"Unexciting" Faith | Ears to Hear #17

The Christian life is often sold as constantly exciting; miracles every week, dramatic testimonies, spiritual fireworks, and nonstop adventure. But for most believers, it’s largely ordinary, repetitive, and sometimes even boring. The real test (and beauty) of faith is faithfulness in the mundane: showing up, obeying quietly, loving difficult people, fighting the same sins, and trusting God in the silence. This episode validates the struggle while reframing “boring” as deeply biblical and spiritually fruitful.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to Ears to Hear today. Grateful for you being here. Living the faith isn't flashy. And I hope you leave today realizing that ordinary living as a Christian is kind of the point. That is okay and honoring God and obeying God and just your day-to-day kind of rote, mundane living is the point. That is pure gospel living. That's pure faith. And this idea has been on my mind a little bit because it's I mean, we just chase excitement as people. We like exciting things, we like clickbait, we like things that jump at us. And as a Christian, there's a bit of that that comes from a few different ways. If you're in the Bible, you read these stories, they're often miraculous, rev revelatory. There's a grand gesture that occurs, a light from heaven, a booming voice, a dove on the shoulder, a person's withered hand is healed, somebody's eyes are opened, the bush is on fire, the earth is covered in water. They're very extreme. The river parts open, you get the point. And it's sensationalized. Like these like the spirit of God and these experiences causes this sensationalism to happen where there's an expectation, maybe subconsciously, maybe it's not, you don't seek that, and you obviously know that's not gonna happen every day. But when we go through periods of time where we don't get anything even remotely close to that, we we kind of start chasing that or looking for that, maybe in other ways that we shouldn't. And I'm here today to say to be careful and be wary of doing that, because to be completely blunt, just honoring God every day and being a Christian and living this way is frankly not that exciting. It's not, and I think that's that's okay. I think that's kind of the point that living as a Christian just ain't that exciting. And I'm using the word exciting. There's something about excitement that nothing wrong with that. It's great. I love to be excited about something. I love getting jazzed up. And if you know me, I'm I'm I get hyped up about certain things that I care about, I'm passionate about. But truthfully, just day in, day out, work and you know, my prayer in the morning, and just it blurs together in time and life and you know, relationships. Like, there isn't that many poignant experiences. Like, I have enough faithful experience and some very poignant, very miraculous and powerful, but a lot of it is is you know, we're getting granular with it. Most of my spiritual experiences are very subtle, and it's so easy to hold those up against the flame of these massive experiences and discount them, disregard them as nothing. And if we do that, we're missing or missing the real substance of faith and Christianity. So, this idea, and I'm gonna relate this to dating because that's relevant to me right now in my life. But a long time ago, I was talking to my oldest brother. Oldest brother has been married for over a decade now, and him and his wife have four beautiful boys, and I'm very fortunate to live close, I get to see him all the time. And I was probably whining about dating, you know, many years ago, as I maybe still am, unfortunately. And he was telling me how like being married, like that it the excitement goes away. And I'm not gonna misconstrue his words because he had a very beautiful point and he's very happy in his marriage. He's not saying his marriage isn't exciting, that wasn't the point. I want to make that clear. But when you're dating, when you're in that process, the the chase, if you're the guy, maybe, and for me, that's relevant. I mean, that pertains to me. I've I've kind of been that's kind of my nature. The pursuit of of a woman that interests me is exciting. It just is. I like that process, I like to get to know them, I like to, they're a stranger and I want to get to know them, so I'm gonna confront them. And it's nervous. I'm nervous, and you know, ah, who knows what's gonna happen, and maybe if I can get them on a date, that's awesome. Whatever. That's exciting. That like, because there's there's a risk, there's reward, there's a cost to that, um, to the effort I'm putting into this. And and if it pans out, you know, that like reward system that you know is in our brain, it's like, oh wow, like that was successful, or this, you know, that was a great conversation, or you know, we made eye contact, oh my gosh. And so you kind of chase that. Well, he was kind of explaining all that to me, and then he goes, You get married, and like some of that chase, well, all of that chase goes away because you now are committed, you become one flesh, the full commitment. There isn't a like cat and mouse game, there's no games, there shouldn't be any games in your marriage. Um, but communication should just be you should be unified, and not that it's all peaches and roses either, but that aspect, that aspect of the pursuit, the chase, the adrenaline you might get from that kind of goes away in a marriage. And what he was saying is not that you still shouldn't pursue your wife. Again, that's not the message here. Please don't misunderstand. And yeah, I know they they have they go on dates often, and they're still they still date each other. I think that's important. You still need to date each other in a marriage. Um, having been married before, that's very important. You don't stop dating once you're