Issue 019
Do you ever find yourself being thoroughly bored at work? “I don’t
have time to be bored; I’m too busy,” most would say. But that was
not the question. Boredom may be related to low workload but
people usually have plenty to do. Most people have 102 tasks to fit
into the day. By boredom here I mean, are you engaged? are you
involved? For a considerable number of people at work boredom is a
growing realisation. It has to do with meaning, purpose and value. It is
related to questions such as: “What is this all for?” “What is it all about?”,
“Is there any value in what I am doing?” Boredom in this sense has to
do with meaning. This realisation that things don’t make enough sense
arises out of a problem seeing any connections between the 102 tasks
each day. There seems to be no overall reason for any of it. This type
of feeling can arise at any stage of life. Surprisingly it often happens in
those who have made a lot of money and who are still young enough
to enjoy it. It also happens to people in their middle years as they
come to re-examine the meaning of their lives. Whatever your
financial or geriatric status, I want to suggest to you that this kind of
thinking is very healthy.
Although painful and sometimes discouraging, this feeling of boredom
is a wakeup call. It’s a call to search for deeper meanings; to look for
reasons to live and to work. It’s a healthy dissatisfaction with the
shallow.
Christians are not immune to this type of boredom. In fact sometimes
we live for too long on the assumption that we have found meaning
and purpose when it is fact only a second hand experience on loan
from the pulpit, the vicar or the bible study notes. Sooner or later
your boredom will lead you to find ways of discovering how things fit
together.
When Paul spoke to a group of bored Athenians, he told them, “in
Him we live and move and have our being,” and to his friends at
Colossae, “In Him all things hold together.” He also encouraged them
to do everything in the name of Jesus as well as for him.
When you try to put pieces together, find meaning and ditch the
boredom, I suggest that wherever you find your meaning you will find
it ultimately in him. As you try to make connections, it is the
connection to him which will change your working days. Of course if
you can’t find any connections to him at all, it may signal the need for
a bigger change. People found Jesus lots of things but boring wasn’t
one of them.
Acts 17:21-28
21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) 22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Colossians 3:15-17
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:23-24
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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