Enough of the Apathy

.. An old piece I wrote a long time ago. Became relevant again to me recently, so I thought a repost was in order.

Friday, August 28, 2009
It’s as if I’ve opened my eyes for the first time and began to look around. Maybe at myself, maybe at the people around me… but what I see is apathy. People living just for the sake of being alive. For myself, I fall into this rut of the same routine, day in and day out… living just to reach my pillow at night, only to wake up and do it again. And the whole time I’m relatively indifferent about the whole process. Why is that? Is it culture that dictates my lack of passion?

We’re taught these days to be accepting of everything and everyone, because truth for one person may not be truth for the other. We even strive to be accepted by all. Where in the world did these ideas come from?!? Why do we allow ourselves to be brainwashed into relativism? Where is the passion in that?? If I’m gonna live for a purpose or a conviction, then not everyone is gonna like it but I will not waver, and I’m certainly not going to stand idly by and just “accept it” when someone stands for something that I know to be false. What if Martin Luther had fallen for this apathetic approach to life and just accepted what society told him to accept? We would have never gotten the 95 theses, and the Catholic church would have continued to make a mockery of organized religion.

I’m sure we don’t need a history lesson here, but there are countless others who stood up against the flow to take a stand for their own deep rooted convictions... I can think of 13 right off the bat. Their names were Simon Peter, Andrew, James the son of Zebedee, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon, Matthias, and my personal favorite; Jesus Christ. All with the exception of one (John) were brutally murdered because they stood for something that the world told them not to stand for. Talk about passion…

So what does the Bible say of my apathy? Oh, what do you know… right there in Colossians 3. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. Colossians 3:23. It tells us right there in black and white that WHATEVER we are doing, we should do it passionately with zeal, fervor, and purpose. I don’t know about you, but that’s who I want to be. I want to wake up every morning, shake off my apathy, and live with purpose. I want people to know that I’m unwavering in my convictions and that I will not yield.

Life is vain if all I do is live. I want more than that. I was created for more than that… I was created to be passionate and to stand when all those around me fall. Because just like those 13 guys… I am grounded in my convictions, and I believe, even unto death, in my faith in Jesus Christ and in my life’s desire to passionately serve him and him alone. What do I have to be apathetic about?? I have a purpose and a hope, and that’s where my passion thrives.

I’m just saying… enough of the apathy

If I had a nickel...

The other day I was digging through my change in the car because I was thirsty and I wanted a coke. Any other day, the cup holder would have been overflowing with quarters, but apparently I had used them all, and so I was forced to demean myself to pillaging through dimes and nickels. Every coke machine on Austin Peay’s campus cost $1.25, and of course all I could find was a buck twenty. One lousy nickel was all I needed.

So me, being the smarty pants I am, got spiritual… “God,” I said, “You are a big God, and you can do big things… but today, I’m not in need of big things. Today God, I’m in need of a nickel, and I would absolutely LOVE it if you will supply me with a nickel between this parking spot where I’m standing, and the class that I’m about to go to.

(For those of you who don’t know Austin Peay, parking isn’t that great, so it didn’t take a lot of faith for me to believe that I could find a nickel walking from Egypt to the Mass Communications Building...)

So, I began my journey, truly believing that by some supernatural force, a nickel was going to appear, like Scotty had just beamed it there from the Enterprise. That whole 15 minute walk was spent, eyes to the ground, searching desperately for a nickel. But guess what?? I never found my nickel…

I had actually forgotten about my silly fleece that I had laid before God, until this evening when I was walking out the door of my church to go home. I was saying good-bye to everyone, when my pastor stopped me, and said, “hey, wait!” He then leaned down, picked something up off the ground and handed it to me. It was a dime…

Now, there’s nothing overly spiritual about a dime. There’s not even anything remotely Godly about someone stopping to pick up a coin that they believe belongs to someone else, but there is something to be said about God providing for us. I only needed a nickel, but God provided a dime. God gave me double what I asked for!!

Now granted, that dime would’ve been nice when I had the other buck twenty, so that I could actually get a coke, but I think that’s where the lesson lies…

Too often we get so caught up in asking God for nickels, for those things that we really think we need to be happy. We even get upset and angry when those nickels don’t show up when we “think” we need them to… But maybe, just maybe, if we will give up our nickels, and trust that God has a plan for us (Jeremiah 29:11, Psalm 37:23-26, Proverbs 3:6), we will see that His plan for us was never nickels, it was always dimes… God’s plans for us are bigger than anything we could dream for ourselves!

Something to think about…