[why are we bored?]

Today our speaker said boredom is one of the biggest problems with Christians today. We know the basic take-home lessons from the same old stories. We're tired of hearing the same sermons over and over again. We're sick of routine Sundays, routine Bible studies, routine motions of prayer and giving and serving as a Sunday School teacher or board member or volunteer since no one else will.

How do we get the beauty and spark and joy of knowing God back though? I mean, out here I feel like I'm in a spiritual greenhouse. I'm surrounded by people who are passionate about the simple power of the gospel. Excited to grow. Eager to understand God's purpose for their life. Desiring to meet struggles with boldness and willing to live by the standards of the Bible rather than their own ideas of what is right and wrong. For a long time I thought that last thing sounded so restraining too. I've always been a "good" person, but to fully live according to God's desires rather than coming up with my own ideas seemed constraining and suffocating and un.at.trac.tive.

Oh man have I been humbled by the Spirit though. I like to see the Word of God as a refridgerator a lot of times - decide what I'm hungry for and take only what I like. No thanks mayonaise. Yes please chocolate milk. But out here there are so many people who don't choose which books and chapters and verses of the Bible they like and which they don't. They don't just pick out the things that are easy to obey. They go back to it for everything, and they strive to live as God intended us all to, always messing up but also moving forward in His grace.

And the Word seems to be sweeter in the midst of it all. You realize how little you really do know. You see the goodness of God daily. Your mind is opened to bigger and greater things, and it makes you hungry to learn more. It makes you wish you were staying here forever. It makes you want to just keep learning and growing and reaching out to the people of LA.

Instead, however, my question is how to bring this passion for God, this desire to grow, this hunger for more than apathetic boredom back to my home, my friend circles, my church and the international ministry I'm a part of. How do we keep the zeal thriving? How do ignite the fire and power of the gospel in our homes, our communities, our friend circles, our churches and our nation again when it seems that has gone elsewhere in the world?

The average Christian today isn't a white, English speaking, middle-aged man. The average Christian today is non-wealthy, non-white and non-Western. It's a black, African female aged 28, and yet it's easy to forget that people other than European descendents worship the same Jesus. That other countries outside the West send missionaries, even to us. That God's gospel is moving rapidly throughout the world, and that the church is alive and growing in some really cool ways that don't always take the same shape or form of the traditional, Midwestern Lutheran church I grew up in.

Now how do we keep it alive as well in the very places that planted the first seeds of faith in us? How do we keep ourselves reminded that we're never done growing? How do we gain a new thirst for God's Word and realize it is extremely relevant and true and essential to our very lives? How do we get a bigger vision and heart for God's glory beyond our own struggles and questions and doubts? Those are my questions, and I'm guessing if I asked anyone else here they'd say go back to the Word and ask God. A few years ago I would have thought that was nice advice and then thrown it away in exchange for my own idears. But today I think I'll take it. Our Jewish speaker last night said that boys back in the day had to memorize the Torah - the first five books of the Old Testament - by age 10. Well I'm twice that age and then some, so thank goodness I just have to pray for desire and wisdom to read it!