Passivity | Between Two Worlds

The following is a quip from Kevin DeYoung’s Just Do Something (via Between Two Worlds).

Passivity is a plague among Christians. It’s not just that we don’t do anything; it’s that we feel spiritual for not doing anything. We imagine that our inactivity is patience and sensitivity to God’s leading. At times it may be; but it’s also quite possible we are just lazy. When we hyper-spiritualize our decisions, we can veer off into impulsive and foolish decisions. But more likely as Christians we fall into endless patterns of vacillation, indecision, and regret. No doubt, selfish ambition is a danger for Christians, but so is complacency, listless wandering, and passivity that pawns itself off as spirituality. Perhaps our inactivity is not so much waiting on God as it is an expression of the fear of man, the love of the praise of man, and disbelief in God’s providence.

This is a good, strong word for many college students I interact with. I hear quite often language like “I’ll pray about it” or “I’m not sure I’m called to that” when talking about simple steps of Christian obedience. Often times the issues shouldn’t be taken lightly (stepping into leadership, going on a short term mission trip, etc.), but I’ve seen such a tendency to over-spiritualize these kind of decisions in order to avoid taking a hard step.

Let’s think comparatively for a second: do you need to pray for weeks on end about spring break vacation in florida? Do you pray for weeks on end about joining leadership in your other school activities?

I’m just sayin’…