Devil's Dart: Spiritual Apathy

Some of the best memories are made while on summer vacations. As I began to prepare to write this blog, I was reminded of a trip to the beach with my family when I was younger. It was a beautiful day, and the ocean seemed to be calm. I was channeling my inner surfer and riding the little waves on a pool float. I was so blissfully unaware, enjoying the gentle swaying of the waves, that I lost track of my surroundings. I hadn’t realized that the current was slowly pulling me away from the beach. It wasn't until someone called my name that I looked back to the shore and saw that I was far from where I started. I quietly panicked and quickly began paddling back. 

Just like floating away from the safety of the shore, it can be easy to drift away from Jesus and find ourselves caught up in spiritual apathy. One moment, we’re close to Him, feeling His presence in our everyday lives, and the next, we’re so preoccupied with life’s distractions that we find ourselves drifting further from our spiritual anchors. Before we know it, we’re splashing around far from where we want to be.

My family moved from the area where we had lived for nearly my entire life almost a year ago. It was a decision we made after a lot of prayers, but it came with a lot of tears. Life felt like a whirlwind while we moved twice, my husband changed jobs, the kids started at new schools, and we were trying to find a new church home. It’s very hard to admit (to myself, much less publicly), but I allowed the waves of life to carry me farther away from Jesus than I ever expected.

The devil’s aim is to move us far away from Jesus, so the dart of spiritual apathy is very effective and powerful. Spiritual apathy, by definition, is a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern for the things of God. We start to become numb towards spiritual things in our lives, maybe even towards our sins. Our worship life can simply be going through the motions. We may become unconcerned for the kingdom of God or those who are outside it.

Jesus paints that picture in his famous parable of the sower. He talks about the plant that grows up, but then is choked off by the weeds. He says, “The worry of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it produces no fruit.” (Matthew 13:22)

We often assume that if someone is drifting away from God, it must be because they have committed some major sin, abandoned the church, or openly rejected their faith. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis corrects this misconception in the twelfth letter from Screwtape to his apprentice, Wormwood. 

“The only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the light and out into the nothing. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

Screwtape reveals that spiritual decay happens in the quiet, unnoticeable decisions of everyday life. If we aren’t careful, we may wake up one day to realize that we are far from Christ, not because we chose to leave Him, but because we never intentionally chose to stay close. We are either swimming toward Him or drifting somewhere else. 

The Bible reminds us to “stay alert and be sober-minded” (1 Peter 5:8), encouraging us to be mindful of our spiritual well-being. Hebrews 2:1 tells us, “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” In other words, if we take our eyes off Christ, we’ll soon find ourselves further from Him. 

Despite knowing the truth, we still have the tendency to drift away from our faith and from the presence of the Lord. God used the church of Ephesus to illustrate the principle of forgetting our first love (Revelation 2). When this happens, the Lord says, “remember where you have fallen and repent.” When David confessed his sin in Psalm 51:10-12, he prayed: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” 

Just like keeping an eye on the shore, we need to remain aware of our relationship with Jesus. When I drifted from the ocean shore, panic set in, but I soon found comfort when my feet touched the sand. While the tides of life are ever-changing, we can have comfort in knowing that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He loves us and will always be waiting for us to repent, renew our faith, and return to Him. 

“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)