There is the well known saying ‘what you don’t use, you lose’ regarding our physical bodies and mental fitness. I know this very well and have personally experienced the truth of this saying every time I start working out again after quitting for the umpteenth time. I am also aware of this with the food I eat, if I go back to my old ways of eating I will begin to lose the benefits I gained by eating healthier. Mentally I was aware of this when my kids started asking for math homework help as they got older. I knew that I had learned a particular idea or concept, but since I hadn’t used those ideas in a long time, I would have to give myself a refresher course to relearn how to do it. However, something I use on a daily basis is relatively easy for me to do without much effort or thought. A couple of weeks ago I heard someone share about this concept related to their spiritual condition, wondering why they would think it was any different in that area. I realized that I hadn’t really considered how complacency in my spiritual journey and walk with God can cause me to slowly fade and drift away without me even being aware of it happening.

I think the first and most important area where I can easily grow complacent is in my time with God and nurturing that relationship. There was a period in my life, before I began my recovery journey, that I was still doing everything I did at the beginning of my walk with God. I continued to do my quiet time, read the Bible and prayed daily; however, somewhere along the way those tasks became exactly that, tasks. They became something I did as that was simply part of my daily routine; rather than the Spirit filling time of basking in the light of His presence. After all nothing really grows in the dark, certainly not my relationship with Him. My heart grew smaller and harder as I did the right things, but was not connected to the life-giving vine of Jesus, and so I withered. Things I thought I was doing for Him simply became activities that were not rooted in the power and love of our Lord. I learned more of what I knew about my faith and the Bible, but I didn’t grow my faith or intimacy with God. Over time, as my knowledge grew, my pride and self-righteousness grew bigger as well. 

Without fostering that relationship with God, I struggled to ask Him to search me and allow Him to show me the truth of my thoughts, behaviors and actions. Complacency in this area led me to believe that as a Christian, ‘I was good.’ I guess I was back to those old ideas I grew up with thinking: I’m not as bad as that person, I’m not really sinning, and worst of all I’ve got this. At the beginning of my journey with Jesus, I was willing to take a good look at myself by allowing Him to show me things He desired to root out of my life. Somewhere along the way in my journey, I became more about learning and less about self-introspection. Webster’s dictionary defines complacent as marked by self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies which described me to a T. I didn’t think I was prideful, arrogant and definitely not self-righteous. I was unaware of how much I insisted on my will and my way. I became rather smug, believing I had all of the answers, for myself and everyone else; after all I knew what God’s word said about it. I became a lot like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, what people today would call a hypocrite. I knew the right answer and what to say, yet had no idea I was not walking the walk and in doing so, I strayed a long way from God’s path for me.

What stings today about the awareness of me drifting from God’s way, is that I see how complacency not only impacted me, but those around me as well. It has affected my relationships with others both directly and indirectly. Firsthand, when I am complacent in my relationship with others, whether my husband, friends or family, the relationship suffers because I don’t prioritize it and set aside specific time to nurture it, similar to my relationship with God. I think this can be especially true with anyone I live with or spend a lot of time around, I just assume that since we are in the same space it is good. I don’t determine, or make plans to do something to pour into the ‘us’ and without a target, I will always miss. For those people whom I don’t interact with on a regular basis, I can easily let days, weeks, months, or perhaps years pass by without connecting; or in today’s world believe that my post or text is enough. Secondhand, the collateral damage of a slow fade is that in my self-satisfaction I often provide others with advice and answers they don’t ask for or want and unintentionally isolate myself because no one wants to be around a know-it-all. Also, in my pride I have often pushed others away because I couldn’t manage to accept people right where they were at. In short, I wasn’t loving others as Jesus loves me, without condition.

Practice for Today

I am grateful today to be aware of how complacency affects my spiritual condition and my walk with God. I know that I am either growing closer to God through my relationship or farther away, there is no staying where we are at in this life. When I think I am good, it is usually an indicator that I am either sinking or falling away. I know that the two biggest things that keep my journey from being stagnant is prayer and meditation, inspecting my own fruit. I pray and ask for God’s will to be done in my life and the power to carry it out. I meditate to listen for His wisdom and direction. I practice asking Him to search me and know my heart and then take a look at myself compared to the list of Spiritual gifts from Galatians 5. If there are things that do not look like Jesus, I bring them in humility to the foot of the cross, asking God to remove anything that is not of Him and then leaving it in His hands, trusting that He who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philipians 1:6).

Proverbs 1:32 NIV     For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them

Galatians 5:22-23 ESV     But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.