For an entire afternoon one Thursday in August, my family didn’t do anything exciting. To be clear, there are many mornings, afternoons, evenings, entire days, and possibly entire weeks where we do nothing exciting, but this particular afternoon stands out in my memory. We had just returned from a vacation to Homer, Alaska. After days spent searching for seashells, spotting sea otters, and admiring the mountain views, we made the long trek home and looked forward to a day spent in rest.
We had saved an entire vacation day for rest at home after a long trip. Unfortunately, rest can be very hard to find these days. Busyness, parading around our lives in the form of writing projects, homeschool projects, and once-in-a-year events, can creep into virtually every moment. What was supposed to be a full day of relaxation was shortened by meal planning, writing, and a few errands that seemed so important at the time. For about four glorious hours, however, we were idle.
My wife met with a friend for coffee. My eldest son drew a maze that wove around whimsical monsters. My younger son put together a portion of a 300-piece puzzle. My twin daughters sat on the couch in rapt silence as I read Frog and Toad All Year, Owl at Home, and other favorites. Nothing was checked off the to-do list, but something far more important was accomplished.
In his book, The Rest of God, Mark Buchanan writes:
In a culture where busyness is a fetish and stillness is laziness, rest is sloth. But without rest, we miss the rest of God: the rest he invites us to enter more fully so that we might know him more deeply.”
Our leisurely Thursday afternoon, which should happen far more often than it does, was not only restful after a long vacation; it was boring. No one said the word aloud, but you could feel it in the air. No one complained about the meandering hours as they ticked away, but the mounting feeling that nothing was being accomplished was evident even in the youngest members of our family.
Thankfully, our boredom was put to good use on that Thursday afternoon. While I often find my stress levels rising as I watch hours go by without anything “useful” being accomplished, on this particular day it felt deeply rejuvenating.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” Jesus says (Matthew 1:28, NIV).
I wish I could say we always remember this in our downtime and our uneventful afternoons. Too often I fill my time off with home remodeling projects, exercise, writing, or worries about any of those projects. Mercifully, God has been teaching me the importance of boring afternoons or, dare I say it, entire boring days as part of the rhythm of our lives.
Work is deeply important, but I’ve witnessed the compelling effects boredom has on young imaginations. Many walls in our home bear artwork that is the fruit of a few idle hours and a few blank pages given to my children.
That restful Thursday afternoon in August ended too quickly. The Friday that followed was an unmemorable blur of ticking off to-do lists, clocking in hours on the computer, and attempting to keep our busy house in order. With four young children in the home, my wife and I have far more work to do than there are hours in the week. Despite that, I’m learning to appreciate the time God gives me when we can all be still and be idle.
Featured image by freepik
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