Remember Your Servant

I have been fighting apathy for at least three weeks.  There are points where I think I am escaping from this but I soon fall right back in.  Yesterday I asked my kids what I could do.  Kristen said there was definitely something wrong with my programming.  I pray.  I read.  But when I stop caring it is hard to pray or read like I should.  My prayer and reading become perfunctory.  I am thankful for the habit I have built over the last few years or else I would not even have the small praying and reading I do have each day.

So what do you do when you get this way?  Pray when you can.  Read when you can.  Confess when you can.  Fast if you can.

As I was reading this morning, I found myself in Deuteronomy.  I like that book.  I have been drawn to chapters 8-12 recently.

I lay flat on the ground before the LORD for forty days and nights, for he had said he would destroy you. I prayed to him: O, Lord GOD, do not destroy your people, your valued property that you have powerfully redeemed, whom you brought out of Egypt by your strength. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; ignore the stubbornness, wickedness, and sin of these people. Otherwise the people of the land from which you brought us will say, “The LORD was unable to bring them to the land he promised them, and because of his hatred for them he has brought them out to kill them in the desert.” They are your people, your valued property, whom you brought out with great strength and power.   Deuteronomy 9:25-29

Lord GOD, do not destroy YOUR people, YOUR valued property that YOU have powerfully redeemed, whom YOU brought out of Egypt by YOUR strength.

I see redemption of God’s people.  As one of the elect, I should find joy in this redemption and I do yet my sinful nature still fights against the joy.  And apathy is especially difficult.  Unlike loneliness or depression, apathy keeps me from caring for myself and those around me.  I told the kids that heaven and hell are real places and real people are dying and going to hell.  Why don’t I care like I used to?  Where is my urgency?  No – there is no balance.  There are eternal consequences for my inaction.

There are people who would tell me that the weight of that is too much for a man to carry.  Yet the weight of that is real.  Today many will die.  And most will go to hell (narrow is the path that leads to heaven) and the elect are responsible.

I also see that the Lord is faithful.  He remembers His servants despite the stubbornness, wickedness, and sin of people.  Despite my apathy, the Lord will act to save His people, the called out ones.

Lord, help me escape from this.  Help me remember those around me and around the world.  Lord, remember Your servant.