You should spend more time around children.
I don’t know when exactly it happens. That shift from juice-boxes to coffee-mugs, hide-and-go-seek to hour-long morning commutes. Somewhere along the line we move from being children on the playground to grown-ups in our cubicles. Some may see it as a natural aging process. I choose to see it and call it as it appears: A problem of becoming boring.
The average 40-year-old laughs 10-15 times per day. The average four-year old laughs anywhere from 300-400 times per day. I don’t think we need a study and it’s findings to confirm the reality that age seems to, for most, tear wholes in our joy-tanks and create constant leaks. Of course there are those in cubicles, wearing suits and behind desks that laugh, enjoy life and do well at fighting the scrooge-syndrome off. Yet, I am talking in majorities… and the majority of ”grown-ups” I see and read about make laughing and excitement look more like our mom’s fancy china plates that come out twice a year rather than utensils they use daily.
I had a conversation with the boy you see above last night about God and life. As the conversation progressed I noticed something so different about the way he talked. To him, it was as if God was a friend he played with at the park earlier that day. He explained God like he was telling a story; his eyes widened, his facial expressions shifted, his posture changed. It was refreshing to hear and beautiful to observe. It made me re-think how I hear so many “older” people talk about God. Instead of telling real stories involving a real God, we sometimes explain God like a monotone used-cars salesman selling a 1971 Ford Pinto. We try to sell this God to others through a dry sales-pitch and a distant invitation to a church service instead of actually sitting down with them and letting them see the joy ooze out, the life rip through every story and the scars from the pain that He healed along the way.This is God were talking about. He is anything but boring. And if the reality of God does not move us to passionately and joyfully share His life with others than it seems we have misplaced the true God for a cheap, plastic figure. The God that this boy shared about was real; He had a heart, He had a name, He wasn’t distant.
This world doesn’t need another sales-pitch. What they need is normal people who have been flipped inside-out by this loving God and filled with His life! They need people to tell their real stories of a loving God that has changed them, to laugh, to be transparent. They need people who can put down their boring coffee-mugs and pick up their juice-boxes again.
Here’s to crushing boredom and enjoying the life of Jesus!
Thanks chris for sharing… this is really good and a great reminder!