CHAPTER 13 - When Life Goes Stale

ABOVE, EVERYTHING else, this book must be practical, and meet its readers at the point of their needs. I want it to be “problem-solving” for persons in various areas of their experiences. Most of the suggestions I have made and will be making have come out of my pastoral experience with people during conversations or correspondence we have shared together. Among outstanding problems, which need to be honestly faced and analyzed is that of what to do about boredom. Is there a cure? What do you do when you awake in the morning with no feeling of expectancy whatsoever? Some time ago a troubled man said to me, “I hate to open my eyes in the morning and know I am at the beginning of another uninteresting, meaningless day.” I hope you never feel like that; yet many do. It calls for an examination of our purposes and our relationship to life and to people.

Our relationships are very important, for if we are not at peace with members of our family, for example, or with the folk with whom we work, we will begin “the day drearily, self-consciously, or with a chip on our shoulder. If we have been loafing on the job, not earning our salary, shirking our responsibilities and refusing to face up to our obligations, then just thinking about the hours yet before us will be enough to tire us. It is sad to think of the many persons for whom life has no “lift,” no deep satisfactions, no genuine delight. They are bored beyond words, and life offers few interruptions to that boredom.

Don’t wink at boredom, for it can lead to disaster if a cure is not found. A prominent psychologist has said, “While boredom is not immediately a destructive emotion, it leads directly to, and therefore is responsible for, more illness, more disruption of living, and even crime, than is caused by any single condition of the spirit.” But some of us who are enjoying a richer measure of life are asking, “Why are people bored in such an interesting world as this?”

First, I think boredom is often the result of a failure to use our God-given imagination in a wholesome and creative way. Take marriage for example. Many married couples have been bored with each other ever since they returned from their honeymoon. They may have started out together in an interesting partnership, but the glamour soon wore off, and life settled down to a tiring, boring routine, devoid of freshness and excitement, chiefly through a lack of imagination. Marriage should never become a static experience, but some folk seem totally unaware that it calls for constant adjustment to life and to each other.

To illustrate, the husband is exactly the same man after marriage as he was before. He still likes to hunt, fish, play golf, and watch a good football game on television. But what if his wife doesn’t like to hunt, fish, play golf, and watch football? Does he leave her at home for hours and days at a time or find a substitute program, which will include her? The choice seems deceptively simple, but it isn’t. In such a situation, both husband and wife need to use their God given imagination to find a program, which is enjoyable to both. At certain points they need to compromise their personal desires and discover a number of things they can enjoy together. But those newly wed and those who have been married for many years should beware of forcing a marriage partner into a situation where boredom becomes almost inevitable.

Some of the toughest marital tangles I ever came up against in counseling sprang from boredom on the part of the wife; and it almost always followed an extended period of blind preoccupation with “his own” program on the part of the husband. Here are some famous last words in marriage, “She doesn’t like to do anything I like to do.” Or, “Before we were married we went everywhere together. Now you can’t drag him out of the house after six in the evening with a team of mules.” People like that lack imagination, and they also are often lacking in a selfless quality of love. There is too much selfishness for either to do anything he doesn’t want to do, and too little imagination to think up a good substitute program of interest to both.

I’m afraid that some people are just too busy to make a success of their marriage. My wife said one day, “Preachers shouldn’t get married. They don’t have time for the involvements of the home.” I’ll have to admit that there were times when I was far too busy with the church for the good of our own family life; and many pastors are like that today. They go from morning to night in church work, are away from home several evenings a week—in church work. Other families have happy weekends together, but the pastor has the heavy obligations of church work. And since it is all for God and people, it all seems justified, even if he must neglect his wife and children. But it isn’t, and time for the family is always possible if one will deliberately plan for it.

