Confessing Sloth and Indolence

(Ecclesiastes 10:18) Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.

Jehovah God our Creator and Redeemer, all praise, honor and glory be to You. You are ever-creating, ever-refining, ever-transforming and ever-overseeing the works of Your hands, and sovereignly guiding the course of history to a grand and glorious climax of love and redemption. Forgive us dear Lord…

For unlike You, we have been slothful and indolent. In spite of the fact that You have given us every reason to be active and energetic in Your glad service, we have simply chosen to be inactive, lifeless and uncaring. We have chosen the self-serving leisure of computers and television over the selfless hard-labor of service; and the inglorious ease of isolation to the glorious messiness of community. Lord have mercy upon us…

For we find ourselves the victims of our own idleness, inactivity and apathy. The roof of Your house (the Church) sags, sinks-in and leaks. Through laziness and inattention, sloth and distracting recreations, we have failed to build, repair, renovate, protect and preserve Your house (the Church.) Lord have mercy upon us…

For neither have we sought out new “living stones” for You to fit together with us in the building of Your house (the Church.) We have preferred the tidiness of our holy huddles to the disarray of evangelism and new-believer discipleship. We have spent countless hours refining our understanding of truth, but failed to take it to those in our community who are entrapped by falsehood. We have spent countless hours honing our grasp of goodness, but failed to share it with those who live in the clutches of evil. We have spent countless hours perfecting beauty and yet failed horribly to redemptively address the ugliness of sin in our valley: poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, gross sexual sin and addiction, fatherlessness, homelessness and hopelessness. For our sloth and indolence, Lord have mercy upon us…

And hear us now as we confess our particular sins to you….