By: Justin Dillenschneider, Director of Student Life
Week of November 1st, 2021
Diligence can be defined as careful and persistent work or effort. Diligence is a virtue that requires constant tending and practice and is often very noticeable in those who do. In our hyper-connected, always-on, technologically inundated world, diligence is the quiet and steady cultivation of healthy practices that form our hearts, souls, and minds. Cal Newport describes the difficulties stemming from lack of diligence in his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. Speaking about this need Newport points out that, “To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction. Put another way, the type of work that optimizes your performance is deep work.” We need diligence (and accountability!) to avoid distraction and temptations. Rather than turn to working non-stop (workaholism) or avoiding work at all (laziness) we must turn to the One who gives all work and diligence meaning. God’s abundant, extravagant, perfect love and grace should lead us to a joy-filled, diligent obedience.
Continue contemplating diligence by looking at this week’s scripture readings from
Proverbs 13:4 NASB:
“The soul of the lazy one craves and gets nothing, But the soul of the diligent is made prosperous.”
2 Peter 1:5-7 NASB:
“5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.”
We want to encourage you to have a conversation this week about the virtue of diligence. Consider these discussion prompts together:
- What tempts you to resign to laziness?
- Where have you seen people fall into workaholism? Where are you tempted to do so?
- What are some ways you see Christ correcting laziness or workaholism in Scripture?
- How do we see the apostles and the early church modeling and celebrating diligence?
Hymn to Sing Together: He Leadeth Me, O Blessed Thought