healing occurred when I simply became curious about why I felt so empty or so desperate, why I felt so disconnected to God’s kindness and mercy. I began to recognize how hungry I was for God’s love to touch me; and in time, this love renewed my hungry heart.

Question:     Where are you experiencing laziness or lethargy or an unhealthy restlessness? Do you sense God inviting you more deeply into your life in any of these places?

Practice:     Engagement.     If sloth means shrinking from our life, then to counter sloth, we want to step more boldly into our life. Identify one person, pursuit, or skill that you believe God has placed in your path — but you’ve been tempted to ignore. For an extended period of time, give yourself to nurturing that relationship or pursuing that passion. Don’t worry about results. Simply be faithful, and watch for God’s joy to meet you right in the midst of your effort.

The Seven

ENVY

Like pride, envy is a good desire gone rogue. All of us long for goodness, for affirmation, for blessing and joy. And we should — God intends for us to experience all these things. However, envy grows whenever we think our happiness depends on securing what someone else possesses. When we are envious, we fixate on whatever we think we must have, like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings clutching that cursed ring. When we’re envious we think we know what we really need. But often, we’re mistaken and confused; and as we wander further away from truth and love (from God), we lose our perspective. We lose ourselves.

An envious person feels a constant internal void and grasps after what others enjoy (their abilities, beauty, strength, relationships, accomplishments) in an attempt to fill that emptiness. An envious person constantly compares themselves with others and judges their own shortcomings. Though it’s hard to recognize at times, an envious person is very self-critical. Unable to see ourselves as God’s beloved, we despise who we are, and then turn our envious gaze toward others to make up for what we lack. Tragically, this destructive combination of envy and self-hatred destroys us from the inside. “Envy,” the Proverb says, “rots the bones” (Proverbs 14:30).

Often, envy is our response to a wounding (a painful rejection, a sense of inadequacy, a fear of failure, etc.) and seems to point us toward quick relief in our tiring quest to find validation, recognition, and love. However, envy can never deliver what it promises. Even if we’re able to grab whatever we’re fixated on from another person, it will never satisfy. That verse in Proverbs 14 tells us that envy not only rots the bones, it also never produces a “heart at peace.” Envy always leads to more isolation, more anger and resentment, and less love.

Envy rots us from the in side, like cancer. The only power strong enough to heal envy is love. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:4, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy.” God, we know, is love, so to find freedom from envy, we must abandon ourselves to God’s enduring love. As we bask in God’s love, we discover that we do not need to possess anything or perform anything or accomplish anything. We are simply loved and delighted in by the God who has already moved heaven and earth to call us His beloved children.

When my son was 5, he saw me lifting a huge box that must have seemed to be about the size of a small car to him. His jaw dropped. In admiration, he exclaimed, “There are only 2 people as strong as daddy: Superman and Hulk!” You can imagine how my chest swelled. Years later, however, my son is 5 inches taller than me and can lift me right off the ground. He’s no longer impressed with my strength. And he now has  many men in his life besides me who he admires and respects. Some of them are stronger than me, smarter than me, and much more accomplished than me.
That’s intimidating, and I could be tempted to feel threatened and grow envious, fearful that I don’t measure up. However, when I’m resting in love (God’s love for me and my love for my son), I don’t have to reduce those other men for me to trust my own unique (and may I say irreplaceable) relationship with my son. There’s no need to envy. I am free to be myself and free to let my son be himself. We are all free.

Question:     Who provokes your envy? What is at the root of this envy?

Practice:     Kindness. Paul tells us that love and kindness oppose envy. Today, find a way to offer kindness to whoever stirs up your envy. As you practice kindness, notice what opens up in your heart toward them. And then, find a way to offer kindness to yourself.

The Seven

PRIDE

In the Christian tradition, many have considered pride to be the root of all other sins, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. IT has been argued that pride is the first and fundamental distortion of human existence: putting self over God. Wasn’t this Adam and Eve’s fundamental mistake — to believe that they knew better than God? Wasn’t that the mistake at the Tower of Babel — the idea that by our show of strength we can raise ourselves to God’s level? At the root of so many of our destructive impulses is often the delusional belief that we can be for ourselves or grab for ourselves what only God can be or what only God can give.

