Complacent about God?

Can I ask you a question?  Have you become complacent about God?  If you’re not sure, then consider these marks of complacency:

• apathy about worship
• a sense of emptiness when you read God’s Word
• a sense of emptiness when you communicate with the God of the universe
• spiritual dryness
• an overwhelming feeling of worry and despair

Complacency is not so uncommon.  The tendency is always towards apathy.  Manna the first day is pretty amazing, but after 40 years the tendency is to murmur, “what, manna again?”  Seeing water turned to wine is pretty impressive, but after three years of miracles, you might just have joined the masses who said, “Crucify Him — He’s a fraud!”

Are you complacent?  Have you forgotten the tune to the song of joy?  Then contemplate on the Psalms.  The Psalms will re-acquaint you with the glory and wonder of God.  The Psalms will create in you a renewed sense of awe at the work of God.  One of the dominant characteristics of the Psalms is their preoccupation with the declarations of God.  The Psalms will re-acquaint you with the person and the work of God, and will not only encourage renewed worship, but renewed fellowship and love.

As an antidote to apathy towards God, examine Psalm 8.  Here are some general observations of that Psalm:

• It is a psalm of praise and worship:  the psalmist asks God for nothing and is preoccupied only with the glorification of God.  As such, not only does the writer worship God, but He leads us in worship of God.
• This Psalm is universal in scope.  While written by David, King of Israel, its truth supersedes God’s relationship with His chosen people.
• This Psalm, while fulfilled in man, is perfectly fulfilled in Christ – however man is crowned with majesty and honor, Christ is perfectly crowned with majesty and honor.

More specifically, while there is everywhere around us reason to worship God (consider the display of God’s splendor in the heavens, for instance), the great reason that we have to worship God is for His attention to us.  Why should this God who has created such a magnificent world and universe give any thought to anyone, never mind me?

He is attentive to us as a wondrous demonstration of His grace, not because of any inherent worth in us.  So to combat discouragement in life and complacency with God, we must not increase contemplation of ourselves and stimulate self-exaltation.  Rather, we must meditate on the exalted position of God and His incomprehensible grace toward us in our lowliness, as Kirkpatrick has noted:

[God] has ordained that even the feeblest representatives of humanity should be His champions to confound and silence those who oppose His kingdom and deny His goodness and providential government.  The mystery of man, of a being made in the image of God to know God, is greater than the mystery of the heavens, with all their immensity and majesty, as truly as the spiritual and eternal is greater than the material and temporal.  Man therefore, even in weakness of childhood, is a witness of the existence and character of God.