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God’s Purpose in Our Boredom · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  We talked a lot on the podcast about escaping a life of triviality, escaping
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  this desire to be entertained to death. Twenty five or so episodes in the
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  archive now prove all of them that this is a major theme on the podcast.
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  Paster John and I summarize those episodes in the APJ book on pages two
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  ninety one to three Zho seven. But here's a unique question on the topic
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  with a little twist, and it comes to us from an anonymous young man,
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  a low pastor John. He writes, with your emphasis on Christian hedonism,
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  my question is about how you think of boredom. I often find myself
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  wondering what it is exactly and why God created the world with boredom as a
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  main feature of daily life, at least in this age post fall. I'm
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  not talking about depression, but the general on we in this life common to
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  all of us. We stay busy with work and family and hobbies not to
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  feel it, but it's always there, a moment of downtime and it finds
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  us again. Such boredom in this world seems to lead to all sorts of
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  behaviors that Christians deem sinful. Drug use, over indulging in smartphones, social
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  media and entertainment, gaming, illicit relationships and affairs, and gossiping and idle
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  conversation. It has always puzzled me to God, at least in terms of
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  his sovereignty over fallen man's daily experience. Has this experience a seemingly constant desire
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  to be entertained or otherwise escape from reality by going to concerts, movies,
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  playing board games, etc. At root, what is boredom? What causes
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  it? What does it signify? And do you think God has a purpose
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  in it for his children? I really enjoyed thinking about this question. Yeah,
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  it's a good one, partly because I've never thought about it before.
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  Yeah, I've never considered how the word or the experience of boredom is handled
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  in the Bible. Isn't that amazing? I don't think I've ever asked myself
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  that question till getting ready for this APG. So I had never done a
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  word search on boredom in the Bibles. So this is not boring to me.
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  It tells us something right away about the meaning of boredom, Namely,
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  it has to do with monotony. It has to do with dull repetitions that
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  have no interest for us. So the reason thinking about boredom was not boring
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  for me is because it was not monotonous or dull or repetitious. I've never
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  done it before, and I wanted and that's a key word for non boredom.
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  I wanted to know what the Bible has to say. And I'll bet
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  our listeners have already guessed what I found. Namely, that word is not
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  in the Bible exactly. It's boredom is not boring and bored or not.
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  Except if you're going to bore a hole through somebody's ear, you can find
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  the word boring, but it doesn't have the meaning of this. So it's
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  interesting to me that the Bible doesn't have the word boring, and it doesn't
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  have the word interesting anywhere in the Bible, doesn't have the word exciting anywhere
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  in the Bible, doesn't have the word fascinating anywhere in the Bible. But
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  I'm just I'm basing that, by the way, on the ESV. I
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  mean, there may be some other English translations I'm not aware of that might
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  have some of those words, but not the ESV. Even though the word
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  boredom is not found in the Bible, there is in the Bible a whole
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  book devoted to boredom. I mean it's called Thesistes. Listen to this vanity
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  of vanities. All is vanity. A generation goes, and a generation comes.
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  The sun rises and goes down. The wind blows to the south,
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  goes around to the north, round and around it goes. All streams run
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  to the sea. The sea is not full. There they flow again.
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  All things are full of weariness. Now that's probably the closest thing you get
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  to the word boredom. All things are weariness. The eye is not satisfied.
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  There's another good definition I think of boredom. The eye is not satisfied
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  with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing what has been, always will
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  be. There's nothing new under the sun. I've seen everything that is done
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  under the sun, and beheld all this vanity and striving after wind. I
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  mean, that's a very powerful description of a life that has sought non boredom
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  and didn't find it under the sun. That is, without God. This
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  is a book. Ecclesiastes is a book of what life is like. If
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  God is not the bright sun in our sky, and his word is not
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  the charter of our lives, and I think it's in the Bible because the
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  man who sent us this question is right. Namely, the experience of boredom
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  is universal, not that everybody experiences it all the time, but everybody has
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  tasted it. And he's right also that by its very nature, nobody likes
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  it. Boredom, by its very nature, is unsatisfying. If you're satisfied,
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  you're not bored. And he's also right that since nobody likes being bored,
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  we all take steps, according to our personalities and our circumstances and beliefs,
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  to get rid of it. If we're super energetic, we might work
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  ourselves out of boredom, or play ourselves like crazy out of boredom to get
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  rid of boredom. And if we're more lethargic, then we may just sit
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  on a couch, become a couch potato, turn the TV on, and
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  try to get rid of our boredom with movie after movie, streaming after streaming.
