Bored

Hello all! Sorry that this post is coming so late, but I still wanted to make sure it was up for you when you woke up the next morning. This week's blog is a little less intense than the last week, but I personally have found really cool working with it over the last week.

Our passage is Acts 20:7-12
^"7 On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. ⁸ There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. ⁹ Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. ¹⁰ Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive!” ¹¹ Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left. ¹² The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted."

All of us have been bored at one time in our lives. This may have been while you were waiting on your oil to get changed, or you were waiting for class to finish on a Friday afternoon, or you were waiting on dinner to finish cooking so you could eat. Boredom is something that can be so common and so destructive. I sometimes like to tackle boredom in different ways such as making up my own game or time to learn something new. The boredom we are discussing today though is a much more serious type of boredom. Being bored with God.

The bible focuses on us as Christians having a relationship with God, and how this relationship is a thing that grows constantly. However if we are honest sometimes our relationship hits a dry spot. Sometimes we seem to get stuck in a spiritual rut. The passage that we are looking at has two different perspectives on boredom. Shall we look?

The first is Eutychus, the man who falls asleep and dies for it. Am I saying that next time you fall asleep in a church service you will die? Nope. Speaking from a man who has narcolepsy, it's tough to stay awake sometimes in church, I'll agree with you on that. Eutychus has attended a service where Paul intends to preach through the night. Paul has been preaching for hours at this point and Eutychus falls into his deep sleep and falls out of a window. This is tragic, but there is something that can be learned. Look for opportunity to learn. Sometimes we hear a story in church and we tune out. 

"Oh I've heard this before..... I wonder where we'll go for lunch. Man I've got a lot of homework to do today. I wish Chik-fil-a was open today." Next thing you know the sermon is over and you have missed your opportunity to see something new about God. The scripture is God's word and every time we read it we can grasp something new from it. By checking out of a service because you feel that you have heard it before kills the opportunity for you to grow even closer with God.
  
The other perspective is Paul's perspective. Paul sees this man fall out of a window and die while he is preaching. Now I have only delivered about 15-20 sermons to a crowd before, but I am quite sure that if someone died during one of my sermons I would ask myself two questions, Do I stop teaching and call the ambulance, and am I really that boring? Paul does neither of these though, he knew what he was teaching needed to be heard, so he walks over brings the man back to life, and keeps on teaching! Be enthralled with God.

Paul was so in love with God that all he wanted to do was talk about him. A man's death wasn't even enough of a distraction to keep Paul from teaching the good news. Now this second point may be a little hard to grasp the practicality of it. You say, but I've tried to find that passion for Him again, it's just not there anymore. Then I would ask you to look at your life. What areas are things going well in? Do you feel like you have gotten there all on your own?

Maybe you aren't doing so well right now, bills are stacking up, family is hard, sickness is striking, even love doesn't seem to be working out. God has a plan for you. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that God doesn't intend to hurt us, but rather to make us prosper. Focus on that, the provider that will meet all of your true needs in the way He best sees fit. Sometimes we expect God to do something crazy to get us out of a crazy time when we keep getting knocked down. We forget that it's His hand who keeps helping us get back up. 

 Thank you for reading and God bless.