In this life, there are various dangers that can strike suddenly (e.g., highway accidents or severe weather). But calamity can also approach gradually, incrementally—so slowly that we don’t even notice it (e.g., by sustained exposure to harmful chemicals or from a slow-growing malignancy we can’t see).
So too in our spiritual lives—we may face blunt, in-your-face threats of heresy, but we’re also at risk of slowly drifting away from Jesus and orthodox belief. It’s this latter hazard to which Jared Wilson speaks in his book, Lest We Drift: Five Departure Dangers from the One True Gospel. The title is taken from Hebrews 2:1, “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.”
Wilson describes how we can 1) drift into victimhood; 2) drift into dryness; 3) drift into superficiality; 4) drift into pragmatism; and 5) drift info the new legalism. All such slow-but-lethal movements draw us away from Jesus and the gospel, and put something else at the center of our lives—of our vision and hopes. Most of all, these drift dangers turn the focus of our souls onto ourselves.
Last Sunday’s sermon I said: All of today’s noise can drown out the voice of God. Our Maker is brushed aside, and our conversation with the Lord is stifled, neglected, forgotten! This is rarely deliberate: “Oh, I think I’ll just quit communicating with God.” Rather, we slip into it gradually: after seasons of gazing at screens, taking the bait of the algorithms, and fixing our attention on the now-now-now, we eventually realize that God seems remote, and we feel like we’re on our own! We have drifted away from Jesus’ side and landed in a place of self-centered living.
If you’ve drifted away from Jesus, take his invitation to heart: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Go to him—go back to Jesus. He’s merciful, and in his arms is the only place for you (or anyone) to thrive!
