We Are Bored Because We Are Old




G.K. Chesterton had an interesting observation about boredom:

"The sun rises every morning.  I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction.  Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising.  His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life.  The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy.  A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life.  Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged.  They always say, 'Do it again'; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead.  For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.  But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.  It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every evening, 'Do it again' to the moon...It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we." [Orthodoxy; emphasis added]

We have sinned and grown old, and so we get bored with the good things that God gives us.  Yet God, because He is eternally young and vigorous, delights in repeatedly giving us His good gifts time and time again.  

Breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat, our Father provides all that we need for life in this world.  Week after week He absolves our sins, proclaims His promises, raises us to new life, and feeds us Christ's body and blood.  God never gets bored with giving.  Why should we tire of receiving?

We get bored with God and His repeated giving because we have sinned.  We have grown old.  

Thank God that He is younger than we. 




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