married. So, again, there can still be excitement, you can still have fun. The point he was making is in exchange for that, giving up that pursuit, that chase mentality, the excitement, the the wow of it, you're gaining a constant peace, an underlying peace in your life that you didn't have while dating. Because now you have somebody who, through the grace of God, you're joined in marriage, hand in hand, to become one flesh, to leave your father and your mother and become one under God. That underlying peace, he says, that that's what it's all about, and that's worth whatever stupid chase you think is fun or or worth your time and energy. He goes, like being able to go to bed at night and just you have your person, somebody who's with you, your ride or die, your rock, you guys have built on the foundation of faith together. He was just saying, like, that's that's priceless, you know. You you might think, Oh, you're gonna miss that. He goes, No, because that's beautiful, and that if you lose that, that's brutal. And and again, having been I've experienced that peace in a marriage, and I've had to come back into this like world of chase, and I don't have that. I have peace in my life, but I don't, you know, in that setting, I don't have that, and so I'm back in this like chasing thing, and I flip back to like this is what I have to do, so it's fine right now, but I want that again. I want to not have to do this indefinitely. So relating that to the gospel is a lot of the way we live as Christians, we're called to be different than the world. Like, truthfully, we're called to live a different life, we're called to hold our tongues. We know, we know the beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus teaches to not lust after a woman. You know, take it to the next level, not just commit adultery, don't lust after a woman, don't just not kill somebody. Give a stranger your cloak if they steal from you. Um, and I've I've repeated that, I feel like, in some podcasts, but Christ comes to us and says, Okay, yeah, there's like a baseline of being good you can be. I'm challenging you to not do as I say, not do as I do, but do as I am, right? Like that's Christ's message. Um do the actions that I do, because nobody's doing these, and this is what it takes to have that charity in your heart, that pure love of Christ. Um that's how you stand out from the world, that's how you make a difference. And frankly, if somebody cuts me off in traffic, like happened today on my way to work, you you want, and like, yeah, this was today. It crossed my mind because it this lady, like, I I got in front of her in what I thought was like a reasonable distance. Like, I really didn't think it was crazy. She drove up on me, she was riding me, got over, and I I mean I it was aggressive driving. I could see in my rear view in my side mirror, and I looked over and she passed me, and she just had this crazy look. Just freaking she just hit me with one of those, like, who do I think I am? And I was like, She, I don't know, maybe I don't know. Like, I really didn't think me getting over in front of her was a crazy maneuver at all. And she boom, like veered into my lane, cut me off today. And I like felt, I felt it. I don't get Rud Rage, like I really don't, but I felt the like, oh, like it just started stewing, and I was like, oh, I want to do it back to her, I wanna honk, I wanna follow her and make her feel uncomfortable. I don't know, maybe hit her with a thumbs down or something. I think that'd be worse than flipping the bird or something. I'm not a fan of that, but um just hit somebody with a like boo, like you s like you stink, dude. That I feel like that would hurt my feelings more than if somebody flipped me off. But anyway, and I just I kind of like sat with it for a second, and she was like gaining, getting away, and I again I like really wanted to. And that this isn't like that big of a deal, like that that's not a huge, like Christ-like thing. But I just was like, well, here's a chance to just like Christ, Christ wouldn't tail her, Christ wouldn't, you know, she probably had a long day, you know, maybe you you did it worse than you thought you did, whatever. So that's the exciting thing would have been to do. I'm I'm saying this to say the excitement would have come from like the give in to my emotions and just be rash. It's not it wasn't exciting to just like sit back and like not chase her, just stay in my lane and just like forget about it, which I forgot about it until now. Um that wasn't exciting. Like it's not exciting to just like pray in the mornings and read my scriptures, and like, you know, I was on a trip in Costa Rica a few weeks ago with some great friends, and everyone's drinking and partying and having a good time, and like frankly, I I had a blast because I I the setting was fun, but um I imagine it'd it'd be easy to be in that situation and like oh well it's not as exciting to be here and not drink. Um and so there's just a lot about living this way that objectively isn't as cool as fun, whatever you want to say. Um if you get deeper into it, I think you realize this is the way to go, and it is way more cool and way better, obviously. But a couple points I wanted to just kind of get into and and chat about. Um, I think like we get online and hear religious stuff, and and you you see like some crazy titles about religion or about you know this pastor casts a demon out of woman, and it's like, oh, like that's that's the gospel. That's not I I don't I don't think I mean that is a footnote of what happens in believing in Christ. That that's a very minor, minor portion of it that we sensationalize again. What we don't talk about is just like the day in, day out, the monotony of life, and still choosing to be obedient to God's commandments. And it is okay, and we need to understand that like there's peace in