The Thing About Boredom

Man. You do a little reading around Blogdom and you'd think it was a horrible, embarrassing crime to ever be bored.

Lately I've seen these over-used, old phrases in various blogs--they are almost worn proudly, like badges:

"I am never bored!"
"Only boring people ever get bored!"

Oh, for Pete's sake. Who says?

I mean, I consider myself a medium-to-highly creative person and yet during various stages and phases of my life--dare I say it?-- I have found myself sitting on a couch bored out of my skull.

There, I said it.

Can we pul-ease grow up? Can we for just one week stop flinging around wild, generalized blanket statements designed to make others feel defective? Can we ever look at old things with new eyes?

Just asking.

I mean, there have been times I've felt sick, weak and have felt bored.

At times in my life, I've felt overwhelmed/sad/depressed and unable to move in a creative direction--and have known boredom.

Other times, I've felt God leading me in a whole new direction, yet while not knowing the new direction, I've stuck with what I knew--the safe (often creative)way-- and have been bored.

Which brings me to this: Maybe this is just for me, but I believe God uses boredom as a wake-up call. Boredom can become a place and sometimes God uses it as an instructional, something-is-going-to-change-soon place. And often there, God calls me back closer to Him.

He pulls me in from the ditch where I have strayed--just by a degree or so--but strayed, nonetheless. Other times, boredom just becomes a sign, a message in a bottle on the sea of Life, that it's time to move on to something so new, so big, that it's going to require leaning my whole self upon God's arm.

That's the way He prefers for me to live. 

But before something new comes along, we usually must let go of the old. Release it. And what lies between the old adventure and the new one is often mistaken for boredom. But actually, it's a wake-up call, a couple acres of holy discontent, a stepping-off place--and so much more.



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