God’s Revelation: A Cure for Spiritual Apathy

There is a spiritual struggle that many know well. An indifference to the good things of God. While working with those who teach high school students or lead youth in churches, I often hear something to the effect of, “They just don’t care.” While some see it in others’ lives, many feel it personally. It’s experienced in a cycle of binging or scrolling. It’s felt in not having the motivation to pursue good things. To work hard, open scripture, or pursue what is right. Instead, we would rather veg out.

And the hard part is, for those who struggle, we know it’s wrong. We know something is off. We want to care. We want to be passionate about the things of God, but just can’t seem to care enough. For some, this feels mystifying and disturbing. It’s a desire to change, and a desire to care, but an indifference and joylessness toward the things of God.

Defining Apathy as a Spiritual Sickness

This is apathy. It’s more than the common diagnosis of a lack of motivation or lack of emotion. Uche Anizor describes it in Overcoming Apathy as “a psychological and spiritual sickness in which we experience a prolonged dampening of motivation, effort, and emotion, as well as a resistance to the things that would bring flourishing in ourselves and others.” It is “aimlessness, laziness, and joylessness towards the things of God.” Even more sharpley, he writes that apathy is a “refusal to love the one who is most loveable” [1]. This is what makes it so serious. Apathy is spiritually destructive.

So what do we do about it? And what solution will satisfy us? Is it what the modern world presents, or what Scripture has revealed from the beginning?

The Modern Diagnosis vs. God’s Revelation

There is an apologetic for the Christian faith found here. It’s found in the diagnosis of apathy and the solution it gives. The modern diagnosis and solution fall short. The Christian diagnosis and wondrous revelation are what may awaken what we wish were present in our lives.

Our modern diagnosis is often this: apathy is the result of burnout, overstimulation, disconnection, or exhaustion. And there is a piece of truth in this. We are tired, distracted, and sometimes emotionally spent due to a digital overload. Our attention is often fractured and this does real damage to our ability to care deeply about anything.

Because of this, the modern solution often sounds something like this: touch grass, get in touch with your inner self. Or get off your phone and practice mindfulness and reconnect with the beauty in the world. To be fair, these things can help. They can calm us down and produce some caring for a short time. They can make us feel more awake or present in the moment. But they lack one essential piece. I think they fail to reveal who we are being awakened to.

How God’s Revelation Addresses the Deeper Problem

This where the Christian diagnosis differs. Scripture reveals that Apathy is the result of sin. We struggle to care about the things of God because our hearts are opposed to him. We care deeply about our own immediate satisfaction by our own means. We are not merely exhausted creatures. We are fallen creatures. So while the modern world can identify some of the symptoms of apathy, it cannot explain the deeper problem.

And the Christian solution could not be any more revolutionary. It begins with a groundbreaking reality. God has made himself known.

Revelation Through Creation and Scripture

In Psalm 19 we read, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” And Paul writes in Romans 1 that what can be known about God has been made plain in what he has made. The world and everything in it is created by God, and with this creation comes the reality that God has made himself known in it.

In addition to this, God reveals himself through Scripture. He reveals himself personally in his words and in his deeds. In Exodus, we read God speaking personally to Moses. He identifies himself as I AM and declares his own character as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

The Ultimate Revelation in Jesus Christ

And God has made himself known and visible in the person of Jesus Christ. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” Hebrews says that while God has spoken in many ways in the past, He has now spoken by his Son.

Applying God’s Revelation to a Cold Heart

The Christian story begins with God revealing himself to creation in a personal way where he can be known. And in part, here we find the beginnings of the cure to apathy. Its a recognition and reflection on the true God who has made himself known.

Here is how its worked in my own life. When I have struggled to care about spiritual thing,s reflecting upon God making himself known to me raises a question: Why? Why would God make himself known to me? The answer is, because he loves me. He cares for me. He wants what is best for me. Because he is good and merciful and gracious. Because he is my creator who has created me to delight in him.

Recognizing this causes me to first acknowledge my value to God, which is humbling and sobering. And second, it causes me to wonder about the goodness of walking with God. And this wonder, why God would reveal himself to me, and the good life he offers, in part causes my heart to awaken. And I begin to wonder about who he is and his working in the world.

Conclusion: Practicing the Presence of God

So what does this look like practically? It means that when you feel cold, you do not merely need to manufacture emotion. You instead return to what God has revealed. You open scripture and ask, what has God made known about himself here? You look at creation and remember the world is not empty. And you look especially at Jesus, where the character of God is made visible in history. And then pray honestly something like, God in light of yourself and what you have done, awaken my heart to care.

Apathy is real. The modern way may help reduce some of the symptoms for a time, but only Christianity reveals the deeper problem and the personal cure. Its not merely more rest and less scrolling, its to see again the God of the universe who has made himself known. And when we see him clearly, wonder begins to return.