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Scriptures Quoted and Referenced
Genesis 2:2, Psalm 46:10 through 11, and Matthew 11:28-30
Thought Nugget for today
When business takes over and we let it crowd out the importance of taking a rest it will cause us to become fatigued and lose the ability to endure as we ought to. It is by surrendering our many worries, thoughts, desires, stressors, and burdens to Jesus that we become able to have a peace that lasts and goes beyond our understanding.
Today’s Complete Thought
Have you ever noticed that we are almost always busy in life? As though we are always filled with places to go and things to do? Feelings that say “We have no time for that” when the simple truth is we merely need to change things in our schedule so that it can fit in. My fiancé and I have often spoken about the way in which time seems to fly away from us.
Right now I feel how precious each second is because my work is dealing with issues that result in us not meeting manufacturing quotas. The impact is that we have to work on weekends once or twice a month in addition to working 12-hour days a few days of the week. It’s even caused me to run out of my buffered content. For those of you who wonder how I am coping with the stress, I am doing so by making a plan and writing according to a schedule so that I can make some of that gap disappear again. But this brings us to my scriptures for today. Two verses from the 46th chapter of Psalms.
“He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”
Psalms 46:10-11(NIV)
I looked at the old Hebrew for the phrase “be still” and it is rafah which can mean to sink, to drop, to slacken, to abate, to relax, and to be quiet. These two verses give us a message that we need to let go of the things that stress us and make us have burdens. When we read the Bible in the full context we see how every time it says to let go of things and have peace it is never telling us to ignore the situation but to remember who holds the situation. Reading verse 10 alone seems like you are missing something because you may wonder why the mightiness of God is a big deal. Then once verse 11 is added we get the answer to the question in the declaration that this God is our fortress, the place we gather strength and safety.
A while back I read the book Brave New World by Aldus Huxley which is an interesting read that I think had some foresight about where a consumerist society could lead to. But in that book, it’s a world where no room is made for having deep thoughts since their society is based on the idea that a shallow and happy life is better than a life with depth and the potential for suffering. (Many others have talked about this book and I do want to talk about it in a dedicated Thoughtful Thursday in the future but let’s return to the main focus of today. Why we need boredom.) In a similar vein, our own world is filled with many things that call for our attention, and that makes it hard to dedicate time to things that require a lot of it. One common form of entertainment used to be reading but I find that very few people actually read when you compare to those who watch videos online.
What I find curious looking back at when TikTok came out in 2016 is that it had a format seemingly designed to be addictive. Short videos that will quickly give your brain a dopamine hit. Considering it was created by a company owned by the CCP I was not surprised to find out that they would control the programs to dumb people outside of China down when it comes to the videos in their feed. It was dances and pranks outside of China but math quiz time and engineering achievements inside of their country for their people to be interested in. Why do I bring this up when I am talking about boredom?
I choose to bring this up because we don’t seem to know anymore how to be bored and not take in any major stimuli to our system. You have heard people talk about “HD TVs” and “HD Computer Monitors” but might not know what exactly that means. Don’t worry; I’ll break it down for you so it’s simple. When somebody says a number followed by the letter “P” it is talking about screen size for computers and with TVs it’s measured in the inches of the diagonal length of the TV screen. When they talk about something being High Definition they are talking about how many images per second are being shown. In the tech world, this is known as “Frames per Second” more commonly known by the acronym FPS in the computer world. Something we spoke about in my High School video courses. Typically, we work at around 30 FPS, and 60FPS is seen as the start of the HD spectrum.
I did a quick internet search and found an article that summarily states that this is sort of our limit for regular things in life that are not on a screen but that we can notice things that are at a higher rate. There is a theory floating around that states because of all the high-input environments we are in we don’t know how to cope with low input as we expect for something new to come. I can see where they are coming from and part of me agrees with this assessment but regardless of the cause, it can be easily stated that we don’t know what to do with boredom. Times of low input are meant for us to be introspective and think about life.
I have a personal theory that people were smarter back in the day because they had more time to think. Dr. Albert Einstein is famous for stating “It’s not that I am so smart, it’s that I choose to stick with problems longer.” We had fewer things to distract us than today. Phones could only call people and what we did for fun was listen to music, read, or go out and be part of society interacting with others in person. If you wanted to watch TV it was only for a specific time of day on a certain day of the week. It wasn’t something that was “on demand” at all times. Or if you wanted to be alone for a while you’d go out to the park and lay in the grass and look up at the sky if you weren’t the stereotyped person to go fishing with no expectation other than to be alone.
We understood the need of taking a break physically and mentally. The Sabbath day, a day of rest ordained for us by God was respected in society being understood as a blessing for us to have. We need that time of rest because it allows us to recover. When I was growing up Sunday was always the day we sat down at looked at the family schedule. This had many impacts with the first being that it caused the family to talk about what is going on in our lives and help each other out with them the second is that it enabled us to stay on top of it all. Keeping us from getting blindsided or becoming too fatigued to keep going.
Our spiritual lives can also suffer from fatigue like our physical bodies but we seem to forget about our spirit that much easier than our physical self. I think that’s because we can easily see what plagues the body but not so much our spirit.
The answer to how we do this is found in stepping away from everything that draws our attention and energy so that we can evaluate our needs. Stress is often a place where our emotional and spiritual energy gets spent. If you are worried about time and tasks make a schedule and list out everything that is on your mind. Pray over these worries and ask God to give you strength to complete the tasks then act in faith trusting Him to provide it to you as you work to achieve them.
The other thing we need to learn to do is to remove things from our lives before adding new things to them. When you add more plates to an already heavy laden tray the waiter is more likely to trip and fall than if you hadn’t added it. If you’ve been to a restaurant and seen them with a big tray that is heavily laden they will often have with them a stand to set it down on once they get to their table. They then set up the stand and carefully lower the tray onto it before serving everyone what’s been ordered. I have rarely seen a waiter serve right off the tray in their hand if it is a big one with a lot of things on it. That tray was carefully balanced for the sake of carrying it not for placing things on or taking things off. Our lives are sort of the same way. We are able to make a routine, balance our tray for delivery, and then keep it but to make a drastic change requires an effort of stopping and thinking.
When Jesus said that His yoke was easy and that His burden is light it was preceded by a call for people to come to Him and lay down their burdens. I think Paul helps to explain it best in Philippians 4:6-7.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
We need boredom or what we perceive to be boredom because it allows us to stop. We are able to truly take a deep breath and then let it out before looking back at everything differently from a new perspective. And through that new perspective, we are able to figure things out.
Until next time appreciates the moments of quiet that you get in life and make an effort to create some if you seem to not have any. Courage and Godspeed!