Passivity

Part Three

Passivity. I almost didn’t write about this topic because I just didn’t feel like it; I was thinking if I kept putting it off, you would do it for me.

The primary complaint concerning passivity in marriage comes from women whose husbands who have laid aside the leadership role in the household. Although he tends to lead everywhere else, she laments, he doesn’t do so at home. There are many underlying reasons for this, but passivity on the part of a man toward his God-given responsibility can be extremely harmful to a healthy marriage. For an excellent outline about this, I am including a link at the end of today’s blog.

Since passive people, due to their characteristic avoidance of conflict and submissive demeanor, don’t create waves, you might think that passivity is a key to godliness. However, passivity toward God-given responsibility is a primary cause of ineffectiveness and unfruitfulness in Christian life.

For example, you probably eat three square meals a day without giving a second thought to the big bites of your time that eating consumes. However, have you ever thought that feeding your spirit with God’s Word was too time-consuming? When you can’t spare five or ten minutes sometime during the day to read or meditate on the Bible, you just might be spiritually passive.

“Seven days without prayer makes one weak” flash signs in front of many churches. Corny? Yes. True? Yes, again. But when you can’t seem to find the time to communicate with God, you just might be spiritually passive.

Jesus called you, His disciple, the salt and light of the world. The salt in you was not meant to rest forever in the shaker; your light was never meant to sit permanently idle under a barrel. No matter how thrilling it is to hear testimonies of souls won, lives changed, and prayers answered, those miracles didn’t occur without the salt being poured out first or with the light still turned off. In every case, someone rose up out of passivity and lived boldly, spoke freely, or prayed fervently. God used someone’s salt and light to perform His wonders.

With the world squeezing in against you from every direction, you can’t afford to live  a passive life. You will never be able to address the persistent twisting and distortion of truth in our generation effectively with bland passivity or wishy-washy conviction. As the old saying goes, “If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.” Only by soaking up the nutrients of the Bible and by spending time in fellowship with your God on a daily basis will you find the ongoing strength, wisdom, and power to face off with the assignments that God will send your way.

Wishing the world would straighten up on its own won’t make it happen. Wishing the rapture would just take place now won’t make that happen, either. You are salt and you are light, and since the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He Himself will quicken  and empower you to do all that He’s calling you to do. But He cannot do these things in you without your active cooperation.

“‘Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’  Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”  Ephesians 5:14-17, NIV

Stay salty and shine brightly,

Dorothy

 

For an outline from bible.org on the origins and effects of passivity in marriage, see  https://bible.org/seriespage/passive-men-wild-women-part-1-genesis-31-5