“SPIRITUAL INDUSTRY -- Perhaps there is no greater or more incorrigible vice in religious lives than spiritual laziness. It is a sort of omnipresent evil, like a satanic gravitation, that pervades every atom of life and pulls everything toward a center of idle repose. Religious laziness is the moth of Christian life. It eats up the garments of spiritual experience; and when we attempt to clothe ourselves for real conflict, we find our garments crumbling to pieces, having been eaten through with the insidious moth of idleness. How much time have we lost in our lives by late sleeping, lounging, gadding, useless visitations and long and worthless conversation! How much of our time has been more than wasted! Let us heartily repent, and set ourselves like a flint against this demon of idleness; let us rise earlier and spend more time in prayer, in reading spiritual books, doing good works of every kind; let us have a righteous hatred of everything slovenly and slouchy and silly. Let us deeply resolve to be always industrious. Wesley's motto was, "Never be unemployed, and never be triflingly employed." St. Alphonso vowed that he would never knowingly waste a moment. We can always find something to do in reading, or writing, or praying, or conversing to a definite spiritual end, or attending all our ordinary work in a spirit of meditation. Many think that a life of great spiritual industry would prove tiresome; but the opposite is the case. When the mind is always occupied with something divine or useful, it brings a restful and sweet quietness in the life which nothing else can do, and also takes the hurry and Impe out of the soul. Lazy people are the ones who have to run to catch a train. Idle people, who work by fits and spurts, are always tired; and for every half-hour's work they want two hours' rest. Preachers who preach one sermon a week complain of sore throats and want long summer vacations; while those who are filled with holy love preach every night with a clear voice, and make a recreation out of conventions and camp meetings. We must not only be industrious, but be so in spiritual things, or we decline in grace” (https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=37758). |