My wife gave me more than a subtle hint in this direction one time, and I will never forget it. As pastor of Park Place Church, my work was unending, and the days were long. There were always meetings, and counseling, and sermon preparation. There were the sick to visit and community affairs that must not be neglected. One day my wife found my date book lying on the dresser and an idea came to her. She opened it week by week to the pages stretching ahead in the next three months, and on every space representing Monday nights, wrote, “No dates please.” I appreciated it. We’d be in a gathering and someone would suggest that the board or committee should meet the next Monday night at seven-thirty. I’d look at my date book and say, “Sorry, I have a previous appointment.” It was our own private joke, but it did a lot for us by way of fellowship and understanding. If a minister’s wife is reading this, why don’t you try it?

Preacher, businessman, factory worker, or farmer, all need to be reminded that a neglected wife is an unsatisfied wife. I didn’t say dissatisfied, but unsatisfied. Sometimes she becomes a very bored wife, and unhappiness invariably follows. Married college men face a particular danger at this point. They attend classes during the morning, work at a job on the swing shift from three to eleven, then must do their sleeping and library work as best they can. It is hard on marriage, as many have discovered. I know a certain man who wanted to buy a home and needed extra money; so he took a second full-time job. He is still at it, though this “moonlighting” began years ago. He works at one job from seven in the morning till three in the afternoon; goes to work at his second job at four and works till midnight. What is a man’s wife supposed to do with her life in cases like this? Even if she has children, or has taken a job, her life is very incomplete without her husband’s fellowship. This couple has but Sunday together, and that is not enough for a good marriage. What a temptation a wife like this faces in her loneliness. How she longs for something interesting to break the monotony.

I well remember the ministerial student who was too, too busy for the good of his marriage. He was in school during the morning and worked till eleven at night. Weekends he was off preaching somewhere, often without his wife. She was a beautiful but lonely girl, and her husband was heartbroken when she left him; but could he conscientiously place all the blame on his wife? People will do anything to break the monotony of their bored existence. And I mean anything. Is this a clue in regard to juvenile crimes? Boredom with life! These young lads have no chores to do, and no jobs are available to them because they are under age. So, with a great deal of time on their hands, they go out to find excitement—and get into trouble.

But back to marriage: Situations such as I have been describing call for the most thoughtful and creative use of the imagination if marriage is to know any real rapport and companionship. But if you don’t learn to use your imagination now, will you ever learn? No imagination ultimately means boredom, and remember…boredom can become very dangerous. It sometimes becomes an almost overpowering invitation to break the law, the moral code, parental or any other kind of authority. But a bored person will ultimately do anything to break out of his prison house, and will often do it with a tragic and terrible disregard for consequences.

How many people are bored with their work! The dull monotony of their uninteresting jobs needs combating or it will deaden their lives. In my early years I worked for a time in a machine shop, where operations were often dull and routine as I repeated simple machine operations a seemingly endless number of times each day. The motion of the machine and the noise of the shop were monotonous beyond words, until I found I could escape it all through the use of creative imagination. From that time forward, although my hands were busy with my machine, my mind was out on foraging expeditions for truth. How many times of high worship I enjoyed as I stood there. The good Lord enabled me to transmute potential boredom into refreshing streams of spiritual and mental enrichment. You can fight boredom in a constructive way and win!

One woman is bored to tears with housework while another sings a song of praise as she goes about making her apartment cozy and inviting for her husband and children. One man is bored into a state of perennial irritability by his job while another at the next bench spends his eight hours in imaginative planning for the future, which will, at the first open door, start him upward on a ladder of self-improvement and success.

All of us must feel we are needed, if we are to be happy. It is one of life’s fundamental laws. We need to feel that we are doing something, which is important and useful to someone; otherwise we become bored and restless. Some time ago a New York company jokingly advertised that it was taking reservations for trips to the Moon, Mars, and other planets. The ad warned that the trips would be dangerous and uncomfortable. It was but a promotional stunt, but within a week, to their consternation and surprise, this company received eighteen thousand applications. Sorting them out, psychologists decided that most of them came from bored people who were willing to pay any price and face any danger just to break up the monotonous round of their existence.

