Day 16 — Wake Up To Love

Opening Prayer

Living God, still my restless thoughts as I open your word. Give me humility to listen, wisdom to understand and a willing heart to respond. By your Spirit, lead me more deeply into the life of your Son. Amen.

Headline

Sloth resists the claims of love; diligence wakes to God’s mercy and gives steady attention to the neighbour before us.

Passage

Comment

Last week, we saw that loving-kindness turns from rivalry to seek and celebrate our neighbour’s good. This week we meet a quieter way of refusing that love. Sloth may look harmless beside envy, but it resists the daily claims that love makes upon us. Paul therefore brings the two weeks together: love is our continuing debt, and it is time to wake from sleep.

The older Christian word for sloth is acedia, which means a lack of care. Sloth is not confined to lying on the sofa or avoiding work. It is a settled reluctance to give ourselves to the people and purposes God has entrusted to us. Its corresponding virtue is diligence. The word comes from a Latin verb meaning to value or love. Christian diligence is love made attentive and dependable: the Spirit-enabled habit of caring steadily for what God has placed before us.

Paul describes love as a debt that always remains. Other debts can be paid and closed, but we never reach the point where we have loved enough. “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another” (v.8). This is not a debt by which we purchase God’s love. Paul has spent the first eleven chapters of Romans announcing God’s mercy to undeserving sinners. Because Christ has given himself for us, we are free to give ourselves in love to others.

Sloth resists that continuing debt. Sometimes it does so through inactivity: the apology, visit or act of service is repeatedly left until tomorrow. Sometimes it distracts us: we give our attention to a screen because attending to a person may expose a need we would rather not meet. Sloth can even disguise itself as busyness. We may work hard at tasks we enjoy or control while avoiding the relationship, prayer or responsibility that makes a more costly claim upon us. Its searching question is therefore not simply, “How lazy am I?” but, “What love am I avoiding?”

We need care as we ask that question. Weariness is not wickedness. Depression, illness, disability, grief, burnout and the demands of caring can drain energy and concentration. Sometimes sleep, help or a faithful no is exactly what love requires. Sloth is not low energy; it is the will’s settled resistance to a rightful claim of love.

Paul’s answer is an alarm filled with hope: “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed” (v.11). Every day brings Christ’s return and the completion of our salvation nearer. This does not produce frantic activity, as though everything depended on us. It gives holy urgency to ordinary faithfulness. The neighbour before us matters. The act of love we keep postponing matters. We live in the first light of the coming day.

So Paul tells us to “put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light” (v.12), and finally to “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (v.14). Diligence is not a grim attempt to become acceptable to God through greater productivity. It is a response to grace. We put on the character of the faithful Son, who did not turn away when love became costly, and we depend on his Spirit to form that character in us.

Waking up may begin with one honest recognition. There is a person we have stopped noticing, a good responsibility we keep delaying, or a busy routine that protects us from something harder. God does not ask us to carry every need in the world. He calls us to receive our limits and attend faithfully to the love that is ours to give today.

Why does God want me to hear this today? Perhaps because I have mistaken sloth for a minor failure of motivation, or diligence for relentless busyness. God invites me to see where I am resisting love, then to wake in the light of his mercy. Clothed with Christ and helped by his Spirit, I can give steady attention to the person or responsibility he has placed before me.

Reflect

• Where has “later” become a repeated way of resisting a rightful claim of love?
• Does sloth most often appear in your life as inactivity, distraction or evasive busyness?
• How does the promise that your salvation is nearer help you approach ordinary faithfulness with hope rather than fear?

Action

Before noon, complete this sentence: “Love requires me to __________ for __________ today.” Choose one specific, manageable act rather than a plan to change everything. Pray for the Spirit’s help, put aside one distraction and do it before the day ends.

Closing Prayer

Merciful Father, thank you that your love in Christ has met my deepest debt and brought the coming day near. Forgive me for the ways I delay, distract myself or hide in busyness when love calls. Wake me from slumber and clothe me with the Lord Jesus Christ. By your Spirit, give me wise limits, attentive care and steady faithfulness in the responsibilities you have entrusted to me. Amen.