“Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.”
Question: What has been your experience of this?

Hands hanging down?

The preceding verses are about what weighs us down, the sin which easily ensnares us, and verse 3 reads, “becoming weary and discouraged in our souls”. That reminds me of when I first read about the old list of “Seven Deadly Sins” (see Wikipedia), a classification of sin in about AD 590 into a hierarchy which had some derivation from Greco-Roman times, and is now ignored by many churches as all sin is deadly (James 2:10).

Despondency

The list caught my attention when I saw a painting by Hieronymus Bosch from 500 years ago, of “The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things”. The list includes “sloth”, which we usually take to mean laziness and idleness, but a better translation is “despondency”. It’s a weariness or distress of the heart, or spiritual lethargy, which makes us sluggish about work that needs to be done, and it blocks our spiritual growth.
It’s an unrelenting and wilful gloom that leads to idleness. And when people lock their anger in their hearts, it can lead to bitterness.

My experience

I first read about this despondency as a sin at a time when I felt down about so many things. I had reached middle age, and had come to see all the human organisations I once thought of as furthering God’s kingdom, to fail in so many ways, and some even to become misguided and misused for very human agendas.
And I had also seen my personal unlimited hopes and dreams of younger years become closed off, or upended, or just turned sour. I think in middle-age our horizons suddenly contract.
At that time an older guy from my home group was amazed when I confessed to being subject to this despondency. He was very active and fully confident about his work on the board of a church-related organisation which had the best of reputations. I think he is still alive but not able to understand much, which is a kindness in view of the disaster that happened to that organisation (another long story).

My Response

If it seems at times that the structure and operation of the world has gone completely astray, why should we run the race? Do we even have the power to strengthen our weak hands and knees?
But verse 1 refers to “the race that is set before us” – that is not about our judgement on what is happening around us, and where it is all heading, but it refers to the responsibilities and opportunities that God places in our lives today. Will our eyes and hearts be open to see, and step forward, in those challenging opportunities, or will we look to our own concerns and comforts?

While I try to understand what is going on in the world around me, and I am concerned about the misinformation and dishonesty that is rampant in our world, I now accept that much of that is not my responsibility.
I have learnt that God will strengthen my knees for the tasks He has assigned, but it is only in His power that those tasks may have successful outcomes. And He will not equip me to deal with other things that He has not placed in my path.
And I have also learnt that when I turn away from how I think the world should be changed, and focus on what God has given me to do, then He further increases the load and equips me to do even more, so I don’t have the time to be distracted.

Praise God for all He does in this world, despite the efforts of humanity to go its own blind way.
Let us give Him the glory for all the good we see, and be ready with our hands held high for Him to use us wherever He has placed us.

Note: Image at top right is the painting by Hieronymus Bosch of “The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things”, and at left is the detail for “Sloth”.