Years ago, I worked for a man who proved to be the most egotistical person I’d ever known. He would constantly maneuver conversations and social settings to try to ensure that everyone knew that he sat atop the food chain. He would silence and shame people and was forever telling stories where he would appear as the hero. It had to be exhausting. While he seemed at the time to be a powerful person, I can see now how he was actually living out of a fearful compulsion, trying to construct a life where he felt important and secure — beloved. He was so busy trying to promote himself that he couldn’t receive the goodness God longed to give him.

To counter our destructive, prideful impulses, the first of the 10 Commandments insists that God remains without rival. “Have no Gods other than me,” the Scripture says (Exodus 20:3) NLT. Perhaps this is why Jesus told us that the most essential commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, followed next by the command to love our neighbor (see Matthew 22:37-39). All love comes from God; if we’re not receiving the steady flow of God’s love ourselves, we’ll have none to give away. We’ll never  be able to properly love our neighbors or properly love ourselves or properly love God’s good world.

Pride holds particular seduction for those with power, wealth, knowledge, or notoriety. The more resources we have, the easier it can be to believe we can handle life on our own. An example of this in Scripture is King Uzziah. Uzziah oversaw huge construction projects and amassed large vineyards and enormous herds of cattle. Uzziah also built an impressive army, almost like an ancient version of the Green Berets, an army that made his enemies tremble. He became a great king with great dominance. And the success went to his head. “After Uzziah became powerful,” Scripture says, “his pride led to his downfall” (2 Chronicles 26:16). Pride whispers in our ear, telling us that we’re really something big — that we really don’t need God. It’s not only the powerful, though, who struggle with pride. Those of us who are fixated on ourselves show pride in many ways, even when we seem to have little reason for bloated self-importance.

As with each of the 7 sins, pride is the result of a good desire twisting in an unhealthy direction. A prideful person wants to be seen, to be noticed. And that is a good longing: we’re made to be seen, to be enjoyed, to experience another’s delight in us. However, our desire can only be met through God’s abundant gifts — His love, mercy, and acceptance in His family. Whenever we develop a false image in order to grasp what we want, we push away the very love we so desperately crave.

Question: Where do you feel tempted to promote your false ego or place yourself above God? Or grab approval that only God can give?

Practice: Silence. As an antidote to pride, practice silence. Instead of speaking up every time you have an opinion or every time you could draw attention to yourself, choose strategic moments to stay quiet. Find an hour a week where you can be quiet, listening to no one’s voice other than God’s. Listen for God’s delight in you.

Walking Free – Overcoming What Keeps Us From Jesus

The 7 Deadly Sins. That has a bit of an ancient ring to it. Sin is certainly a modern problem, and we’re fond of saying that all sin is equal and that no sin deserves special attention (even if practically we don’t act like we believe that.) But as we’ll explore in the following devotionals over these next 8 days, there is good reason to pay attention to the wisdom and reflection of those who have gone before us in regard to these sins.
We’ll be reminded that though these categories might be old and ancient, the danger they present to followers of Jesus in any age and era are very real. These sins are the twisted wreckage of our God-given desires; marred distortions of the good things God wants for us. The 7 Deadly Sins are pursuits of what we think we want. But we are not left to wallow in the misery and fear of falling victim to these sins. We will go back to the grace and mercy of our loving Lord that enables us to develop habits that reclaim the goodness of how God created us. Here we go…

Reckoning With the Shadows

In contemporary art and film, the 7 deadly sins are often portrayed provocatively, hinting that rather than something to be avoided, these are worth the time to pursue. Sometimes they arouse morbid fascination, like in the 1995 film Seven, where viewers watch a serial killer murder victims in a twisted attempt to mimic each deadly sin. Sometimes the portrayal of the 7 deadly sins evokes a sense of glamor and seduction, like in the Harper’s Magazine article where Madison Avenue advertising agencies created a full-page ad campaign “selling” one of the 7.

In the Christian tradition, however, the 7 deadly sins have played a more serious and practical role in identifying and warning against destructive human tendencies. Since at least the 4th century, faithful Christians have recognized that these 7 vices are dehumanizing, destructive, and the source of all kinds of wreckage. Century after century, theologians, pastors, and Christians of every stripe have repeatedly warned us that these malicious evils decay our love for God, degrade our humanity, and harm everything and everyone they touch.