Put your God-given imagination to work for your good. In the Parable of the Talents Jesus was saying in substance, “Use your talents in a creative way, or they will be taken away at the cost of your soul.” Life seems to be warning, “Put your creative imagination to work there at your job, in your marriage, your religion, and your personal relationships, or suffer the deadly atrophy of boredom.” One young mother stumbles and blunders in a kind of trial-and-error method of rearing her children. Another faces about, reads books on child training, attends seminars, joins a Mothers’ Club, and counsels with grandmothers in order to learn how to do a better job.

Some men sit in supine surrender to what they mistakenly consider their destined lot in life, and their boredom increases as their mental powers cake up with dust. Other men shake themselves, take night classes, subscribe to correspondence courses, use their public libraries, and in the process fit themselves for more thrilling and rewarding careers. They go forward with zest and a sense of progress. Some women marry their men and never use their imaginations again; but for others there is never a dull moment. Life, for them, is full of exciting surprises, plans, recipes, recreational ideas, laughter, fun, and family fellowship. For these, marriage never loses its color or delight, even after fifty years. But the thing that makes the difference is on the inside, not the outside. It is not a matter of circumstances, but the nature of one’s soul; not the job, the house, the farm, but the use of imagination—creative imagination, leading to creative activity. This is the answer to boredom.

Don’t allow yourself to quit thinking. Some people can never see anything interesting anywhere. They need to begin to observe and to think! Pick up a blade of grass, a rosebud, a grain of wheat, and let your imagination loose on it. Start counting your blessings and praising God for them. Quit thinking about the things you do not have, and begin thanking him for all you do have. Begin looking for every good point you can find in your neighbor. Open your eyes wide to discover some need near you, which God wants you to alleviate. Somebody needs you! Encourage the discouraged, lift someone’s burden, dry someone’s tears, sit by the bedside of a sick neighbor; take someone to church with you next Sunday. THINK!

If you have a Living Letters translation of the New Testament, turn to Romans 12:616, and read a good recipe for zestful living. Is the person in love ever bored? Boredom means that life is out of adjustment. Is the person who has learned the secret of intercessory prayer ever bored? He has opened a refreshing fountain for the enrichment of his soul. We can all learn the secret of the overflowing cup, for it comes as a result of full surrender to God, the giving of ourselves to him for service, which is motivated by love for him and people.

How about closing this book for a minute and asking, “What does all this have to do with me, my family, my work, and my future?”

CHAPTER 14 - How To Fight The Blues

DON’T TELL me you have never had the blues, because at one time or another all of us have suffered from this depression of the spirit. But like all other detractors of Christian personality, discouragement is your avowed enemy. It has to be recognized as such and persistently resisted, or it can defeat all of your hopes and plans for the future. It certainly is an enemy of happiness and peace of mind. Sometimes it is surprising to read how some of the great personages of the past experienced discouragement and gloom. But such is life, for discouragement is no respecter of persons.

Jeremiah, one of the really great Old Testament prophets, a man who was wonderfully used of God, sometimes experienced times of gloom, which verged on despair. For an example of this you have but to read the first chapter of the Book of Lamentations. King David knew such times of despondency, in spite of his music and singing.

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale is quite a preacher; he has written many books having to do with positive thinking and peace of mind, but he is not above knowing times of low tide emotionally. I remember the evening when he and Mrs. Peale met with a small group of Christian broadcasters in a New York hotel for dinner. I felt sorry for him, for he was under a cloud of discouragement, which was evident to all during our table conversation. Perhaps he was tired, or overworked. After he had made a little speech, the rest of us began to share with him success stories of how the gospel is changing lives today, transforming human hearts, healing marriages. As we were about to disband, he smiled and said, “I’m sure glad I came to meet with you fellows tonight. I needed a lift.” But don’t we all, now and then?

D. L. Moody, great evangelist of other years, once became very depressed because he thought the Lord was not sufficiently blessing his ministry in the redemption of souls. He was cast down and blue, and everyone around him was affected by it. He would speak disparagingly of the meetings he was holding and their poor results. What was worse, he remained in this depressed condition for several months, and it was the trial of his life. One Monday, while still in this valley of gloom, he met another minister who was highly elated over services held in his church the day before. He said to Moody, “What kind of a day did you have” And Moody replied, “No good. No Power. I preached about Noah.” Brightening, the other preacher said, “Noah? Man, did you ever really study up on Noah? He was a most wonderful character.”

