One of my favorite takeaways from church is that I always end up leaving feeling like my cup was filled. This week, we were talking about the remedy for overcoming sloth. Our pastor gave some great examples including the sloth in Zootopia, Sid in Ice Age, and how people often mistake the term sloth for not working but sloth is really when you have no purpose.
Kathleen Norris has a wonderful definition:
“People don’t think of sloth as a sin because we associate it with physical laziness–who cares if you make your bed? But that’s just the beginning. Ancient sloth incorporates a spiritual side and that’s a nasty situation. Acedia is the root of a lot of bad things because of its ability to nourish other vices.”
We have so many routines in life. What time we wake up, what we do after we roll out of bed, our routine before bed, the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, we get bored easily so following routines isn’t always as easy as it should be, even when it is a great routine like reading our Bible or growing our spirituality!
When looking at if we have purpose, one question to ask is, “Am I working hard on the right things”? If you aren’t sure think of it this way: are you saying yes to the right things and no to the wrong things? Are you saying yes to bake sales and hate to bake? Do you feel guilty so you say yes even though it’s something that you don’t want to do? Have any of these become distractions to keep you from pursuing the most important things?
No matter what you might be being slothful about, diligence is the answer! Overcoming sloth to live your best life by through careful and persistent work. The key to diligence is establishing routines!
When we repeatedly do something whether it’s good or bad, it shapes us. When we don’t read our Bible, that shapes us. When we do read our Bible, that shapes us as well!
Even the homeless try to establish some type of routine whether it’s finding food in the same place or sleeping in the same place.
You can establish your routine and keep it going through prayer, loving others, and serving others.
What are you doing to pursue the things that should be a “yes”? What are you spending your time on that is a distraction from those “yes” things. How are you overcoming sloth in your life to live your best life?
Happy Wednesday! Thanks for joining in the party!
Hi ladies! Welcome to Women With Intention Wednesdays!
Welcome to a new week of Women With Intention! I’m very pleased to feature a post from Keri of Living In This Season with her post Finding Community When You Feel Alone.
Welcome to Women With Intention Wednesdays!
Here is what you will find at Women With Intention Wednesdays:
- This is a link up party where you come to encourage one another, have fun, and share your best posts to help women live their best life!
- In other words, any post that you have written about Christian living, homemaking, relationships, healthy living, living a frugal life or that helps another woman can be included in this link up! Please just them family friendly (I reserve the right to remove anything that I feel isn’t appropriate).
- This link up is beneficial for every woman! Whether you are a blogger or a reader, this is one you won’t want to miss! I’m very excited to offer this link up as a place to not only build new relationships between bloggers but also by providing an awesome resource of information for my readers!
Here are the rules of this link up:
- You must link directly to your post (no homepages, please).
- Please link up no more than 2 posts each week and please do not link up the same post week after week.
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For every link you add, please visit the link before you and one other of your choice. If your links are consecutive visit the blogger before you and your choice for the 2nd link. It’s impossible to build relationships when no one communicates! Please don’t link and run!
- By linking up you give me permission to share your posts and photos on this blog and social media. Each week I will choose a featured blogger and possibly another post such as the most popular post. I will only feature you and the most popular posts if you have followed the rules (otherwise I’ll move on to the next most popular post). All features will be linked back to the original source.
- You also give me permission to email you a quick reminder that the party is live. You may opt out anytime. I don’t spam my readers with emails.
- Answer the community building question below so we all get to know each other! That’s the purpose of being here! 🙂
I’d love for you to add a button to help spread the word about Women With Intention Wednesdays (thank you)!
If you were featured, please feel free to grab this button!
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Community Building Question: I decided to continue Women With Intention Wednesdays through the summer. I would miss you guys! 🙂 So, what is one of your favorite summer memories growing up as a child?
I loved playing softball so that was definitely at the top of my summer to-do’s every year but one of my favorite things to do was to go to my Grandma’s while my dad irrigated the crops. Lots of special memories were made there!
Have you enjoyed what you read here today? Do you have friends or other women you know that could benefit from this resource? If so, please do me a favor! I have included the links below to share with other intentional women! They’ll be glad you did!
Keri says
Thank you so much for featuring my post! That means alot! We would camp every summer on Lake Michigan and I have many fond memories of that. Also just playing with my brother and sister for hours. We had so much fun together.
Susan Shipe says
Jenny, glad you’re continuing the linkup and thank you for your faithfulness. FAVORITE MEMORY: Going down to the canal and collecting minnows and keeping them in big clean restaurant jars in my mom’s laundry room AND… writing, editing, distributing the Manor News, a neighborhood news-paper!
Jenny says
Awesome memories, Susan! 🙂
Emily says
Summers at the family cabin is my favorite memory! I am so thankful for the days I had there. 🙂
Jenny says
Sweet memories!
Michele Morin says
The sound of bumblebees!
Jenny says
Lol my kids are terrified of bumble bees!
Lisa notes says
“The key to diligence is establishing routines!” I totally agree with you. I’m all about routines. It’s much easier to stay disciplined when we’re not constantly having to make decisions about what to do or not do; just follow the routine. Granted, I can tend to become inflexible though!–that’s something I have to watch out for. God should always have permission to interrupt my routines as needed. 🙂
Niki says
Routines, routines, routines … I KNOW I need them but life (by which I really mean me) gets in the way. I think my biggest barrier to saying more yeses is procrastination driven by fear of failure. Ooh that smarts, but it’s true. I’m trying to kill the sloth by remember that the thing I must say yes to is the very thing that God has called me to and, at the end of the day, I truly want to be obedient.
Thanks for sharing.
Jenny says
Super insight. 🙂 The fear of failure is hard for me too!
Debbie Wilson says
Jenny, I appreciated your thoughts on being a sloth. I’d never thought of it as not having or working toward your purpose. Favorite summer memories are water sking and playing hide and seek as a child.
Jenny says
I’ve never been able to get up on the skis! How fun! 🙂
Lori Schumaker says
I love this! Overcoming the sloth in our lives! Saying the yes’s and the no’s that need to be said. Thank you for the timely reminder! And thank you for hosting this link-up each week!!
Blessings and smiles,
Lori
Donna @ Soul Survival says
Jenny, one of my favorite memories was being able to spend extra time with my grandmother who lived a few hours away. I would stay with her for a couple of weeks at a time. Summers were also a time for family vacations (often road trips) and time for lots of reading!
Thanks for hosting each week! Have a great Lord’s day!
Jenny says
Spending time with Grandma’s are the best 🙂 I painted my Grandma’s porch today. 🙂