Overcome Apathy

1. What is apathy?
• Apathy is defined as a “lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.” Apathy is not the same as laziness, but the two often go hand in hand. If I don’t care about what’s happening around me, I won’t find the energy to get up and do anything about it.
• And yet, apathy is different from laziness. Laziness is “and unwillingness to work or use energy.” It’s entirely possible for someone to be hard-working and yet also apathetic at the same time.
• For instance, there are people all over this country who rise early, go to work, punch the clock, work hard, and put in 40+ hours a week.
• In fact, some people are working more than they ever have! And yet, those same hard-working people can be totally apathetic concerning the most important things in life.

2. What are the causes & characteristics of apathy?
• Apathy can be a symptom of mental health problems, Parkinson’s disease, or Alzheimer’s disease. It often lasts a long time. Those battling apathy lack the desire to do anything that involves thinking or emotions.
• The etymology of the word of apathy is enlightening. “Apathy” comes from the Greek word “pathos,” which means passion or emotion. So then, “a-pathy” is “no passion” – a lack of emotion or feeling that others might expect to find in us.
• We need to be clear – apathy is not the same thing as depression, though it can be hard to tell the two conditions apart. Feeling “blah” about life is common in both conditions.
• Apathy isn’t sadness or anger either. Rather than feeling those emotions, we don’t feel much of anything. Things that used to make us happy don’t excite us anymore. We no longer feel motivated to achieve our goals.
• The doctor might diagnose any of us with apathy if we’re no longer motivated and:
o Lack the effort or energy to do everyday things
o Depend on other people to plan our activities
o Have no desire to learn new things, meet new people, or have new experiences
o Don’t care about our own problems
o Feel no emotions when good or bad things happen
• To count as apathy, our symptoms must be severe enough or happen often enough to affect our social life, job, or other parts of our lives. And they can’t be due to drugs, alcohol, or any other substance abuse.
• If you ask the medical community about the causes of apathy, they’ll tell you that there is often a problem with areas in the front of our brains that control emotions, goals, and behavior.
• Spiritually speaking, I think much apathy is caused when we aren’t fulfilling our purpose as followers of Christ – bringing glory to God by making disciples until Jesus comes back.
• Rather than repenting of our indifference and working on our relationship with the Lord, we simply resort to apathy by withdrawing from people, places, and things.

3. What are the treatments for apathy?
• Physicians will often attempt to treat apathy with medications such as donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Razadyne), or rivastigmine (Exelon). They’ve found that antidepressants can actually make apathy worse.
• They also recommend a good number of organic treatments that involve lifestyle changes:
o Push yourself to get out/spend time with friends, even if you don’t feel like going.
o Do things you used to love, like going to concerts or watching movies with others.
o Take a music or art therapy class, which have been shown to help with apathy.
o Try to exercise every day.
o Break big tasks into smaller ones so that you feel a sense of accomplishment.
o Reward yourself for finishing an activity.
o Get plenty of sleep each night.
o Join a support group for people with apathy.
• Ultimately, we need to learn to see apathy as a spiritual problem. In doing so, we recognize that the ultimate solution will not be found medicine or activity, but rather within our relationship to Christ.
• That being the case, we need to learn to dive down into the heart of the problem and try to discern the origins of our lack of passion. We have to move beyond the symptoms.

4. What does the Bible say about apathy?
• Scripture identifies apathy as a real problem that we’re commanded to shun as followers of Christ:
o Rom. 12:10-11 – “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; 11 not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”
o Rom. 13:11 – “now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.”
o Psalm 6:10-11 – “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep—so shall your poverty come on you like a prowler and your need like an armed man.”
• God even promised to judge His own people for their apathy, manifested as a lack of zeal – “And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are settled in complacency, who say in their heart, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will He do evil.” (Zeph. 1:12)
• Jesus was a model of someone who never allowed apathy to overcome Him. In fact, He was noted for His passion at the cleansing of the temple – “His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.” (John 2:17)
• The classic example of apathy in Scripture is the church at Laodicea (Rev. 3:14ff). It’s very likely that many of the church’s members had prospered financially and in doing so had taken their eyes of the Lord and the Great Commission.
• Jesus verbalized their apathy – “You say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17).
• Trusting in riches and prosperity sparked an apathy that caused the church to become stationary and complacent, or as Jesus called them “lukewarm” (Rev. 3:16).
• The apathy of the Laodicean church was detestable to Jesus, so much that He said, “I will vomit you out of My mouth” (Rev. 3:16). That was a clear promise of judgment to the church.
• Jesus encouraged the church to come to Him for the spiritual riches and healing that they needed most – a deeper intimacy with God!

5. How can I overcome apathy?
• Biblically I think we’ve seen that the cure for apathy is a closer walk with the Lord! Why? Because when I draw nearer to God, I love what God loves and I hate what God hates!
• Think about it like this – we live in a “whatever” world these days. The apathetic attitude that prevails is this – “You do whatever you wanna do, and you let me do whatever I wanna to do.”
• When I draw nearer to God, God will NOT permit me to have that attitude. Of course, there’s always something to be said for minding our own business and allowing people to make their own decisions.
• BUT giving others the freedom to make their own choices does NOT mean that we condone their sins or our own sins for that matter! The Spirit of the Lord will not permit us to apathetically say, “Just do whatever you want to do. Believe whatever you want to believe.”
• The nearer I draw to God by pursuing Him through spiritual discipline, the more I’ll be excited about the good he’s doing in my life and the more I’ll dislike the wickedness that I’ve allowed to creep in.
• As we draw closer to the Lord, we will be more passionate about:
o People coming to know Jesus as Lord
o Sharing the Gospel in a variety of ways
o Taking fellowship in a local church
o Serving the Body of Christ
o The spiritual condition of our nation & world