"A Praying Life" (chapter 9)

A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
By Paul E. Miller

Learning to Trust Again: Part II: Chapters 9-11

“Understanding Cynicism” - Chapter 9

Understanding Cynicism

• Cynicism is the opposite of a childlike spirit.
• Cynicism is the dominant spirit of our age.
• Cynicism leads us to doubt the effectiveness or value of prayer.
• Weariness is on the edge of turning into cynicism.
• If Satan cannot stop you from praying, he will rob you of its fruit.
  
  

The Feel of Cynicism

• Satan is the author of cynicism; he led Adam/Eve to look at God through a cynical perspective.
• Cynicism fosters doubt, skepticism, and causes us to look at everything and everyone with a critical eye.
• Cynicism is deceptive in that it parades itself as “truth” – what is “really going on behind the scenes.”
• Cynicism robs us of trust, love, passion, and enjoyment in the things of everyday life.
• Cynicism dulls and deadens, causing us to feel nothing, to believe in nothing.
• To be cynical is to be distant; it leads to a creeping bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit.
• A praying life is the opposite of a cynical life.
• Prayer engages evil, doesn’t take no for an answer, is persistent before the face of God, hoping, dreaming, and asking.
• Cynicism merely critiques everything. It is passive, cocooning itself from the passions of the great cosmic battle we are engaged in.
• If you try to add an overlay of prayer to a cynical or even a weary heart, it feels phony.
• For the cynic, life is already phony; nothing can be trusted, hoped in, or provide meaning and purpose.

A Journey into Cynicism

• Cynicism begins with the wrong kind of faith, a naïve optimism or foolish confidence.
• On the surface, naïve optimism and faith can look the same, but the foundations are vastly different.
• Genuine faith comes from knowing my heavenly Father loves, enjoys, and cares for me.
• Naïve optimism is groundless, blind trust.
• Genuine faith fuels bold action and diligent effort.
• Our culture gradually shifted from faith in God to faith in humanity.
• So, faith became simply faith in faith itself, rather than faith in God.
• “Just believe” or “have faith” became the mantra, but without any reference to God – the object of faith.
• Optimism rooted in the goodness or capability of people collapses against the dark side of life.
• Real life doesn’t lend itself to groundless optimism.
• Shattered optimism leads to weariness and then to cynicism.
• The movement from naïve optimism to cynicism is the new American journey.
• In naïve optimism, we don’t need to pray because everything is under control, everything is possible.
• In cynicism, we can’t pray because everything is out of control, little is possible.
• Cynicism’s ironic stance is a weak attempt to maintain a lighthearted equilibrium in a world gone mad.
• At some point, each of us faces the valley of the shadow of death.
• We can’t ignore it. We can’t remain neutral with evil.
• We either give up and distance ourselves, or we learn to walk with the Shepherd. There is no middle ground.
• Without the Good Shepherd, we are alone in a meaningless story.
  
  

The Age of Cynicism

• Our personal struggles with cynicism and defeated weariness are reinforced by an increasing tendency toward perfectionism.
• Believing you have to have the perfect relationship, the perfect children, the perfect body set you up for a critical spirit.
• In the absence of perfection, we resort to spin—trying to make ourselves look good.
• We end up with a public life and a private life. We cease to be real.
• Media looks for the wrong in everything.
• Psychology’s hunt for hidden motives adds a new layer to our ability to judge and be cynical about what others are doing.
• Cynicism is the air we breathe; our only hope is to give Jesus our weary and heavy-laden hearts and follow him out of cynicism.