Have you noticed any recent changes in your thoughts, attitudes and actions? More importantly, what type of change have you noticed in your thought life and is it concentrated in any particular area or is it widespread? Are you starting to think differently or less about politics, money, religion, family, friends, current events? Give that enough thought to come up with an answer. Take a minute to quantify and qualify these changes in your thoughts.
It’s a given that we constantly change. In fact, its a good thing…right? We SHOULD keep striving to be better, care more, think more clearly, understand more completely and love more deeply. But is that the type of change you’re experiencing? Are you more passionate about our country and it’s future? Are you more or LESS concerned with people other than yourself? Do you believe the future is brighter than the past? Or, are you becoming more apathetic with each passing day? Is your thought life producing greater and more positive results every day..or not?
I had a friend once tell me he didn’t care about apathy. So, what IS apathy. According to Wikipedia. which is in the business of change and will constantly change a definition if need be, apathy is…”a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, and concern.” HHMMM. Have you felt any of that lately? In fact, is apathy a result of the intensity and rapidity of change we are living through? Is our world changing so radically and so rapidly that we are beginning to become insensitive and indifferent? And, how is that affecting a change in YOU??
Apathy can be a disease. If you don’t know and watch for the symptoms, you can become insensitive, indifferent, passive, and disinterested in one news cycle. Elie Wisel, an American novelist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 once said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” Apathy is the result of futile thinking.
In the New Testament, Paul put it a little more bluntly. Paul wrote a letter to a group of his buddies in Ephesus. Paul made the point that when your thinking became futile, it darkened your understanding, your heart hardened, you lost sensitivity and this could lead to separation from God. By the way, don’t look to Wikipedia for a definition of futile, they don’t have one. Webster defines it as… “having no result or effect : pointless or useless”.
In 1950, US novelist John Dos Passos wrote: “Apathy is one of the characteristic responses of any living organism when it is subjected to stimuli too intense or too complicated to cope with. The cure for apathy is comprehension.” So, let me ask. Do you comprehend whats going on in Washington these days? Does the stock market seem too complicated and provide stimuli that is too intense? Can you comprehend why you have to elect a candidate to know where they stand on an issue? Let me pose, the cure for apathy is not just comprehension, it is wisdom and revelation. Look up the definition of those words and tell me we can’t use more of them.
So where and how do you get wisdom? The book of James 1:5-8 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord: he is a double-minded man unstable in all he does.” To fight apathy, we need to start with prayer and end with faith.
How do you start to care about that family member that hasn’t spoken to you in two years? When do you start to care about a candidates health? Do you care if we discriminate against an immigrants religious faith? Where do you go to start understanding the difference between the truth and the lies you are being told every minute of every day? Maybe you HAVE noticed the changes in your heart and mind lately. Are you becoming MORE apathetic about MORE issues than ever before. I’m not asking why, I’m just asking if you are changing that way? 
The book of Revelation (13:16-17) tells of a world ruler who forces “everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.” Most people have heard this story or heard about the story. The mark refers to as much a heart condition as a physical mark or economic issue. The mark of the beast refers to a willingness to operate within the economic system the ruler promotes. Can apathy lead to the taking of this mark? In what direction is your current state of apathy leading you in your relational, economic and spiritual life?
Can apathy make a believer passive at an inopportune time? Is apathy so dangerous it could make you unconcerned about a silly mark and indifferent to what the scripture teaches? Is your apathy lying dormant for just the wrong time or is it building to a crescendo? Is your apathy revealing the spiritual condition of your heart?
Let apathy be the new red flag. Whenever you see it, call it out. Whenever you ARE apathetic, get on your knees. You play the way you practice. Don’t be apathetic about being apathetic.
