I never thought complacency would happen on The Race. I expected the excitement and the adventure to protect me from settling for boredom. But here I am in month seven, Montenegro, bored.
I’m not even sure how complacency happens. It could be a combination of factors. We have a really nice apartment on the sea that has all the comforts I though I would be giving up for a year. We don’t have a set schedule for ministry, so we make it up as we go, trying to make friends and invite them to church. It’s cold here, and I guess weather does have power to affect moods. And sure, that could all be part of why I’ve grown complacent, but I think the real reason is that I’m not hearing God like I want to.
With practically no direction on what to do for ministry, we’ve been relying in the Holy Spirit to guide us. But when I don’t hear him, when I don’t feel him, I would rather just do nothing. I’m waiting on God, but when he isn’t quick enough I want to stop waiting. Instead of taking the initiative to walk into something, I walk away.
There’s a sailboat outside of my window. It’s docked with the sails down, and in the three weeks we’ve been here, it hasn’t moved. It’s cold and the “off season” as we are constantly told, which is probably why no one has bothered to take the boat out on the gorgeous water. The boat and the sailor are just waiting out the season, waiting for things to change. But think of all the adventures being wasted. Instead of waiting out the winter, hoping it’ll get better, settling for less than we know we have, what if we started now, right where we are.
When I feel complacent, border, far from God, I don’t actually believe I’m far from God. I know he’s promised to never leave me, so I bank on that. So then I wonder if maybe he’s being quiet, so I can tell him what I want. Maybe he’s pretending to be far away so I’ll call out to him. I think when he’s not offering a direction, he just wants me to take a step in any direction.
In Mark 6, Jesus does just this. He’s quiet, he ignores his disciples so that they will call out to him. He’s walking on water and his terrified best friends think he’s a ghost. He was fine to just keep on walking pass them, but then they call out to him. He climbs into the boat and calms the storm, and finally his disciples understand what he was preaching about. And that wouldn’t have happened if the disciples didn’t call out to him.
So here’s the trick. Here’s what I’m figuring out actually fights against my struggle with complacency: Taking risks. Calling out. Forward motion.
With a risk, two things can happen. You can fail or you can succeed. When we take that scary step and God comes through, it turns our hearts to worship him. When we fail though, we see our imperfections and grace comes to the rescue. And when you catch grace, you worship.
So you might be like the sailor, waiting out the season, hoping for better weather. But instead of waiting, throw on your winter coat and rain jacket, and go sail. Go risk something. Go fail at something. Because as a friend pointed out, the gospel makes it impossible to actually fail.
So what do we do when we’re complacent? How do we fight spiritual boredom? We start by taking risks. We pray those impossible prayers, the ones that if we were honest, we don’t expect God to answer. And then we risk more. We put ourselves in those places to see those prayers answered. We stop waiting for a new season, and instead seek after the face of God. Because you’ll find him, and when you see him, you most definitely will not be bored.
