I’m a terrible water drinker. There are days when I feel so dehydrated from water to the point where my mouth feels dry during the middle of the night. You know that feeling when you wake up randomly at 2 a.m., and it feels like you could choke from having a dry throat because of dehydration? Well, that can be me on the daily. It’s not that I intentionally want to deprive myself of water. It’s just that it’s something I don’t want to go out of my way to get.
Instead of chugging water that quenches my thirst, I would find alternatives like orange juice to satisfy my dehydration. Sometimes other drinks seemed more fun, sweet, and better to drink than water. Drinking water is a physical need I know my body heavily depends on, yet sometimes I foolishly think that my body could function properly without water. It doesn’t though.
The same can be said about our relationship with God. Our very being has been formed and created to be in relationship with our Creator. He is our living water (John 7:37). We need Him to function the way we were created. Yet some days, we challenge ourselves to how many days we can starve or quench ourselves from God. We will go on for days without praying (this doesn’t include praying before we eat). We will go on for weeks and maybe even months without opening up our Bibles to let God transform our minds through His word. Maybe the only day we actually think about Him is at church. That could be six whole days of trying to live without the spiritual food and drink that our bodies crave.
Spiritual Complacency Deprives Us
How long have you been starving and quenching yourself from God? Does your body ever wake you up or show signals that it is dry and empty? Do you ever find yourself looking for orange juices and other things to satisfy this innate necessity of communing with the living God? The attitude of being content with your starvation from God is the definition of spiritual complacency—an attitude that plagues this generation of believers.
Spiritual complacency is the uncritical confidence and satisfaction of your place in your current spiritual growth stage that causes a lack of desire to participate in the intentional growth towards God’s mission and plan. It’s the common saying of, “I know enough. I do enough. There’s nothing more I need to grow. I am comfortable where I am at.”
For example, it’s like the feeling of contentment that your body is healthy and muscular enough even though you haven’t exercised for two years. It’s like the contentment of your singing voice even though you don’t do vocal warmups. It’s like the contentment you feel in your relationship even though you haven’t gone on a date for months.
Spiritual complacency is feeling good about being mediocre in a faith that martyrs died for. Why is it that our burning passion for growing closer to God, being more like Jesus, and depending on the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, simmered down? How does spiritual complacency even happen?
It could very well be a deep heart issue of lacking the desire for God and the things that come from loving Him. In all honesty, we can be people who don’t want Him, or even doubt that we can experience true joy in God. It could also stem from feeling content and lazy to put effort into this relationship with Him. Being in a relationship with anyone takes a lot of time, investment, and energy. That includes putting intentional time, investment, and energy into our relationship with God. Whatever the reason is, we lack eternal perspective and base our daily decisions on what is comfortable and instantly gratifying, instead of something that is long-lasting.
We Will Never Graduate From God
Maybe right now, you are struggling to find joy in the Creator, so then you try to make up excuses, find alternatives, or believe in lies that you don’t need to work hard in this relationship. It’s almost as if loving God is like a pathway to graduation, that it would one day reach completion here on earth during your lifetime. The attitude of feeling content in your relationship with Him is like saying that you graduated and don’t need to continue studying, reading, or turning in your homework.
But we will never graduate our way out of this relationship with God. There is no end. Having this kind of mentality can distract us from pursuing God and striving towards Him. This should be the time for us to begin a long-lasting, eternal, and fulfilling joy in God. A joy that we must rediscover.
If you resonate with any of this or are feeling in a rut in your relationship with God today, there is still time to do something about it. You have time to have a renewed sense of longing for Him. Here are a couple of ways how you can combat the sin of spiritual complacency.
1. Pray against your lack of desire for God.
This may seem simple and odd… but have you ever considered praying and telling God about your lack of desire for Him? Wrestle with God, and pour out your frustrations, confusion, and indifference to the heavenly things—to Him. And then, pray for a sincere, deep longing for God. Pray this prayer every day and ask the Almighty God to help you desire Him more.
2. Commit to practicing the habit of spiritual disciplines even when you don’t feel like it.
If we did things based on how we felt all the time, we would most likely do nothing at all. Our feelings and emotions are fleeting. There are days when I feel super happy and productive. Then there are days when I feel completely discouraged and lazy. But we must practice the spiritual disciplines of praying, meditating on Scripture, singing worship songs, and communing with other believers on days when we don’t feel like it.
Our bodies are not used to craving for the heavenly things; therefore we must train for them. It’s like training our bodies to crave eating healthy things, or to train it to enjoy lifting weights, or running. These things don’t come naturally, but they are good and healthy for us. Train your body to crave and desire God.
3. Make your relationship with God special, unique, and personal.
When someone loves another person, they would do anything they can to show the other person love. Sometimes it's baking cookies and giving it to them. Maybe it's going on an afternoon walk near the lake and talking about life with the person they love. We all love differently. I think this uniqueness that God has created in us is special. You receive and give love differently than how others would.
Take the time to brainstorm new ways to refresh your love for God. Some of us are great, avid readers. It could be reading the Bible for thirty minutes a day. But maybe that’s difficult for you to do. Reading the Bible is still very important, but try to find ways to engage with God’s word differently. This could look like listening to soft instrumentals on YouTube while reading a small passage of Scripture, and then painting your expressions of how you felt reading that passage. Or it’s picking up an instrument and writing a love song to God. It could even be as simple as waking up, taking a walk outside in your neighborhood, and thanking Him for another day of life.
Don’t overwhelm yourself by thinking about how you should act in your relationship with God. Don’t bombard yourself with too many unrealistic expectations of what you think spending time with God looks like. These expectations can scare us away or make us feel like failures when we can’t achieve them. But start off with small baby steps in refreshing your love for God. Do things you enjoy and include God in it. Don’t settle for contentment, but reach for a new longing.
Pant for Living Water
Though I’m terrible at drinking water, there have been many moments I remember the fulfilling and refreshing taste that only water can give. My body is rejuvenated after taking that gulp of water at 2 a.m. I feel like a whole new person. It’s time that we hydrate our bodies again. It's time we run to Jesus who is our living water. Just as the deer pants for flowing streams, let our souls never stop panting for God (Psalm 42:1).
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