Spiritual Boredom

Spiritual Boredom

What is spiritual boredom?  Is it a lack of motivation toward spiritual things?  Is it an insulation from any new spiritual input?

Children, often get bored during a sermon--they don't have the attention span or the intellectual ability to absorb all that is being given them via speech.  However we are told that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

Somewhere, between 12 and 18 a child has either begun to absorb or reject the spiritual input they have received whether it be merely doctrine, theology or experiences and observations of the adults they look to as spiritual guides.  (Parents, pastors and teachers).

At some point, some, have an experience that transcends what they have cognitively learned about faith and accepted and entered into a relationship with a person and or an institution (religion).  At the point that some are baptized or confirmed or whatever the "mark" of spiritual understanding is in that particular denomination, some cease to grow.  They have now decided whether to follow or not to follow.  They have identified and believed the "theology" of that particular group.  Indoctrination some may say.

Many, maybe most adults continue to follow the precepts that they have been taught in regard to morality and belief.  They know what they believe.  They may go through a time of individuation or even rebellion in their teens and twenties but then settle into what they have been taught.  It has become their default mechanism when life gets hard, doing what they know to do, were taught to do, what their parents did.  They listen to sermons each week, attend the expected services, go through the somewhat satisfying rituals, but they have ceased to grow.  And then is when the spiritual boredom sets in...they can answer all the answerable questions:  where do we go when we die?  Who was Jesus?  Why do we take communion?  What is the Sabbath?  And they keep their questions and their answers in that box.  Few seek those answers for themselves, there is no need, because they have been "accepted".  Maybe even memorized--not that it is a bad thing to "hide God's Word in your heart " so that  you do not sin.  At some point, they learned NOT to ask those unanswerable questions.  (it makes pastors, teachers and parents angry, nervous, upset or irritated).

When we cease to question, we cease to grow.  When we do not continue to be truth seekers and life long learners we stagnant spiritually and the world is all too alluring in every other field of endeavor to realize that one is drifting...somewhere things moved from relationship to acquiring knowledge--and that knowledge is neatly tied to this one little box called "Baptist, Catholic, Jewish" etc.

Who hasn't been  found with  mind drifting in many services--as  it is  re-hashed  what has been taught since childhood , as the emphasis is continually on our need for evangelism and not growth.  Questions not thought to be "acceptable" to the educated professional Christian Elder/Teacher/Pastor, have long since been abondoned.  A "what if" is met with a stern rejection or a loving patronization.

Spiritual boredom comes when we quit seeking truth for ourselves, when we hide from true community and intimacy that calls us to a higher place, when we stay locked in our comfortable boxes called "theology, denomination, constitutions" and cease to meet the world and its questions head on.  When we cease to meet with our friend and Savior in the intimate garden, when we cease  to dance in His presence and Sing in HIS sanctuary (wherever that may be).

When we entertain the "traditions of men", we cease to be impressed by the discernment of the Holy Spirit.
When we ignore the promptings of the Spirit for the sake of sleep, or time pressures, or work pressures, or adrenalin rushes, we are no longer "fulfilled.".  When our experiences outside the spiritual realm tickle our fleshly longings more than our spiritual longings, we put up a wall between our flesh and our spirit and guess which one wins?.

When the joy is gone and the duty remains, when liturgy replaces divine illumination and personal understanding and interpretations.  Maybe our teaching even told us that these things are too lofty for our meager laity understanding...But then, in a moment, God uses the weak to confound the mighty, He speaks to us in a powerful moment when our religious armor is down and the Spirit can leak through...and we know, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is real and the Spirit is alive--even alive within me--when, like the mother with child, the child leaps within our womb and no one may see, but we know.  No one can tell us their is no life, for it is within us...we can't see it, but we feel it...even if we have been told NOT to rely on our feelings, we know.  We know that we know.  The Spirit is alive and within ME.

We rush back to that place again and again, just to see if He will meet us there again, if that "life" within, is growing, and it will keep growing IF we let it.  And it will, it must give birth...to life, to joy, to deeper understandings and yes, hopefully more questions--Maybe will will see miraculous interventions.  Maybe we can now not just see over and beyond that wall, but the wall is gone and the freedom is emancipating.

Then, the Spirit calls us to a "new meeting place" and new time, or a new understanding.  Our spirit arises to meet The Spirit and we are ALIVE.  Life and death are in the power of the tongue.  We can eat from the tree of "knowledge" (of good and evil) or we can eat from the tree of life.  New fresh fruit every single day.  The fruit from this tree is juicy and sweet and not dried up and "ooops, boring"...

Spiritual Boredom has a cure, but you must SEEK.  Ask.  Seek. Knock. NO MAN COMES UNTO THE FATHER EXCEPT BY ME.  JESUS is The Light The Truth and The Way.  Try to enter by any other  door and you will grow discouraged or spiritually bored.