“Meredith there’s a coyote right between the two chicken coops!” This was what Dave said to me in broad daylight at 10:30 in the morning, not 15 minutes after I had just been down there.
Complacent. Google defines complacent as marked by self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.
I think it is safe to safe that over the course of the last three years on our farm we had definitely become complacent. Our chickens free-ranged with impunity and we even became so casual as to not worry about locking their doors at night because they were “safe”. We have three large dogs who have their scent all over the barnyard. We deluded ourselves into believing that the coyotes just seemed to know to keep on their side of the fence…until they didn’t…and two of my chickens paid the price.
How many times in our spiritual lives do we do the same thing. I think it is safe to say that this summer my complacency wasn’t just limited to caring for my chickens, it had also crept into my spiritual life. Of course I still believed, but maybe I wasn’t reading my Bible as often as I should be, or putting as much time into daily prayer – if at all. I love God and God loves me and that’s good enough, right? But let’s go back to that term “complacent”. Just as my sense of self-satisfaction about our farm situation led me to be unaware of the actual danger stalking my chickens, so too does self-satisfaction about our faith lead us to be unaware of the danger stalking our souls.
Adam and Eve are classic examples of complacency. They lived in paradise. They walked with God and knew neither sorrow or pain or anger and they were unaware of the danger that was stalking them. They couldn’t conceive of evil, until it was too late.
This has been a challenging summer for us on the farm. It’s hard to be a breeder when you can’t get your mares in foal. And, just because you have a foal for sale doesn’t mean you are going to sell it. We have lost several chickens to old age and one of our sheep and now we have a coyote!! If I’m honest, I’ve definitely been struggling. Am I doing the right thing?
It’s easy to have faith when things are going your way. It’s much harder when they aren’t. When things are good it’s easy to say God is pleased with me. Does that mean he isn’t this summer? Am I being punished?
But maybe the problem isn’t God at all. Where is my focus? What is the danger or deficiency I’m unaware of from these months of spiritual complacency? The devil doesn’t lure you away from God with prizes, he subtly distracts you from God with the things of this world. It’s the epitome of death by a thousand cuts. It’s the slow prioritization of things like scrolling through Facebook first thing in the morning, instead of reading your Bible. You tell yourself that once is okay, but once quickly becomes a habit and before you know it, you are another step farther from God.
The heartbreaks and disappointments of this summer have caused me to realize that I need to double down, I have allowed myself to let my relationship with God dribble away by “it’s okays”. It’s okay to not read my Bible today, it’s okay to not go to church this week, to not pray today… and I find myself feeling alone. God is my refuge and my strength (Psalm 46:1). Psalm 91:”4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.” I can not live my life without him. Like any relationship, you get out what you put in and I haven’t put in much lately. My spiritual life has been exposed as a deficiency. My comfort and peace comes from God and I need him in my life.
Where in your life are you guilty of being complacent? In your family life? your work? with God? And who are you letting down with your deficiencies, with your lack of awareness? I lost two of my sweet girls because of my complacency and my spiritual complacency has taken a toll on me as well. September is the perfect time to regroup. It might be fall, but it’s also a time of fresh starts just like our kids starting back to school. Be vigilant! Guard your heart and your soul and your mind, and place your faith and trust a relationship with the one who “works all things for your good.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
God bless,
Meredith
finchmeredith1 