PROGRAM W-1773 – Part I
It’s Tuesday afternoon, and Fran is sitting at her desk looking at the clock. “Three o’clock. . .wow, has this been a long day! I am ready to go home. In fact, I’m ready for the weekend, and it’s only Tuesday. How am I going to make it to Friday?” she says out loud to herself.
Fran has developed this habit of talking to Jesus—conversationally like a friend—when others aren’t around to hear. Well, it’s sure better than just talking to yourself, wouldn’t you agree? Since Jesus is always with us and his ear is always attentive to our cry, why not share the thoughts you have with him? Having a casual conversation does not necessarily mean you are disrespectful of his holiness in any way. It just reinforces the truth that he is closer to us than our closest friend or relative.
So, she says, “Lord, have you noticed that I’m bored lately? I just don’t have much pep and energy these past few days. But,” she continues a bit defensively, “I’m just tired of the same old routine, you know? I guess I’m ready for a new job. I think I’ve got this one down pat and there’s no challenge left in it for me.”
Sometimes that still small voice of God’s Spirit sounds like a booming echo in her ears, and she can sense his message to her. Though it isn’t a vocal message, it is nonetheless real. “So, you feel you’ve done all you can do with this job. No new ground to break, no room for improvement?”
“Well,” Fran talks to herself again, “I guess there’s always room for improvement. . .but I’ve been here a few years and, yeah, I think I’m ready for bigger things.”
As she says it, her heart is convicted because she knows that her work habits have deteriorated lately. She doesn’t pour it on like she used to. She asks herself, “Is that because I’m bored?”
The convicting voice of God’s Spirit is not always comfortable. Fran frowns and thinks, “I don’t think I’ve been that bad, Lord. I’m still getting my work done.”
She is reminded of the passage in Ecclesiastes 9:10 which says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. . .”
“Lord, I do more work on a bad day than most of my co-workers do on a good day,” Fran replies with some defensiveness. “Even if I have slowed down a little bit lately, I’m still ahead of most everybody else around here.”
But she knows she can’t get by with that reasoning. She knows she can’t justify her lack of doing her best by comparing herself with others, because long ago Jesus taught her that she should never compare herself with others. He doesn’t compare us; rather he asks how we are doing with the gifts and opportunities entrusted to us. Fran is not sure how to answer him, so she shifts in her seat and starts to shuffle papers.
“Well, I’m just telling it like it is, Lord. . .I better make these phone calls,” she replies as she changes the subject.
The day finally ends and Fran heads home. After dinner the phone rings and it’s her friend Laura, who is a teacher. They chat for a minute and Fran says to her, “Laura, you’ve been teaching for eight or nine years, right? Do you ever just get tired of teaching—you know, just plain bored?”
“Yeah, sure,” Laura says. “Lots of days.”
“You do? But why do you stay in teaching if you’re bored with it?” Fran asks.
“Oh, Fran, I’ve learned to distinguish between boring days and periods, and being bored with my job. You see, I really believe God has called me to teach and I believe I can have a godly impact in the lives of my students. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel bored sometimes,” Laura explains.
“Well,” Fran replies, “how can you do a good job teaching when you feel bored?”
“The key word there, Fran, is feel. I feel bored but I can’t let my feelings control my actions. As long as I agree to do this job and take the paycheck that comes with it, I owe these students the best teacher I can be,” Laura answers.
Fran feels convicted as she listens to Laura. “You’re right, Laura, I know, but lately I’ve just been so bored with my job, that I simply haven’t worked very hard. I know I’m not doing my best work—and Jesus knows it, too.”
“That’s a lousy feeling, isn’t it?” Laura agrees. “I know; I’ve been there.”
“Well, how do you make yourself do a good job even when you’re bored?” Fran asks, sincerely wanting some help with her problem.
“Fran, this is going to sound crazy, but I just talk to myself and say, ‘Now, Laura, today you are not a teacher, you are an actress, and you must play the most convincing role ever—you must act like a great teacher today.’ I go into a mental gearshift and I see myself as an actress on a stage who must play the role of a teacher. Does that make any sense to you, Fran?” Laura asks.
“Yeah, kinda,” Fran muses. “A mental gear-shift, huh?”
“Well, it’s just my way of getting myself out of that boredom rut,” Laura says. “Then I discover that the boredom usually goes away pretty fast once I begin my acting role.” Laura laughs as she explains her secret system to Fran.
As Fran crawls into bed that night, she prays, “Lord, I need help with being bored on my job. Will you please give me a mental gearshift like Laura has, so I don’t succumb to boredom? Thanks, Lord,” and with that she goes to sleep.
