Christianity Is Boring...

Scripture

3Endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4Soldiers don’t get tied up in the affairs of civilian life, for then they cannot please the officer who enlisted them. 5And athletes cannot win the prize unless they follow the rules. 6And hardworking farmers should be the first to enjoy the fruit of their labor. 7Think about what I am saying. The Lord will help you understand all these things. 2 Timothy 2:3-7

Observation

I’ve read this passage many times and this morning the Lord has helped me understand what Paul was getting at with Timothy. What do the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer all have in common? Endurance of short term pain for long term gain. Choosing delayed gratification over immediate thrills allows the soldier to endure the rigorous demands of boot camp, the athlete to not skip two-a-day drills, and the farmer to work under the blistering sun for a crop he cannot yet see. This Kingdom work ethic looks boring in the moment but the long term thrill of victory over enemies, winning the championships, and a bumper crop  is what keeps the faithful continuing in their spiritual disciplines.  He warns Timothy later in the chapter “run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts” (vs. 22) so that he can run instead the race set before him. Christianity was never meant to be thrill-a-minute, but obedience every minute. Obedience is boring until the seventh time around and we see those walls of Jericho fall.

Application

A couple days ago my son Elijah sent me this quote from the late Tim Keller that brings some real perspective to this view of how boring Christianity can seem to be. “The eminent Harvard scientist Harlow Shapley, who died in 1972, listed five factors that could destroy Western civilization. Four of them were nuclear war or terrorism, famine or food shortages, climatic or topographical catastrophe, and plague or pandemic… Interestingly, Shapley listed “boredom” as the fifth factor that could destroy us. Nisbet explains that boredom increases as we lose hope for progress, but then that boredom becomes one of the things that further erodes progress. “What this state of mind [boredom] means in social and cultural terms is increasingly widespread and chronic indifference to ordinary values, pursuits, freedoms, and obligations. The present becomes a scene composed of the absurd, the irrelevant, and the demonic. So, necessarily does the past and of course, the future.” Nisbet then adds: “As G. K. Chesterton wrote . . . the result of ceasing to believe in God is not that one will then believe nothing; it is that one will believe anything.” So, while everyone has been worried about World War III lately, it turns out our real concern is much closer to home. Up until recently Barna found that for 18-29 year olds one-third find church boring, nearly one-quarter believe the Bible isn’t taught clearly, and a quarter think faith has no relevance to their lives. A recent Pew survey of nearly 80,000 people in 36 countries found that a fifth or more of all adults have left the religious group in which they were raised, many choosing to have no religious affiliation at all.  Could it be that we’ve made a grave mistake trying to package the Christian experience as a weekly rock concert instead of a daily disciplined pursuit of Jesus? I’m so grateful for much of my Pentecostal/Charismatic upbringing making the moving of The Holy Spirit so accessible to my everyday life. If there was one drawback it was the tendency of seeking the emotional thrill over the daily spiritual discipline. Combine that with the constant stimulation provided by our tech addictions and no wonder many are looking at Christianity as boring. The truth is that the moment our faith becomes more transactional then transformational Christianity becomes consumer driven rather than Christ driven. Then, the moment life gets hard, and it always does, the thrill is gone and God “feels” a million miles away. What a trap to reduce our faith in Jesus to a feeling.

Prayer

Jesus, I’m so thankful for You taking my hand and walking me through the ups and downs of life. Forgive me for the times when I have chosen a quick fix prayer or emotional kick of entertainment over a long obedience in the same direction with You. You have met me so many times over the years with wondrous and mind blowing experiences and miracles.  Forgive me for the immaturity of trying to live for the emotional high of the mountain tops when, the truth is, my faith becomes stronger in the plateau and the valley. Give me the long view and the grit required to see this through with You!