When he got home, Moody thought perhaps he had overlooked something about this patriarch. So he took his Bible and again read the familiar story, but this time with new insights, appreciation, and understanding. The thought came to him, “Poor Noah! He preached righteousness for one hundred and twenty years and never had a single convert outside of his own family.” A day or two later Mr. Moody talked with a young preacher who had just closed a meeting in which there had been ten converts. Moody said to himself, “How happy Noah would have been with that kind of success! But even without it, Noah didn’t get as discouraged as I have been. He kept his faith up, strong and steady.” Later still, a young man said, “Mr. Moody, I want you to pray for me.” And again Moody reflected, “What Noah would have given just to hear one man say that! Just one in one hundred and twenty years!” So Moody quoted to himself the Forty-Second Psalm, which asks, “Why art thou cast down, O, my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God.” Moody did take hope, found victory over the discouragement and gloom under which he had been laboring, and again became the successful evangelist of former years. But had he not learned how to overcome, discouragement would have put him out of the ministry, just as it has ruined the lives of thousands. There is a lifting power in the reading of the Word.

Underscore it again; discouragement is your enemy. It will affect the quality of your work; disturb your sleep. It can injure your nervous system, and bring loss to mental and spiritual health. Worry and discouragement are full brothers, and one augments the other. But discouragement is always crouching near your door, just waiting to get at you. Discouragement can be caused by a number of things. Sin, unrepented of, is probably the most common cause for depressed spirits. It is the greatest discourager in the world, for it brings not only a sense of guilt, a feeling of separation from God.

Ill health often leads to discouragement, partly because one’s energy is down, and in such a case it is easy for one’s natural optimism to give place to foreboding and fear. Glandular upsets sometimes bring discouragement, as does excessive weariness over an extended period of time. So will reversals of fortune, if not handled properly. Of course, gloom and discouragement can be brought on by just plain laziness, especially if one happens to be the breadwinner in his family. I knew a very capable salesman who used to be down in the dumps most of the time, not because he couldn’t sell, but because he would rather sleep. He drifted into financial difficulties just because he was too lazy to work enough to keep his expenses paid up. There was no one but himself to blame for his mounting financial problems.

On the other hand, isn’t it amazing how much some people can take and still remain cheerful and optimistic? An old lady in England came through one bombing after another during the war with admirable calm and fortitude. When asked how she could be so cheerful and confident, she replied, “Well, every night I say my prayers, knowing God is always watching “over his own”. Then I go to sleep. After all, there’s no need for both of us to stay awake!” I like that, don’t you? Just so, the Lord doesn’t want you to dwell under the “juniper tree” either. Hope thou in God! Remember, it is impossible to really trust God and be discouraged at the same time. God never forsakes his own. Just that fact ought to be enough to lift us out of any bad hour of discouragement.

However, so often, when we enter a tunnel and the sun is hidden for a while, we fail to see this experience as a stepping-stone to spiritual growth, and instead allow it to become a stumbling block. A man of fifty-four, an executive, was thrown out of work when his company failed, and it was through no fault of his own. His pastor called, expecting to find him gloomy and depressed, but instead the executive said, “Through all this, I think God is trying to say something to me. So I’m practicing being quiet and listening. I’m expecting light from on high.”

The light was not long in coming. A few days later the top executive of a large firm came to see him, saying, “The number four position in our company is vacant. We think you are exactly the man for the job.” He was, and it was a better position than he had lost. But had he given over to gloom and self-pity (and they so often go together), the offer might never have been forthcoming. Managers want healthy-minded, optimistic people for their responsible jobs, not dependent brooders.

