One of the potential downsides to achieving our goals and the progression of life is the aspect of gratitude complacency—taking things for granted we were once grateful for, but are now no longer.
We all resonate with this. Some things become so... well... so, yesterday!
Why is life so accommodating? We want more of something; more and more we take and we gobble it down, gorging we are, only to become ultimately either sick or ambivalent of it.
Take your favourite song of six months ago. You probably played it that much that it wore thin. You hear it now and ‘so what.’
Not Enough, Too Much
The opposite, of course, is the song or food or colour that takes us back to that untouchable time when we were kids—or some holy memorable time in the past—a time we can’t retrieve or recapture for want or reason; we gain a glimpse and before long it’s gone.
This can be so frustrating. We want to own something that’s always too far away.
Some things in life linger too long; others are far too short and we forever try and rekindle the magic somehow.
What Used to Inspire
Complacencies of gratitude are those things we tire of which once inspired and transformed us. When we first got our driver’s licenses we loved to just drive—now we loath being trapped in that vehicle.
This phenomenon is a trap, especially as it relates to our spirituality. Imagine being “so over” God?
It happens.
Did you ever fall in love with the Lord of Glory? Remembering him saving you?
How are we protecting our first love?
This spiritual ambivalence or complacency—amongst others less critical, like the song we’re tired of—happens the same as any. Slowly interest wanes. One day we discover how far from the tree the apple’s actually fallen—it’s a long way back, if indeed we can find our way back.
If we don’t take and make genuine steps of discipline to protect our love for God, ambivalence and complacency is an ever-present threat.
The nature of God’s goodness to us and his greatness of complete dominion should always inspire us.
We should always nurture our gratitude such that ambivalence and complacency never wins us over.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
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