The next day, as Fran arrives at work, she is still thinking about Laura’s mental gearshift idea. “Wonder what I could come up with that would help me?” she thinks to herself.
She knows that bringing her thoughts into captivity is a biblical principle, so she thinks about how she could use that as a mental gearshift technique for bringing her thoughts under control. She says to herself, “Obviously if you don’t think you’re bored, you won’t be, right?”
But then she thinks, “Well, it also has something to do with the repetitiveness of the job, how long I’ve been doing it, and the fact that I would like to try to do other things,” Fran replies. “I mean, you can’t just think yourself out of being bored, can you?”
Thinking this all through, she is brought back to a more immediate problem—her deteriorating work habits. She knows that Jesus wants her to change that right away and go back to doing everything with excellence as unto him. So, she decides that the first thing she must do is to get her work up to the level it should be. Then she should take a long-term look at the causes of the boredom and what, if anything, she might be able to do about that.
Talking to the Lord again, she says, “So, my first challenge is to not let these feelings of boredom cause me to give less than my best effort here on my job. I remember Laura said she has learned to distinguish between a boring period and being really bored with her job. I guess every job has boring days and every person gets bored with what they’re doing once in a while, even when it’s a job you really like.”
I need to learn that lesson; I really do, she thinks to herself. The question is, am I really bored with the job or just having some boring days?
“I don’t know,” she talks to the Lord again. “Maybe I’m just having some boring days, but then again…”
As she’s trying to think this through, a verse from Proverbs 13:10 comes to her mind: “. . . wisdom is found in those who take advice.” Hmmm, she thinks, maybe it’s time for some more advice. Another Proverb says to make plans by seeking advice—godly advice, of course (Proverbs 20:18).
“Good idea. I’ll do that,” Fran agrees. “I think I’ll talk to my Bible study leader, Nancy. She’s bound to have been through this in her own career.” She gives Nancy a call and they make a date to have lunch on Saturday. But it’s only Wednesday, and Saturday seems a long way off. When you’re bored, time just drags—so now Fran must find a way to motivate herself through the rest of the week.
“Laura has her mental gear-shift, Lord,” Fran says to Jesus. “When she’s feeling bored, she sees herself as an actress who must act like a great teacher. What can I do to make myself think correctly so that these feelings of boredom don’t keep me from doing good work?”
“Think of a creative approach to what you’re doing now,” Jesus whispers to her.
“A creative approach? You mean like doing it differently. . .” Fran begins to think about this. She is looking at a proposal that needs to be done for one of her clients. How could I do that proposal differently? Her creative juices start to flow and, instead of doing it in the same format as she always has, Fran comes up with a new approach. She calls her friend, Andy, in the art department, and gets a little help from him and, before she knows it, she’s into this project with enthusiasm.
At the end of the day, she has her proposal almost completed, but it doesn’t look like any other proposal she’s ever done. Her friend, Louise, walks in her office as she’s finishing, and she shows her the proposal.
“Wow, Fran, that is really different,” Louise says. “But I like it. Where did you get the idea?”
“If I tell you, you’ll laugh, Louise,” Fran says.
“Don’t tell me; I know: Jesus gave it to you!” Louise laughs and rolls her eyes.
“Yep, exactly right,” Fran says. “My goodness, is it time to go home already? Where did this day go?”
Let’s review some of the good things that Fran learned as she is struggling with a boring job and getting restless to move on to something more exciting.
First, she had to remember that being bored with her job is not an acceptable excuse for doing less than her best. Many times we really slow down and slough off when our enthusiasm is low, but that is not the way Christians should work because it’s not working with all your heart as unto the Lord. Maybe, like Fran, you’ve tended to excuse yourself by thinking that even though you’re not giving it your best, you’re still better than most of your peers. Jesus reminded Fran that he doesn’t compare performances, and we will be measured by our potential, not by whether we did better than someone else or not.
Then, Fran sought some advice from a good friend who reminded her that every job has boring days, times, and responsibilities. As my friend often says, they call it work because it’s work! I don’t think anybody has any kind of a job—whether it’s at home or anywhere else—that isn’t boring at times. So, we must learn to accept the boring aspects and develop ways to motivate ourselves even in the midst of the boredom.
That takes self-discipline and self-control—and those are fruits of the Spirit. So, pray that discipline and control into your life, and ask God to give you some ideas on how to keep yourself motivated to do good work even when you’re bored.
Finally, Fran realized that if she approached a routine task in a creative way, it wasn’t boring any longer. Are you just stuck in some ruts? Start those creative juices going and see if you can’t uncover some new approach, some better way to do what you’re doing. That will get rid of that boredom fast.
