Even There.

Boredom

I once heard a Pastor say that the most dangerous moments in life come when a man (or woman) is either Tired, Hungry, or Bored.  (By "dangerous" I think he was referring to when temptations to sin are at their highest)

Being bored is scary because it starts to make you think about things.  Things you don't want to be thinking about or acknowledging.  I wish that I could say that as a Christian I never get bored or that I never have the prior bubbling anxiety and fear of the boredom that feels like it's just around the corner ready to eat me up inside.  But it is.  More so in the form of the latter than the actual residence of boredom.  I hate knowing that I might not be passionate or even just preoccupied, mentally, about the next activity or the next couple of minutes.  I also know that it's my laziness that teams up with boredom produce baby fears, insecurities, doubts, and apathetic thoughts.

I get afraid that I will still be mundane in the head and in my heart.
This tells me that I love meaning and purpose, even if that isn't the first form my thoughts take.


Psalm 139:10

"even there Your hand will lead me;
Your right hand will hold on to me."

"Even there..."  Even in boredom?  Yes, even There.
Seeing God in every minute makes it endurable, albeit not much easier, to let boredom, or feeling that boredom might be around the next hour, to be OK.  What will happen when boredom hits?  Well, from my knowledge I know that boredom, by definition, sucks because it means nothingness.  Or perhaps to be more accurate it means not doing what I want to do when I want to do it and how I want what I do to turn out.  Haha.  If you didn't follow that I could tone it down and say that it simply means fearing the unknown.  Not having a plan or an agenda, a meeting or a friend at the moment, but just sitting with yourself in what you have no idea about can feel very unappealing.  It can feel unmeaningful or unproductive, and we all want to be living life with a cause (whether that cause is for the glory of God or for the non-christian, a cause of just being happy as best as one can be in each moment.)

We need one another for all the different times in our lives when being on our own is more difficult than we can handle on our own, but how can we reach out for help when another obstacle is in our way of reaching out?  Pride.  Nobody wants to be the vulnerable creature with pain written all over their skin like a snow spotted ugly leper.  So then we are walking around as lepers, unwilling to ask for help, yet slowly decaying without it.  The truth is that we need help, because on our own it is much too heavy a job to lift with our own hands, as much as we'd like to be able to and to not require anything else BUT ourselves, this tells me I don't like being in debt, which tells me I don't like owing to someone, because this means I was without something I needed.  This really boils down to a deep desire of wanting to be whole.  Complete.  How can I let God lead me in boredom if I will not first accept that I am incomplete?

Hebrews 8:12

"For I will be merciful to their wrongdoing,
and I will never again remember their sins."

Coming to acceptance of my actual problem, or letting go of the ignorance that kept me from becoming desperate, is pried from my prideful cold hands by the gospel that the very thing I want most-- to be whole-- is freely given to me through Jesus.  Not only is my complete wholeness free for me, but that which made me broken and fearful is never to be remembered by the One who gives me wholeness.  I may remember everything that slowly killed me, but God does not.  So when the moment arises that I recall all of my shortcomings and failures, I must not fail in recalling that He has made me new.  That God has given me whole perfectness, without sin--this is the best gift, but also that He has forgotten all of my sin as it also would mean to remember His Son's suffering.  So while we remember for the sake of our pride to drop, God does not in order that we also hope in being free from even the memory of such things on earth.  One day, when I die, I will not remember any of my failures or fears or pain.  

Hebrews 8:13

"By saying, a new covenant, He has declared that the first is old. And what is old and aging is about to disappear."

This is the most tangible evidence we can see, touch, feel, and know--that we are aging.  We are all getting older every year, and we see children grow up and become lankier or balder, and the elderly get crepe-like and enclosed in coffins.  Most of us have probably been to a funeral.  It is the one thing that we all know is coming upon us yet  that most of us refuse to take into consideration when making daily decisions, understandably so.  Who wants to think about dying or death all the time?  It carries a very negative connotation, to die is to no longer live, albeit how many people are depressed and would like death to come--even this is known to the person to be a negative or bad thing to feel.  

