Saturday, May 8, 2010

How do you overcome spiritual apathy?

I have always carried a tremendous sense of guilt with my faith... depending on the severity of the sin, knowing I am sitting in the middle of sin is enough to make myself so sick at my stomach that I can't function until I confess. Maybe it's the Southern Baptist upbringing, maybe it's God really trying to work in me, and maybe it's just my own little neurosis. Who knows?

One thing that has never given me that sense of guilt, however, is a lack of time in the word. I mean, sure, I get a twinge of "should I turn off the TV and open my Bible instead" every now and again, but it's never enough to panic me into action. Instead, I have a good week where I read my Bible every day. Then I have a week that's not so good (like, maybe 2 days, not back to back.) Then, I get into a lull like I am now, where it's been months, and I honestly feel like I wouldn't know where to start, and doing anything at all would be doing it just to say I was doing it -- making it a checkmark on my spiritual to-do list.

The fact is, I have never been very disciplined at anything I've ever tried to do -- blogging, school, sports, time in the word . . . nothing at all. That lack of discipline has consistently manifested itself in two ways: first, I never follow through with things that I want to do for an extended period of time; second, I never can quit the things that I don't want to be doing for an extended period of time. It's the only time I can look at my life with any truth and say I mimic a character in the Bible: I feel just like Paul in Romans 7: I do the things I hate, and I don't do the good I want to do.

So, here's the question: how do you overcome apathy? Because that is really where I feel myself stuck. I know I should do things, and I know I should not do other things, but here I am, stuck in neutral, and I really don't know how to move forward.

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