Don’t give in to the blues; fight them! Say, “This, too, will pass! God loves me and will take care of my life and every situation in it if I do my best for him, and keep my heart filled with faith and courage.” The faith attitude is a sure cure for discouragement. Sabot is a French word for a wooden shoe. Sabotage was the practice of throwing a wooden shoe into machinery to stop production. Later it came to mean any attempt to hinder production or spoil a product. Well, there is a wooden shoe, which Satan would cast into the machinery of your soul to cause you to fail. In fact there are many of them, so be on the lookout. Some of them are worry, fear, doubt, resentment, laziness, and discouragement. Watch out for these.

How happy an experience it is to see a healthy, happy outlook being manifested by a person who on the surface seems to have every reason to be discouraged. After Robert Louis Stevenson had published his first wonderful storybook for children, a literary critic condemned it, saying the book was obviously the product of a very sheltered, trouble-free life. This critic wrote, “Let this exasperatingly happy person have one touch of rheumatic fever and he will quickly change his tune.” What he did not know was that Stevenson, while writing that very book, suffered not only from sciatic rheumatism, but from hemorrhages also. His eyes were bandaged almost constantly because of another serious disease; yet this indomitable soul said, “I refuse to let the medicine bottles on my mantelpiece be the limit of my horizon; or the blood on my handkerchief the chief fact of my life.” There was a man who knew how to fight discouragement!

Think of the thousands of hardships endured by the Apostle Paul; yet they didn’t get him down. He said, “None of these things move me.” God has certain lessons for all of us to learn from circumstances. The fretting soul may miss these precious lessons, but he who learns them, and learns them well, can climb triumphantly over the top of circumstances and go forward in victory.

Every schoolchild at some time reads the story of Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, who at one time, defeated and discouraged, was forced to hide from his enemies. His career was at its lowest ebb. He had tried to save Scotland from her foes, but had lost every battle. His army was scattered, many of his men had been slain. Fleeing for his life, he at last found refuge in a cave deep in the forest, and there he sat, discouraged and blue. He said to himself, “There is no use to fight any more. Our enemies are simply too strong for us.” Just then his attention was called to a spider, which was trying to spin a web between two rocks. This spider had fastened one end of her thread to a rock and was trying to swing herself across to the other rock, but each time she failed to swing quite far enough. As Bruce sat watching, he wondered how long she would keep on trying. After several such failures, Bruce said to himself, “You are a brave and patient spider. If you try once more and succeed, I, too, will take up the fight again.” The spider did try again, and this time made it. And King Robert, encouraged, gathered his scattered men, made another determined assault, won the battle, and freed his nation.

God wants you to win your battles, too, but you can’t do it if you give yourself over to perpetual gloom. Do you remember the story of the Lost Battalion in World War I? Telling of his experiences with this group, a young Christian convert said, “We were cut off from the main army and surrounded by the enemy. Our food and water gave out, and every once in awhile someone would shout from a distance for us to surrender. Finally, we had but one flare left. That night we prayed, then, fired it straight up, hoping the Americans would see it. They did! Next morning an airplane dropped us canteens of water, and bread, and there was a note saying, ‘Hold on! We’re coming!’ A few days later guns began to roar, and soon our army came and we were at last among our men.” What a delight it must have been to again be “among their own”!

Have you ever felt surrounded, cut off by circumstances? If it happens again, don’t lose heart; hold on! Don’t give up, or yield to self-pity. Hold on! Believe God and trust in his power. Wait for his deliverance, meanwhile doing all you can think of to better the situation and act like a Christian.

Many times during my years of ministry I’ve recalled the tough, hard time Christopher Columbus had with his crew, as day after day produced no sight of land. With his unhappy men on the verge of mutiny, with only his own faith and courage to sustain him, Columbus wrote day after day in his ship’s log, “This day we sailed westward.” Don’t give in to circumstances or discouragement. Pray! Exercise your faith in God. Trust and be true, and God will bring you out. The late beloved W. F. Chappell used to say many years ago when we were in meetings together, “I haven’t had a blue Monday since the Lord destroyed the bluin’ factory out of my soul.” I like that, don’t you?