passivity

"In their desire to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, many of the Lord's people feel they do not need to measure, investigate, and judge by the light of the Bible all thoughts which seemingly come from God. They think being led by the Spirit is being dead to themselves and obeying every notion and impulse of their brain. They follow especially those ideas which arise after prayer; hence they arrange for their minds to be passive during and after prayer. They halt their own thoughts and their other mental activities so as to be ready to receive the "thoughts of God." And the result is that become hard and obstinate, having no reason and carrying out man harsh, pertinacious, and irrational things. They do not know:

1. that prayer will not transform our thoughts into godly ones;
2. that to wait for divine thoughts during and after prayer is to invite counterfeits from the evil spirits; and
3. that God's leading is in the intuition of the spirit and not the mind of the soul.

Not a few saints - ignorant of God's will that He does not wish man to be passive, but rather to cooperate actively with Him - spend time training themselves to be of a passive mind. They induce themselves to not think in order to possess God's thoughts. How can they not understand that if they themselves are not useing their brain neither will God use it nor put His thoughts into it. The principle of God is for men to control the whole person with their will and to work together with Him. Only the devil would exploit the opportunity of a passive mind and seize its control away from men. God has never wanted men to receive His revelation like a robot ..."

-Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, Vol. III, pgs 22-23