God’s Objective in Our Boredom

Audio Transcript

We’ve talked lots on the podcast about escaping a lifetime of triviality, escaping this want to be entertained to dying. Twenty-five or so episodes in archive now show that this can be a main theme on the podcast, Pastor John. I summarized these episodes within the APJ e book on pages 291–307. However right here’s a singular query on the subject with a bit of twist, and it involves us from an nameless younger man. “Hey, Pastor John!” he writes. “Along with your emphasis on Christian Hedonism, my query is about the way you consider boredom. I usually discover myself questioning what it’s precisely, and why God created the world with boredom as a most important function of every day life — a minimum of on this age, post-fall. I’m not speaking about melancholy, however the basic ennui on this life, frequent to all of us.

“We keep busy with work and household and hobbies to not really feel it. Nevertheless it’s all the time there. A second of downtime and it finds us once more. Such boredom on this world appears to result in all types of behaviors that Christians deem sinful: drug use, overindulging in smartphones and social media and leisure and gaming, illicit relationships and affairs, gossiping and idle dialog. It has all the time puzzled me that God, a minimum of by way of his sovereignty over fallen man’s every day expertise, has us expertise a seemingly fixed want to be entertained or to in any other case ‘escape’ from actuality by going to concert events, films, enjoying board video games, and many others. At root, what’s boredom? What causes it? What does it signify? And do you assume God has a objective in it for his kids?”

I actually loved interested by this query, partly as a result of I’ve by no means considered it earlier than. I’ve by no means thought-about how the phrase (or the expertise of) boredom is dealt with within the Bible. Isn’t that incredible? I don’t assume I’ve ever requested myself that query till preparing for this APJ. So I had by no means accomplished a phrase search on boredom within the Bible, so this was not boring to me, which tells us one thing instantly concerning the which means of boredom — specifically, it has to do with monotony. It has to do with uninteresting repetitions that haven’t any curiosity for us. So the rationale interested by boredom was not boring for me is as a result of it was not monotonous or uninteresting or repetitious. I’ve by no means accomplished it earlier than, and I wished — and that’s a key phrase for non-boredom — to know what the Bible has to say.

And I’ll guess our listeners have already guessed what I discovered — specifically, that phrase’s not within the Bible. Boredom just isn’t. Boring and bored are usually not — besides when you’re going to bore a gap via someone’s ear. You could find the phrase boring, but it surely doesn’t have the which means of this. So it’s attention-grabbing to me that the Bible doesn’t have the phrase boring, and it doesn’t have the phrase attention-grabbing wherever in it. It doesn’t have the phrase thrilling. It doesn’t have the phrase fascinating wherever in it. (I’m basing that, by the best way, on the ESV. There could also be another English translations I’m not conscious of that may have a few of these phrases, however not the ESV.)

E-book of Boredom

Regardless that the phrase boredom just isn’t discovered within the Bible, there’s within the Bible an entire e book dedicated to boredom. It’s known as Ecclesiastes. Take heed to this:

Vainness of vanities! All is vainness. . . . A era goes, and a era comes. . . . The solar rises, and the solar goes down. . . . The wind blows to the south and goes round to the north; round and round goes the wind. . . . All streams run to the ocean, however the sea just isn’t full; . . . there they movement once more. All issues are stuffed with weariness. (Ecclesiastes 1:2–8)

Now, that’s in all probability the closest factor you get to the phrase boredom: “All issues are weariness.” “The attention just isn’t happy” — there’s one other good definition, I feel, of boredom — “with seeing, nor the ear full of listening to. What has been is what shall be . . . and there’s nothing new below the solar. . . . I’ve seen all the things that’s accomplished below the solar, and behold, all is vainness and striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:8–9, 14). That’s a really highly effective description of a life that has sought non-boredom and didn’t discover it below the solar — that’s, with out God.