Evigrius Ponticus (born in 345 AD) was an influential theologian who became known as one of the Desert Fathers (ancient Christian thinkers who lived in the Egyptian desert). Ponticus recognized 8 “evil thoughts” that regularly plague the human heart. Ponticus passed his wisdom for combating these temptations on to John Cassian, who then passed it on to Gregory the Great. Gregory combined sloth and sadness/melancholy, shrinking the list to 7. Eventually, by the 13th century, the wisdom tradition surrounding the 7 deadly sins worked its way down to Thomas Aquinas, who solidified the list as we know it now: pride (or its offshoot: vain glory), envy, sloth, greed (or avarice), anger, lust, and gluttony.

While each of these sins are repeatedly mentioned in Scripture, nowhere are they explicitly grouped together. We do have lists of harmful sins (Proverbs 6 and Galatians 5 for example offer some overlap with the 7). Yet, while Scripture does not explicitly focus on these sins as a category, we have good reason to take seriously the list, which reflects the wisdom and intense biblical reflections of faithful women and men across the centuries. These men and women were familiar with human frailty and insisted we must be particularly aware of these destructive temptations common to all of us (see 1 Corinthians 10:13).

Of course, this list is not the final word to consider regarding human vices and temptations. It simply provides one opportunity to learn from others’ example and to reflect on how (or where) these temptations are manifesting in our own life. If you find the list incomplete or unhelpful in any way, then simply use it as an insightful tool and discard whatever doesn’t make sense to you.
Also worth noting is that this list is not intended as a comprehensive list of all human sins. In fact, these 7 were not even intended to catalog the most egregious sins (murder, for instance, is not listed). Ancient Christians actually didn’t refer to these as the 7 deadly sins but rather as the 7 capital vices. And they called them capital vices, not because they are the worst things a human could do, but because they believed these 7 vices were the source, the fountain, of a multitude of temptations and grief. For instance, anger can lead to murder or abuse, while envy can lead to the destruction of a community and of friendship. Each sin, when indulged, ignites a whole other world of hurt and heartache.

But the list is also profoundly practical and can even give us hope. For a vice is essentially an immoral habit or practice — and habits, thank God, can be changed. We look intently at these 7 sins, therefore, not because we want to harshly judge our failures and grovel in the muck. Rather, familiarity with this wisdom tradition helps us recognize our deeply embedded human imperfections, those habits and cracks in our character that we might otherwise ignore without help — and that is exactly how change and transformation begins. This revelation of our shortcomings is good news. The Bible assures us that we can resist these devastating vices, and over time (and with much grace and diligence) God can renew us to walk joyfully down a different path — one that leads to joy and freedom.

To encourage us toward this transformation, with each vice discussed in these devotionals, we will also suggest a practice that may offer concrete help in our desire to abandon that vice and walk into freedom. In Scripture, the emphasis is never on our sin but on our dependence on the grace that yields virtue and the renewed life Jesus makes possible. As we ponder this list, we will discover how liberating it can be to name our temptations and failures, to speak the truth plainly, without excuses. This exercise can remind us that we have nothing to hide, and that our struggle with sin is unremarkably ordinary. God’s people across history have struggled with these same things just as much as we do — and they have discovered help from the Scripture and the Holy Spirit to free us from temptation’s shackles.
Left to ourselves, however, we will only continue to plunge lower into our sin cycles. As Augustine confessed: “Without You, [God], what am I to myself but a guide to my own self-destruction?” So many of us feel trapped in sin’s suffocating confines. But, as the book of James tells us, God call us into the brilliant light. We do not have to live in the “shifting shadows,” in the dim place in opposition to everything God tells us is true (James 1:17).

In fact, as we’ll discover, these destructive patterns actually reveal good longings and desires gone bad. As we confront evil, the goal is not to chastise ourselves but rather to turn to the God of hope, where we will be overwhelmed by love and mercy. We study these vices, not to wallow in them or fixate on them, but because we want healing. We want what the old-time Christians called a “cure for the soul.” We are sick and need help, but God’s love (which is the point of every bit of this after all) promises to heal us. We start the 7 tomorrow.