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  So he asks, at root, what is boredom? What does it
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  signify? Does God have a purpose in it for his children? And I
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  would add for the world. And my answer is at root, boredom is
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  the relentless experience of not finding satisfaction in this world. Something starts out being
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  exciting, satisfying, but soon we're weary of it and we need something else.
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  We take a vacation to the Alps, stand in awe for maybe two
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  or three days, and before a week is over, the curtains are pulled
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  and we're sitting in front of the TV trying to get the steams we're not
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  getting from the Alps anymore. Even great things can become boring for the fallen
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  human heart. What does it signify? What's the meaning? What did God
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  have in mind when he ordained the universal experience of boredom in a world of
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  sin and rebellion against God? What's his purpose for it? I'm going to
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  give three answers, one from the Bible, one from C. S.
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  Lewis, and one from the seventeenth century poet George Herbert, my favorite,
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  I think, and they're all the same answer in different forms. Ecclesiastes three
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  to eleven. God has made everything beautiful in his time. Also he has
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  put eternity in man's heart yet so that he can find out what God has
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  done from the beginning to the end. I don't know all that that verse
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  means. But the least that it means, it seems to me, is
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  that God plans for human beings to be frustrated with their experience in this world
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  until they realize that they were made for God. Here's the way C.
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  S. Lewis says it. If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing
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  in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made
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  for another world. Or to say it another way, paraphrasing Lewis, if
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  we find that nothing in this world is a long term solution to the problem
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  of boredom, we were probably made for another world. Boredom points to God.
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  That's that's God's purpose for boredom in this fallen world, to point us
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  to another world, namely to God and his infinitely interesting, an infinitely satisfying
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  person and work. Here's the way. One of the greatest English poets put
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  it in a poem called the Pulley. And the reason it's called the Pully
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  is because it attempts to describe in poetic form the way God pulls people to
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  himself. And of course the answer is that he he pulls them through boredom,
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  but he doesn't use the word boredom. He uses the word restlessness,
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  and he clearly thinks that God has made us restless or bored for a reason.
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  So here's here's the poem. I'll close with this. When God at
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  first made man, having glass of blessings standing by, let us, said,
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  he pour on him all we can. Let the world's riches, which
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  dispersed lie, contract into a span. So strength first made away, Then
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  beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure. When almost all was out,
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  God made a stay, perceiving that alone of all his treasure rest in
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  the bottom lay. For if I should said he bestow this jewel also on
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  my creature, he would adore my gifts instead of me, and rest in
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  nature, not the god of nature. So both would losers be. Yet
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  let him keep the rest, but keep them with repining restlessness. Let him
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  be rich and weary, that at least, if goodness lead him, not
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  yet, weariness may toss him to my breast. Or we might say,
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  there's not the poet anymore. This is me. We might say, if
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  goodness lead us not yet, boredom may toss us to God's breast. I
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  think that is God's design in this universal experience, of boredom to point us
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  to the origin of everything interesting, to the world, where no one will
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  ever be bored again. God's presence through Jesus Christ think bestor John such a
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  great reminder. God plans for human beings to be frustrated with our experience in
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  this world until they realized that they were made for God. Tossing us upon
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  God, where boredom goes to die, and whose face is fullness of joy.
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  Into his right hand are endless pleasures forever more, or to be distributed
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  inexhaustibly forever. He is our escape from the boring, trivial life. He
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  is our only hope of escape. We've talked a lot on the podcast about
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  escaping a life of triviality, escaping the desire to be entertained to death.
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  Twenty five or so episodes now all summarized in the EPJ book on pages two
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  ninety one to three oh seven. If you want more on escaping a life
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  of triviality, that's a great question today. Another great question is of next
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  time? How do we find and follow God's will? I'm Tony Rinky.
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  See you on Thursday.