Ecclesiastes is a e book of what life is like if God just isn’t the brilliant solar in our sky and his phrase just isn’t the constitution of our lives. And I feel it’s within the Bible as a result of the person who despatched us this query is true. The expertise of boredom is common — not that everyone experiences it on a regular basis, however everyone has tasted it. And he’s proper additionally that, by its very nature, no one likes it. Boredom by its very nature is unsatisfying. For those who’re happy, you’re not bored.

And he’s additionally proper that since no one likes being bored, all of us take steps — in response to our personalities and our circumstances and beliefs — to do away with it. If we’re tremendous energetic, we would work ourselves out of boredom or play ourselves like loopy out of boredom to do away with boredom. And if we’re extra torpid, then we may sit on the sofa, change into a sofa potato, flip the TV on and attempt to do away with our boredom with film after film, streaming after streaming.

Why Are We Bored?

So he asks, “At root, what’s boredom? What does it signify? Does God have a objective in it for his kids” — and I might add, for the world?

And my reply is that, at root, boredom is the relentless expertise of not discovering satisfaction on this world. One thing begins out being thrilling, satisfying, however quickly we weary of it and we want one thing else. We take a trip to the Alps, stand in awe for perhaps two or three days, and earlier than every week is over, the curtains are pulled and we’re sitting in entrance of the TV, attempting to get the stimulus we’re not getting from the Alps anymore. Even nice issues can change into boring for the fallen human coronary heart.

What does it signify? What’s the which means? What did God take into account when he ordained the common expertise of boredom in a world of sin and riot towards God? What’s his objective for it? I’m going to provide three solutions: one from the Bible, one from C.S. Lewis, and one from the seventeenth-century poet George Herbert (my favourite, I feel). They usually’re all the identical reply in numerous types.

1. Eternity in Our Coronary heart

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “God has made all the things lovely in its time. Additionally, he has put eternity into man’s coronary heart, but in order that he can not discover out what God has accomplished from the start to the tip.” Now, I don’t know all that that verse means, however the least that it means, it appears to me, is that God plans for human beings to be annoyed with their expertise on this world till they notice that they had been made for God.

2. Made for One other World

Right here’s the best way C.S. Lewis says it: “If we discover ourselves with a want that nothing on this world can fulfill, probably the most possible rationalization is that we had been made for one more world” (Mere Christianity, 136–37). Or to say it one other manner (paraphrasing Lewis), if we discover that nothing on this world is a long-term answer to the issue of boredom, we had been in all probability made for one more world. Boredom factors to God. That’s God’s objective for boredom on this fallen world: to level us to a different world — specifically, to God and his infinitely attention-grabbing and infinitely satisfying particular person and work.

3. The Reward of Restlessness

Right here’s the best way one of many best English poets put it in a poem known as “The Pulley.” And the rationale it’s known as “The Pulley” is as a result of it makes an attempt to explain in poetic kind the best way God pulls individuals to himself. And naturally, the reply is that he pulls them via boredom. However he doesn’t use the phrase boredom; he makes use of the phrase restlessness. And he clearly thinks that God has made us stressed or bored for a cause. So right here’s the poem, and I’ll shut with this:

     When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
“Allow us to,” mentioned he, “pour on him all we will.
Let the world’s riches, which disperséd lie,
     Contract right into a span.”

     So power first made away;
Then magnificence flowed, then knowledge, honor, pleasure.
When nearly all was out, God made a keep,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
     Relaxation within the backside lay.

     “For if I ought to,” mentioned he,
“Bestow this jewel additionally on my creature,
He would adore my presents as a substitute of me;
And relaxation in Nature, not the God of Nature:
     So each ought to losers be.

     “But let him preserve the remaining,
However preserve them with repining restlessness;
Let him be wealthy and weary, that a minimum of,
If goodness lead him not, but weariness
     Could toss him to my breast.”

Or we would say, “If goodness lead us not, but boredom might toss us to God’s breast.”

I feel that’s God’s design on this common expertise of boredom: to level us to the origin of all the things attention-grabbing, to the world the place nobody will ever be bored once more — God’s presence via Jesus Christ.