I’m bored! I can’t tell you how many times a day I’ve heard those two words since I’ve been a mother. I’m bored. I’m bored. Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, I’M BOOOORRRREEEEEDDDDD!!!!!!
Any other moms out there with me? Ugh. It’s so annoying.
Day in and day out, my answers were always the same:
Go make your own fun.
It’s not my job to entertain you 24/7.
Keep yourself busy.
If you can’t find something to do yourself, I’ll give you some cleaning to do.
And then, one day, I asked myself, “Why is being bored such a bad thing?”
Bored, by definition, means feeling weary because one is unoccupied or lacks interest in one’s current activity. It means to be weary by dullness or having nothing to do.
Unoccupied. Nothing to do. Sounds like heaven to me!
When was the last time you were bored? I can’t even remember. The problem is we’re training ourselves (and our kids) to always have to be doing something. If we aren’t busy, busy, busy doing something, we feel the need to find something to do. Heaven forbid we actually do nothing for a minute or two or ten. That would be just awful, wouldn’t it?
We’re training our minds to be constantly active and our bodies to be continuously on the move. No wonder we live tired and stressed. No wonder burn-out is so prevalent right now.
The next time my son came up to me and said, “I’m bored,” I said, “Good. It’s a good thing to be bored every once in a while. To turn your mind off and keep your body still. To rest. Maybe God’s trying to get your attention and talk to you.”
Of course, he looked at me like I was nuts, but he just went off to his room and was quiet for a few minutes.
Maybe God’s trying to get our attention and talk to us…like he did with Elijah when He told him to go to the mountain of God so they could chat. After he got there, he encountered the earthquake and the fire and the wind.
But Elijah didn’t hear what God was saying until the activity was over and all that was left was Elijah, God, and the silence.
Boring silence. Sweet silence.
It wasn’t until everything was quiet that Elijah could hear the still small voice of the Lord whispering to him.
If you haven’t been bored in a while, maybe you should block some time on your calendar for it. I know it sounds strange, but you may need to make yourself do it at first. It may be a struggle…..especially when it’s been a while……
Especially when you’ve been occupied with the hustle and bustle and activity and chaos of life for a long time, it can be difficult to be comfortable in the quiet for very long. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
And….it’s so healthy for our souls to be bored every once in a while. Go ahead. Give it a shot. Go unoccupy yourself for a while and see what happens.