Faith does not cool down quickly. More frequently it becomes cold in little, commonplace designs which seem quite harmless to a point when prayer becomes papery, Scripture flattened out, and worship less an encounter than it is a noise.
The appearance of some habits is of maturity: regular routines, subdued feelings, little drama. But even the inner life may tend to go away, not through the absence of God, but through the slow redistribution of attention and love.
1. Considering the spiritual fundamentals as a luxury
Unity instills the strength of perseverance in the soul, and a silent practice of “as need be only” devotion soon breaks the heart into conditioning to approach God no farther than an emergency. Prayer becomes a last resort. The Bible is made a fast read. The worship is mood dependent or time dependent or convenient dependent. The Christian life may eventually become more like a collection of preferences rather than a relationship that is practiced. The weakening effect is hard to notice since the individual still believes in something, still assents to the truth as well as might yet look involved into the life of church. But there is an under-feeding of the inner life and the will is less open to conviction. The drift is hardly dramatic; it is the gradual normalizing of spiritual irregularity until an irregularity becomes normal.
2. Enabling lukewarmth sense even
A cold religion tends to conceal itself in a plausible sounding attitude: nothing extreme, nothing intense, nothing over-emotional. The Bible employs even more stinging language to describe that position by saying things like because you are lukewarm neither hot nor cold I am about to spit you out of my mouth (Revelation 3:16, NIV). Tepidity appears in the form of half-faintly worshiping God, secure obedience, and silent refusal to be bothered by God. It even possesses social disguise; indifference may appear as maturity in case of in reality being disengagement. What is being cautioned in Revelation is not so much the quantity of this, but the quality of this, which is love: a heart that can no longer burn any longer can continue its appearances, but gradually loses spiritual appetite.
3. Filling boredom with the same stimulation
The choice of spiritual boredom is not necessarily the absence of activity; it is often increased by the loss of interest and fading attention. Once familiar with the sacred, gratitude can turn into of course and awe can be substituted with criticism. Among the one considerations about spiritual apathy, there is the threat of becoming desensitized, citing B.B. Warfield: God save Thee, thou art in danger of growing weary of God! The silent vice, which chills religion, is to seek solace in hasty amusements whenever quietness is seen to train the mind not to be still, to train the heart not to expect to be always new. Gradually worship and Scripture may begin to be felt to be slow, not less powerful, simply that the soul has become less patient.
4. Then being mediocre in the guise of being realistic
Mediocre devotion and ordinary life are dissimilar. An unspoken rule of simply doing the barest minimum barest attention paid to the Scripture, bare minimum of generosity, bare minimum of service, bare minimum of repentance narrows spiritual faculty gradually in a way that is progressively hard to notice. Mediocrity does not declare itself as rebellion, it puts itself forward as weariness, common sense or as an endless end of an endless season. The outcome is the life full of Christian activities but without wholesomeness. Love is not practiced and faith cools. When perfection is rejected as extra, one can be genuine and gradually turn unconcerned, relapse into a life that hardly extends, sacrifices, or ventures anything in Christ.
5. Isolating and being connected at the same time
There may be spiritual loneliness and digital connection. Isolation chills faith since it eliminates confession or encouragement and the heat of actual responsibility. One account of contemporary disconnection states the following: a weird twenty first century paradox: we have had more connections than ever, and are even more lonely. The silent tradition is retreating out of actual community and narrating oneself that it is temporary, personality-based, or just a preference. As time goes, the Christian life turns into a privacy that is difficult to discourage and is tempted to excuse. Religion was not made to exist individually.
6. The silence of God and the absence of God
Seasons when God is silent may turn out to be a turning point to greater trust or a glaciation into cynicism. The silent practice that chills the faith is that unanswered prayer or dryness of emotions signifies some failure: the relationship, the promises, and the one who is praying.
A spiritual silent meditation notes that silence is not necessarily the lack of anything, but is characterized as the ground on which trust may develop without emotional support. Spiritual practices may go into a rut or become completely extinct as the believers cease to remain in such seasons. But there is a greater problem, a relational problem: the chilling is the refusal of that kind of faith which is not made clear, which is not made clear at once.
7. Making little concessions background noise
Not all spiritual burdens have the appearance of scandal, but some are the accepted forms, which gradually burnish out the belief. The custom of justifying trivial sins conditions the conscience to reduce its levels. At some point, it becomes difficult to repent since the heart lacks urgency. Religion chills where joy oozes unspoken through attitudes, habits or a sense of resentment. The threat is in slowness: it is easy to compromise until it becomes a norm. Guilt is not the only spiritual price but a loss of the desire toward God, since there is no long lasting peaceful coexistence of desire and disobedience.
All these habits are silent because of the fact that they can be lived long enough. A crisis is not needed to cool down; all that is necessary is gradual neglect.
When the focus is back to what love demands, faith gets stronger through constant prayer, Scripture that is not skimmed through but one that is received, truthful repentance, and a community that accommodate encouragement and correction.