If someone were to say to me: "I want to die, very much so."  I would think, okay you need help, something is wrong and you need a dose of joy or companionship in your life.  Because wanting to die, or wanting death, motivated by one's own misery, is one thing (a bad thing, if that isn't obvious, and that person should seek out help), but wanting to die when death comes, motivated by wanting the promise of life with God forever is entirely different.  The former is a state of sickness while the latter makes all daily living to be one of preparation.  Preparation through good days and preparation through bad days.  Preparation through busy days and preparation through Boring days.  Every day becomes a day of preparation for what is to be had at the end and for all eternity--togetherness with God.  

I had never really considered that being with God would call for preparation until I thought about boredom.  Boredom is to be inactive, uneventful, and dispassionate.  It is to literally having nothing to do that you WANT to do.  

In order to enjoy the presence and glory of God we must be a kind of people that will first and foremost WANT God.  

Being bored or fearing boredom on earth and in my life is an opportunity for me to fine tune my heart's desires.  What do I want today?  It is prayerfully confessing anything in my heart that I have treasured more than God, which is exposed when I do not get those things that lead to thinking "I will be bored then" or "I'm bored."  The truth of all this is that there are probably a number of things we still treasure more than God, and that is why each day is preparation for us to be the kind of people who will, upon leaving our old aging bodies behind, be welcomed into the presence of God with hearts most eager to behold Him, most eager to praise Him, and most eager to be with Him forever.

Ecclesiastes 7:14

" In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him"

So there it is.  The truth that is inescapable.  The truth that God is before all things, after all things, and in all things.  When good days happen it is good to be joyful!  Now, when bad days happen, or you have a fear of bad days (or a fear of being bored), the biblical sage says to consider:  God has made the one as well as the other.  In other words God has made every day, whether you feel one is good and the other is bad, they are both made by God.  He does not make one day and leave others to be made by Satan.  No, because only God can create.  Satan cannot make a day, neither can any created thing create a day.  God is the only one capable of making a day.  Prosperity and adversity are both given by God for our understanding.  Understanding, here, is specified.  It says "so that man may not find out anything that will be after him"--meaning God has made both joy and adversity to prepare every person to understand that God is in all things.  God is found in joy and in adversity.  God is in everything.  If you try to ignore God or deny that He is there, then you will hit wall after wall of confusion.  God purposefully, meaningfully graces us with both days of joy and days of adversity in order that we see Him more fully no matter what the day be like.  Notice that this is not to say that God is Joy or God is Adversity, and neither is it to say that we should always be joyful or always face adversities, but the point is that we have God.  It is preparing to prefer God over Joy and to know God through joyless days.  In case anyone deceives themselves into thinking they want God when they really just want Joy.  Not that knowing God is not a joyful relationship, but it is like two lovers holding onto one another in the midst of a storm.  Their love is solidified because of their trials together, and not because everything seems to be working out for them.  It is love for one another over a disguise of love because of one's own comfort.  Heaven will be about getting God, not getting comfort, even though comfort will be a part of getting God it cannot take precedence over God.  Does that make sense?  I mean, it does and it doesn't if you don't want to think deeply about the truth.  Sometimes my brain hurts after I write, but it's probably what child bearing will be like.  Painful but worth it.  

Psalm 139:16

"Your eyes saw me when I was formless;
all my days were written in Your book and planned
before a single one of them began."

To close this post I wanted to remind you of who God is and who we are as His creation.  To ease the bad days and enhance the good ones, Psalm 139:16 is there to address the God who stands behind all things, past all things, and in all things including all the days that will make up your life here.  Today was planned and already seen by God.  If it was a good day, rejoice in it because God had planned it out to be so, and if it is or was a bad day then consider that God had planned this out for you out of His love for you.  It is painful, but God intended to use it as part of the good and perfect plan He has for which you are being welcomed in to.  Before tomorrow will begin, know that it has already been planned out by God.  How you choose to walk in that plan is now up to you.  Today is God's plan for you, for me.  What's going on?  Is it a of joy or a day of adversity?  Is it busy or uneventful?  And then consider why God has planned this day the way it is, and walk in His plan.

Jmegrey.