Bored again Christian.

       I don’t know if you have felt this way before, but I sometimes feel that Christianity is boring. I think that I have felt this way for some time now. I remember being at Kamp and in church and with small groups, and not feeling like what I was reading was making a difference... or like what I was hearing in church wasn’t anything I haven’t heard before... or like every prayer that was said was the same thing that I have heard uttered a million times. "Lord, just bless us in this time. Thank you for my brother so-and-so." You know, the stuff that we are taught to say.

      Sometimes I type up my prayers. This is what I typed the other day:

      I want something to be passionate about. Something to walk with the Spirit about. Something to spark my interest again. I've followed you for nearly 8 years now, and I am... well, yeah... bored. What is the next step? The next phase? The next chapter? What will be the catalyst of change for me? What do I need to do to usher in that change? Open my eyes... ha. I just typed that, then deleted it, then typed it again to make the point that I am always just praying the way that I've heard or been taught to pray. Eff.

     Just this morning I heard a phrase that I have heard a million times. “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” How many times have we sung that line from “How Great is Our God”? Well, Christian music stays popular long after its time has come and passed, so odds are… plenty.

     Then, I got to thinking about that phrase. In my recent church history, I’ve been told about the way God thinks about sin. He despises it. He cannot be in the presence of it. He hates it.

     That would mean that God hates me, right?

     Stop, Seth. You know that My love is powerful. And you know what I love? I love when you choose me. I love when you choose to do the thing that honors me. It brings me joy.

     I believe that God spoke that to me today. Instead of thinking about how my sin saddens God, I will try to think about how choosing him brings him joy.

     And the fact that I made the Lord happy?

That is strong. That encourages me to do it again.

      If you’re like me, maybe the answers to our questions about boredom lie in the things that we find boring. There are some major truths that, even though we’ve heard them plenty of times, we have never understood and maybe never tried to.