day 1003: Indifference

"...so be diligent and turn from you indifference."

Indifference is a killer in business.  Whether it be a company that becomes indifferent in their attitude towards their customer or quality, or internally when people become indifferent to their work product or to the people around them.  Regardless, if you want to see a company go quickly down the toilet then look for indifference.  No better place that we have seen that in our lifetime than the American car industry.  Once at the top of their game by miles, over decades they let one company, or country, creep in at a time and bring to the consumer new and fresh concepts, leaving themselves behind and without a way to catch back up.  When the Japanese saw the rising cost of gas in the late 1970's they responded with smaller and more fuel efficient cars.  Detroit stayed with the gas guzzlers and lost multiple decades of sales. Some one would say this happened because of the blindness of arrogance.  I would take it further and say that indifference was also a part of the problem. It might have been arrogance at the top, but anything you read or hear about during those times had the American car worker feeling, a the best, very indifferent.  Gone was a sense of pride.  Gone was the motivation to work harder and more efficiently.  Gone was the trust of senior management that must be there for innovation and risk taking to occur.  Where new companies would open, like Saturn in Tennessee or Subaru in Indiana, those workers were far from indifferent.  They wanted to win.  The point is that indifference is a silent killing disease and one that must be constantly watched for and avoided.

We know where indifference in our spiritual journey will take us.  The whole lukewarm thing doesn't have to be restated.  It's easier than we think to become indifferent and we need to constantly protect ourselves from waking up one morning and feeling indifferent about our faith. When things are good, it's more likely to become indifferent because we begin to take for granted what God has done for us.  The danger in indifference is not only to ourselves but those around us who might see us slipping back into old habits or not being the person that they knew us to be that they counted on as an example and inspiration in their own lives.  Today, as we head into the place where everyone is always watching, our workplaces, let's be sure that we are not being indifferent in our faith, but instead being intentional and committed to Him who brings it all together for us.

Reference: Revelation 3:19 (New Living Testament)