Boring Is As Boring Does

“He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

I am, indeed, a bore. I asked myself 4 questions. Here are my findings:

What do you like to do?

I don’t know. At one time, I swam a lot, did lifesaving a lot, presided a Christian Fellowship, debated quite a bit. But all those were things that I needed to do. Now that those things are abruptly over for me, I can do what I want to do. But what do I like to do?

I must’ve been doing only the things that I need to do for too long. Now that I don’t need to do those things anymore, what do I really want to do? I don’t even know.

Where do you like to go?

I can go to the pool. But that’s because there is where I train. I can go to the shopping mall. But it’s not as though I can buy anything there. I can go to the bowling alley. But bowling is no fun when you got no one of “your type” to bowl with. I can go play ping pong. But no one seems to be interested in it nowadays. I can go to the badminton court. But you need to find a group of people to do that with you. I can just go for a run outside. But I am afraid of getting the “black out” feeling. Because I’ve been out of touch with physical activity for too long.

I don’t go to discos, I don’t go to pubs. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. If I can’t appreciate museums or art galleries, and if going to cinemas is carnal… I don’t know where I want to go.

What was the latest piece of clothing that you bought?

A pair of long khakis. But that was because I needed to get a pair to help out with D Jungle People. It’s like their uniform.

The fact is, I don’t buy clothes! All my t-shirts are free. I get a lot of free t-shirts from swimming competitions since I was 8. I don’t remember deliberately buying a t-shirt from a store. Camp t-shirts and debating t-shirts don't count. Put me in a store and ask me to pick a t-shirt. I wouldn’t even know what to do.

What was the last book you read?

Discipleship Of The Mind by James W Sire. Was preparing for a workshop on worldviews then.

Currently reading a Francis Schaeffer book. A trilogy – A God Who Is There, Escape From Reason, God Is Here And He Is Not Silent. What kinda book is that??

My gosh. A Francis Schaeffer book. I must be truly boring...

When a dispute arose between John’s disciples and the Jews, John said “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven” (John 3:27) John may be losing a lot of people to Jesus when Jesus started baptizing in Judea. But John said “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Yes, the joy of Christian living is in seeing more and more of our inner lives being conformed to be more like Christ, and in seeing more and more of our outer lives being surrendered to Him. We want to see more and more of Him in us, and less and less of ourselves. As Eric Liddell said, “It’s complete surrender.”

But doesn’t God allow us that little space for us to do what we like? Doesn’t He permit us to have that small, little place for us to choose what we want for ourselves… to be happy?

I'm sure He does.

Sigh… Hence the struggle to walk the line between selfless godliness and selfish hedonism.

Or maybe I’m just feeling depressed. Or maybe it’s the book that I’ve been reading. Maybe it’s because the book has been going on and on about how everything from art to literature to music to theology has gone below the “line of despair”. Maybe things will get better when I hit the good news/solution part of the book.

Or maybe I should just stop reading Francis Schaeffer. And stop being boring.

*I can't even find a picture for this entry. Boooring...*