It was an early Sunday morning when I passed a scruffy, weary-looking young man carrying a dirty backpack, a sign hanging at his side. I looked him in the eye and greeted him with a weak “good morning” and an even weaker smile.
As I passed by, he sputtered spitefully, “I hope your friend doesn’t die today!”
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My heart’s comfort alarm began to squawk a Walk Faster alert. A desire for emotional comfort would typically have been enough cause for me to bolt. But that day? That day I said no to comfort’s siren cry. I chose to face my fear of being uncomfortable by turning back and asking why he would say something so harsh.
He got news that a friend didn’t wake up that morning; she had died in her sleep. He needed money to attend her funeral, states away. I asked more questions, about his friend, his name, his pain. All this engagement sounds good on paper, doesn’t it?
But my heart tells another side of the story, for it was full of thoughts like these: Was he telling the truth? Did a friend really die? Was this his sob story to gain my sympathies and some cash? How long do I need to listen before it’s okay to move on? Do I have to give him money? What if he just wants drugs or alcohol?
The reality is his story could have been a scam—desperate situations push people to desperate measures. But behind these commonsense arguments, beyond the raging suspicions and doubts, I could hear something else: My heart’s contemptuous refusal to care about this guy. I wanted to remain aloof, frozen, asleep, careless.
Refusing to step into the pain of another isn’t new to me or even to our society. For centuries this spiritual condition of malaise has been referred to as “acedia.”
Acedia is our heart’s response to the world’s pain, a way to check out and detach when things get too emotionally risky. When confronted by sorrow, acedia tells us to retreat to our comfort zones where we don’t have to get too involved in the suffering of others.
Acedia was beckoning to me as I listened to this man’s story. But for some reason I can only attribute to God, I did the opposite. I chose to care. Once I did, something miraculous happened: my heart surged to life. I was immediately overcome with compassion for this young man and his loss. I allowed myself to identify with him: I too have known heartache.
I too have known darkness and pain and hopelessness. In my own moments of grief, the presence of Jesus has made all the difference. Did he know Jesus? Did he have any inkling that Jesus loved him, died for him, longed for him to be restored to the Father? Offering this man Jesus was the best I had, so I asked him if I could pray. He agreed, so I gave voice to the parts of my heart that were now teeming with life and actually feeling my feelings, and I lifted it all to God.
Prayer placed the two of us on level ground, equal footing before God. Our needs were different, but we were both desperately needy. We were the same at heart.
Acedia’s fog dulls this reality. And to be honest, we don’t really want to know the extent of need before us or in us. Doing so means we have to feel uncomfortable feelings and face brokenness all around and within. It means we have to be present in pain that won’t simply go away.
You see, my prayer did not deliver travel money to this man’s feet. It did not stop his tears. It did not bring his friend back from the grave. It did not solve his homeless situation. It did not usher in repentant faith in Jesus (at least not that I know of). I wanted all of that for him. I wanted him to have a shower and clean clothes. I wanted him to have hope, joy, and purpose. I wanted him to know that Jesus was near to the brokenhearted and loved him beyond measure. I wanted him to know Jesus could reconcile him to Father God. That’s what happens when your heart starts to engage: you want everything to be set right.
But everything isn’t going to be right in the life, even if we engage. Our need to be comfortable is at odds with the redemptive work our Comforter God is calling us to. He isn’t calling us to set everything right in the world or to make sense of suffering. He’s calling us to desperately needy places—where suffering abounds and sorrow resides. We can’t get there, however, without detoxing from pseudo comforts that keep us from knowing and passing along the true comfort of God.
Here’s how knowing God’s comfort frees us to be present in these uncomfortable places:
1. YOU DON’T HAVE TO FIX IT
If we are going to be God’s comfort agents—being present with others in their pain—we need to come to terms with the mysteries that God chooses not to resolve. Are we willing to stand in faith, engaged in the brokenness that is shredding the world, and proclaim that God is still God, even when life doesn’t change and hurts refuse to heal? Being an ambassador for Christ in the middle of brokenness takes a willingness to sit in the mystery for the long haul with someone whose hurts keep on hurting. It is a willingness to feel the full weight of what can’t be explained away. We are not called to heal or fix and make everything good as new. Only God can do that.
2. YOU DON’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT
When people are in pain, it’s tempting to give a little morsel of wisdom and a pep talk and send the suffering on their way. One of the worst platitudes is the notion that “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” In essence, we are telling people a) their pain isn’t so bad and b) God hands out trouble based on our ability to handle it. We cannot adequately explain the mysteries of suffering with platitudes. Attempting to do so diminishes the very real anguish and calls God’s goodness into question.
3. YOU JUST HAVE TO BE PRESENT
Right where you are, your life intersects with countless people who need someone to come close in the hour of suffering. It could be a lonely neighbor, a homeless man, an angry teen, a stressed-out mom, a doubting saint, a searching soul. People in your midst need someone to be brave enough to sit with them in their sorrow, to share the load by choosing to feel and choosing to trust God’s promises. We cannot stop the suffering in the world, but we can make sure no one suffers alone. God invites us to be his comfort agents, to manifest his presence so people know our God sees us (Genesis 16:13) and is with us (Matthew 1:23) in our suffering.
This article is an adapted excerpt from Comfort Detox: Finding Freedom from Habits That Bind You by Erin Straza. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press (ivpress.com). Read more at erinstraza.com or on Twitter @erinstraza.
Midsummer. American parents of school-aged kids know this as the season of boredom. The summer holiday’s novelty has worn off. Many fun things so anticipated during the final weeks of school have been enjoyed. Free time has become routine. Parents are informed that there’s “nothing” to do. This provokes parental eye-rolls with statements to the effect, “We wish we had the luxury to be bored.”
