“Just do it.”
“It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
“I’ll rest when I’m dead.”
“Why do we sit here until we die?” – 2 Kings 7:3 (NASB)
Our culture encourages initiative. Passivity guarantees failure; if we want something, we have to get up and take action.
Deepak Chopra declares that “Passivity is the same as defending injustice.” Observing mistreatment and abuse, whether of ourselves or others, doesn’t alleviate the problem. Change requires jumping in and challenging trouble.
In his post, “The Perils of Passivity,” blogger Josh Hatcher warns that “Passive men will let life happen to them. They will say, ‘Whatever!’ when faced with a decision.” His recommendation? “Be Aggressive – Take charge of YOUR life – and lead yourself. Hunt out the holes in your integrity, and patch them up. Set goals and crush them. Determine your path – and run it like a stinking Clydesdale.”
If we seek to make something of ourselves, we need to dream and do. Only by active planning and decision-making will we have any chance at making progress and achieving success.
This train of thought applies to discipleship, too. A few years after I accepted Jesus as my Savior, I discovered books by Watchman Nee, a Chinese minister who taught Christians about discipleship through much of the 20th century. He died a martyr in prison at the hands of the Communists, so his dedication to Christ is beyond question.
In his magnum opus, The Spiritual Man, Nee warned that the quiescent believer exposes himself or herself to the attacks of the devil.
A lazy person does not want to bear any responsibility for himself; he just wants to passively allow God to use him . . . But God wants man to actively seek His will and exercise his own will and himself to obey Him . . . When man does not use his own mind, God will not use his mind either, because doing so would contradict the principle of God’s work. The result is that evil spirits will seize the opportunity to take over the believer’s mind . . . Therefore, it is a very foolish thing to allow the mind to sink into passivity.
Admitting my own tendency toward slothfulness, I respect Nee’s alarm. I’ve tried for years to develop my sensitivity to passivity and to steel myself to combat it.
But according to Scottish pastor and missionary Alexander Ryrie, the Bible offers a positive approach to passivity. In Silent Waiting: The Biblical Roots of Contemplative Spirituality, Ryrie reviewed 14 psalms and several Old Testament prophets about the subject of waiting on the Lord. This principle reinterprets passivity as a necessary and beneficial aspect of the spiritual life.
Waiting for the Lord means acknowledging that it is God’s purpose and God’s action that matters, and that in opposition to this, human action is of no avail; it means giving place to the action of God, instead of following one’s own “counsel” and acting purely on one’s own initiative; and it means looking for, hoping for, and attempting to recognize the activity of God, and so being prepared to go along with what God is doing (34).
Waiting isn’t negative, a laziness worthy of rebuke. In light of Psalm 38, Ryrie notes that “The waiting here is a kind of positive passivity–a self-surrender which is not a resignation in hopelessness, but a determined concentration on God himself, for it is God’s presence that is his only source of hope” (62).
“LORD, I wait for you; you will answer, Lord my God.” – Psalm 38:15
Positive passivity is based on two factors. One is optimism; we trust in the goodness of the Lord’s character. He intends to bless us and we can count on His promises.
The other factor is acceptance; we recognize the limits of our control over circumstances or situations. If we’re to see genuine and lasting changes, God must engineer them.
Over time, the act of waiting on God affects us. Based on Psalm 40, Ryrie says that “To wait . . . is not only a matter of expecting some action by God; it involves also a development deep within oneself . . . an inner transformation” (70).
“I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.” – Psalm 40:1
But we balk at this because the price of waiting feels too high. Here’s Ryrie’s insight based on Psalm 39: “This is a very passive waiting, a hoping against hope, a trusting when there seems little basis for trust. It is a waiting with bowed head, submitting in silence to whatever God may do, knowing that when there is little sign of the benevolent action of God, the only thing one can do is to wait for God himself” (65).
“But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.” – Psalm 39:7
We know we’re supposed to trust God and wait on Him, but delays can frustrate us. Our response? We adopt a passive-aggressive attitude. According to Psychology Today, “the most common signs . . . include refusing to discuss concerns openly and directly, avoiding responsibility, and being deliberately inefficient.” It’s a muted form of rebellion.
But we don’t have to go down that road. As Jesus teaches us to wait on the Father and rely on Him, fear loosens its grip on our souls. Even before we see Him work in our lives and our circumstances, God fills us with peace and patience.
This is our calling–positive passivity!
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