Bored to Fears

Lord Emsworth—the amiable creation, from another era, of British humorist P. G. Wodehouse—“was ‘registering’ interest, interest that, he perceived from the first instant, would have to be completely simulated; for instinct told him as Mr. Peters began to talk, that he was about to be bored as he had seldom been bored in his life. We may say what we will against the aristocracy of England … but we cannot deny that in certain crises blood will tell. An English peer of the right sort can be bored nearer to the point where mortification sets in, without showing it, than anyone else in the world.”

No, Lord Emsworth was not listening to a preacher. But I was, and I was yearning for even a drop of Lord Emsworth’s aristocratic blood in my veins. Unlike him, the signs of my boredom (e.g., glazed eyes rereading the bulletin for the eleventh time) were plain to all. Or they would have been, if anyone else in the congregation had been awake.

Why was I bored? The question left me troubled and feeling guilty. Had I become so familiar with the gospel that I had lost any sense of awe and wonder? Am I so much a child of this television generation that I must be constantly entertained? Was I simply tired from traveling to a strange city? No, none of these explained it. I wanted to be there, and I wanted to hear God’s Word.

Was the message at fault? A recent poll said 97 percent of the population of England finds church boring. But the content of this particular pastor’s sermon was biblical, his voice not dull. A homiletics professor might have found a dozen things wrong with the sermon, but I have heard (and paid attention to) far worse.

Was the message too long? I remember Eutychus “sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on.” My mind recalls times my wife sat diplomatically tapping her watch as I preached on and on, unaware the thread of communication between me and my hearers had broken long ago. But in this particular case, it was well before 12. The preacher in no way had betrayed a “time trust.”

Then it hit me: The preacher himself was bored. Somehow, his words sounded recycled, hollow, shallow. His boredom was real, and it was contagious.

The Bible says little about boredom. Did David get bored herding sheep? Did Paul get bored languishing in prison waiting for Felix to act? Perhaps; but we do not know. Nowhere in the Bible are we promised nonstop excitement. Yes, I am to strive (like Brother Lawrence) to see God’s hand in everything and rejoice in it. But life still has its tedium; we do many things not because they are exciting, but because they are necessary or right. Boredom may be part of the penalty for living in a fallen world.

Boredom is a vacuum in the human spirit that demands to be filled—and thus has great potential for evil. Did boredom lurk in the background of Eden or cause King David to summon Bath sheba? Boredom can be a snare, and idleness is still the Devil’s workshop. Surprisingly, however, boredom can also produce good. It can be a holy restlessness, one of God’s alarms goading us out of complacency or stagnation into creativity and growth. King Solomon’s boredom finally pushed him to the answer he had sought all along: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Eccl. 12:13).

I found myself praying—praying for forgiveness for failing to see beyond the messenger to the message, praying I may never cause people to think Christ is boring, and praying I may never become bored by the gospel’s truth. Then—belatedly—I found myself praying for this one who stood before me. Why was he bored? Did he experience burnout long before it became fashionable? Did he stop reading the day he graduated from seminary? I wish I knew so I could learn from his mistakes.

Someday the old order of things, including boredom, will pass away and Christ will make everything new. But until then, may God give us wisdom to know when our boredom is a danger signal, sent by him to spur us on to deeper love and obedience.

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