But the truth is, parents too experience boredom. It’s just that in our phase of life, boredom doesn’t take the form of “there’s nothing to do.” We’re constantly churning through a never-ending list of responsibilities, obligations, tasks, and commitments. There’s always more to do than we can get done. Our boredom takes the form of a loss of the joy of wonder.
Whatever boredom looks like at any particular moment, we need to pay attention to it. It’s telling us something important.
What Is Boredom?
What is boredom? Very simply put, boredom is disinterest. It’s the condition of finding some thing or someone or some subject or some task or some event or perhaps most everything uninteresting.
“Boredom is not the opposite of busyness; it’s the opposite of interest.”
For example, when one of my kids says, “I’m bored; there’s nothing to do,” they don’t literally mean there’s nothing to do. They mean, “I can’t think of anything to do that interests me.” Which is why they tend not to make this statement to me because they know I’m likely to provide them something to do — something they’re not particularly interested in doing.
This is why we can be very busy and very bored at the same time. Because boredom is not the opposite of busyness; it’s the opposite of interest. It’s not a “things to do” problem; it’s an interest problem. Which means it’s a joy problem.
So, is being bored the same thing as being slothful, sluggardly, lazy, or idle? Not necessarily. There are many reasons we might feel disinterest: sleep deprivation, illness malaise, depression, grief, disappointment, etc. But it might be a momentary indulgence in slothfulness, or it might even be slothfulness wearing boredom as a disguise.
The Wrong Treatment
In the common American English vernacular, “bored” is generally understood as a temporary experience of disinterest. The degree to which it’s sinful depends on what’s fueling it. But everyone experiences boredom with some regularity and, though we find it unpleasant, it doesn’t typically alarm us.
But we think of “slothful” or “lazy” as something different — persistent, habitual negative character traits, which we would not attribute to everyone and which we see as damaging, even dangerous, to the lazy person and those he affects (this is the biblical understanding too). For example, a worker might be bored (disinterested) in his work, yet still work diligently. But a worker who’s lazy will work negligently, to the detriment of everyone else.
“One great tragedy of selfishness is that the more we yield to it, the less capacity we have to enjoy anything else.”
However, diagnosing the difference can be complicated. A lazy person very rarely is honest enough to categorize himself as lazy and is more likely to refer to his experience as being “bored” (and the things he wants to avoid doing as “boring”). This shows that boredom doesn’t carry the same negative moral implications as laziness — at least in American society. But used this way, it’s laziness wearing boredom as a disguise.
The point of this dissection of boredom and laziness is essentially this: we need an accurate diagnosis in order to effectively treat a disease. Boredom and laziness are not necessarily the same problem. We need to understand what boredom is telling us so we don’t fight boredom with the wrong treatment.
What Boredom Is Telling Us
So, what is boredom telling us? When we feel bored, we are essentially asking the question, “Where’s the joy?” Boredom is what our hunger for happiness feels like when we’ve momentarily lost sight of or confidence in what will satisfy it. And as such, it is a warning and an invitation.
Think of boredom as a dashboard warning indicator that starts dinging. Something has caused your interest level to run low and it’s draining your joy. What is it? Perhaps it’s a physical or emotional health issue that needs care. Perhaps you’re being tempted to indulge laziness. Or perhaps, even more seriously, you’re indulging an idol of selfishness and you’re trying to drink from “broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
One of the great, appalling tragedies of selfishness is that the more we yield to it, the less capacity we have to enjoy anything else — anything other than what we believe caters to our narrow personal preferences, enhances our personal reputations, and advances our personal interests. Whatever is making our boredom indicator ding, it is God’s merciful warning that something important requires our attention.
But we can also think of boredom as God’s gracious invitation for us to explore and discover the spectrum of joy in the love for us that he has laced through the height and depth and length and breadth of his special and general revelation. If boredom is an expression of our happiness hunger, God extends to us this great invite:
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1–2)
An Infinite Supply of Interesting
G.K. Chesterton said, “There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person” (Heretics, 13). When we feel disinterested, and it’s not a health issue or a more complex sin issue, we should not believe the deceptive mood that we’ve exhausted what interests us. We should assume we’re mentally and imaginatively out of shape, and we need to work out some more.
“Don’t just feed boredom the junk food of easy entertainment and stimulation.”
The Bible is an inexhaustible treasure trove of truth, and the world and people around you are unfathomable oceans of wonder that God has given you to explore. Let boredom tell you the same thing that getting too winded on too few stairs tells you: you need to increase your capacity. Yes, it will take some hard work. Everything that’s worth anything always does.
Listen carefully to your boredom. It’s telling you something important. It’s a hunger for happiness. Don’t just feed it the junk food of easy entertainment and stimulation or the malnourishing diet of selfish pursuits — unless slothfulness, chronic discontentment, and spiritual lukewarmness (or worse) is what you’re aiming for. If you heed boredom’s warning, it will show you your broken joy cisterns. If you accept its invitation, it will lead you to where the true fountains of joy are found.
Is the Faith and Work Message an Attempt to Earn Our Own Salvation? Hugh Whelchel February 9, 2015 TWITTER FACEBOOK LINKEDIN EMAIL SUBSCRIBE PRINT Recently I was speaking on faith and work at a conference and someone asked, “Aren’t you just talking about works righteousness?” I assured them I wasn’t, but I can see how it could’ve sounded that way. I’m not the only one running into this problem. Several years ago Mark Roberts at The High Calling interviewed N. T. Wright, and Wright talked about this works righteousness misunderstanding that is often voiced about the importance of our work: What you do in the present matters. It’s hard for Protestants to hear that without thinking, “Oh, dear, this is good works again.” That’s a scare tactic. Sometimes, it’s a political scare tactic – to stop Christians from actively working to change the way the world is, confronting justice, and building communities of peace a...
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