How to Be Complacent: Part I
“Nava” was an Iranian believer who had decided to give her life to Jesus while studying in the States. In her excitement, she told her Muslim family in Iran who then disowned her. Sometime later Nava decided to go back home to Iran as she felt called to help grow the church in her own country. The church she was involved with in the States begged her to stay. They were concerned for Nava’s safety in Iran and expressed to her what a difference she was making here in the U.S. Nava’s response was surprising,“There is a spirit of apathy on the church in America and I am concerned if I stay here any longer I will fall into it. It is more dangerous for me here than in Iran.” And Nava went back to Iran.
It got me thinking. No one wakes up one morning and thinks to themselves, “I really hope five years from now, for sure 10 years from now, that I’m an apathetic, complacent Christian.”And yet it happens so often, gradually and subtly through the little habits, decisions and behaviors we make over time.
I think back to many of my friends from my Christian college days. So many of them said they would give anything for Jesus, follow Him anywhere. People who said Jesus was worth it all now seem to think He is just worth their occasional Sunday mornings and rushed prayers. Somewhere along the way they traded the gospel for the American dream. Life happened. Careers, marriage, kids and they woke up one day finding themselves feeling quite complacent. And these are the people that haunt me most because I can see myself in them.
I’m convinced apathy and complacency are one of the biggest tactics of the enemy in our culture to choke out the effectiveness of the church in the West.
Revelation 3:14-16 says“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
So how do we fall into this pitfall of lukewarm complacency? I’m certain there are many ways, but from my own experience I would like to share 5 ways I’ve found to be complacent. Hopefully this will help us pinpoint how we allow apathy to creep into our lives and be intentional to fight against it. We will start with the first two and then follow up in part 2 for the final three ways.
How to Be Complacent:
Neglect spiritual disciplines
This one can be tricky to identify at first if you are in a Christian atmosphere. You can almost ride on the spiritual experiences around you for some time and let your own spiritual disciplines slide with no immediately evident consequences. But I can promise that complacency and spiritual disciplines are directly correlated. Because the passion felt will only run so deep, it won’t be rooted in things that will last beyond the hype and emotion of the moment.
When I talk about spiritual disciplines, I’m talking about things like focused time in the Word, in prayer, in worship, in church, and time spent with other believers. Spiritual disciplines should be consistent, done on a weekly, if not daily basis for some of these. The culture and world we are in will have access to us every single day, we will hear their messages whether we want to or not. Spiritual disciplines are one of the main ways we grant the Holy Spirit access.
Romans 12:2 says“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”Spiritual disciplines help us renew our minds. When we aren’t in the Word we are going to care less about what it has to say. When we aren’t spending time in prayer we are going to care less about the power of it. When we aren’t around other believers we will get dull and won’t have others to sharpen us. Lack of spiritual disciplines causes complacency.
I met with Syrian believers in the Middle East who traveled across war zones, check points and gunfire all to receive discipleship resources and further Biblical training. How motivated are we to pursue spiritual growth when we have such easy access to it?
Spend a lot of time on social media, on your phone and binging on Netflix
The average American spends 24 hours a week online (technologyreview.com) and nearly four hours a day on their smartphones (emarketer.com) and another four hours watching TV of some kind (nytimes.com). These are some of the ways we get our culture’s messages that I mentioned earlier. I want to highlight three ways that I’ve found that spending excessive time on our media devices can cause complacency.
● First it leads to comparison. And don’t we all know how comparison drains us. We see everyone’s perfect filters and perfect lives and feel we will never measure up and it’s defeating: what’s the use of even trying! Or you can see the issues someone else is dealing with and it will cause you to puff up and think: wow I’m good.Either one of these forms of comparison can lead to complacency.
● Second, it leads to need/cause/opinion fatigue. You don’t have to spend long on social media and feel you simply can’t keep up with all of the heartbreaking stories, the political shouting, and controversial issues. We can get overwhelmed, desensitized and disenchanted. This leads to complacency, because God never intended us to carry all of these burdens via a quick scroll.
● Third, it leads to escapism. We can be more excited about what happens in the next season of Game of Thronesthan in our own lives. We end up letting fictional people or other people fall in love for us, take risks for us, and live meaningful lives for us. Not to mention the many shows that glamorize and normalize sinful behavior. All of this can lead to apathy in our own lives.
I’m not saying a legalistic approach of swearing off social media and TV entirely is required. But recognizing that excess time spent on them can cause apathy (among other things) should motivate us to put up some boundaries to protect what is more valuable to us; our walk with the Lord. We can also ask the Lord how He might want to usesocial media to help us draw closer to Him and reach out to the lost. Thanks to technology, reaching people all across the world, including Muslims in closed nations, could be right at your fingertips!