that, and that is pure worship. Like, God actually loves that you would honor him on your most mundane day, your chore day or your Saturday, where you just do laundry all day and clean the house. And you know, if you're a mother and you you just you take a day and you gotta take the kids to do this, and you just do the laundry, and um you know, if your husband's on a fishing trip or something, and you just feel bogged down and tired and you don't want to do all these things, and um, but you do and you can do it with a smile on your face and and do it with cheer. I mean that that's beautiful. That's beautiful, you know. The dad who um just you know wants to come home and just kick his shoes off and watch TV and uh, you know, tell his kids just go to bed or go entertain themselves, play video games or something, but chooses to, you know, let's I told Billy I was gonna take him out to ice cream tonight, and so you know, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna we're gonna have a little father-son outing and and go do that. Like that's like does that not honor God? Is that not again? Maybe exciting is the word to use. Maybe that is not what you'd want to do, but that's that's good stuff. Um something I think about that's happened to me personally, and I've shared, I've I served a two-year mission for my church. I was in Ghana, it's a great time. That two years is dedicated to the gospel, it's dedicated to you don't have a phone, you don't want to talk to your family that much. Um, you're just with some other dudes doing it like literally 24-7. You're just teaching people, studying, and repeat every day, all day. I mean, there's some times you do some fun activities, but 90, 95% of the time you are doing something related to the gospel, and you kind of go through waves of it, and it's again it's two years long, so you definitely go through like you grow and change. But what you don't realize, and you kind of realize at the end and then the closing of it, looking back, like when you dedicate your whole life to God like that, there is so many like potent spiritual experiences. I mean, I wasn't out there walking through a river on dry land, like Moses and the Israelites, but I mean, there's some really cool stuff that happened, like genuinely life-changing things that I witnessed was part of, by the grace of God, changed my life forever. We'll we'll always be grateful for, we'll always look at that. And a common thing for those of us who've done this, who've served a mission, is you come home and you're kind of riding this high of like spiritual sensationalism because you've just been doing it for two years. You might not realize again, you don't really realize it in it sometimes, but you come back into the into the world, you know, you stop teaching, you go back to school, and you stop helping people and serving every day and teaching about Jesus. And there's this like weird, like you feel selfish because it's all about you now, and what am I gonna do? What's my career? And there's kind of like a crash for most people that come home because you don't get those experiences anymore. Because I mean, you can't you can't be serving people and teaching people the gospel and seeing their lives change multiple times a week. Um, people kicking addictions they've had for 20 years, people repenting of sins they've been carrying for 40 years, families being united again, like just beautiful things that would happen like weekly, like daily, weekly, often. And I have journals filled with these experiences. So you come home, and now it's just back to like whatever the frick we do here, and there's like a crash because you're like, Oh, like, am I not? Like, oh, I need to, I need to do that again. I need to like give 24 hours of my life to God, and you go through this process of realizing like that's not what God's asking me of in this season of my life. God wants me to like get going so I can be a provider for my future family and go and do all these things and change my community and be an example to those around me, blah blah blah. Um, and that's the point I'm making is like there was an excitement for two years of these very poignant experiences that drastically decreased coming home, and it just felt like uh I was hunting for like those experiences, and so I was trying to replace certain things and get back what it was like, and again, I it wasn't the point. God wasn't asking me to go back on my mission or live like a missionary again, but rather like understand there's time and a place, and that catalog of experiences and things I witnessed is to be utilized as a bedrock of of evidence for me to build my testimony on. And you know, not that God wants me to live a mundane life now, it should still be awesome and amazing, and I should make the most of my life, but like know that in reality you know now are no longer like doing missionary work, you're still dedicated to him the same amount, and it's really about your heart. But an ordinary day for me where I just like go play soccer with my friends and I maybe work and you know, maybe text a friend that I haven't talked to in a long time, um, and I say my prayer in the morning and at night, like that's a very basic day. That is as beautiful to God, I truly believe that as a day when I was teaching 30 people and baptizing people, like it's easy to pin those up against each other and be like, man, I'm not like this isn't exciting, like that was spiritually. But that is the point, like that's that's that's what we're here to do, that's what we're here to do. Um, and so I just think you know, like the faithfulness to just carry on with the daily, the small things is is really what Jesus taught. If we and if we think about like the life of Jesus Christ, 30 years. Thirty years is undocumented. We get three years, and I've said this before, but three years of this man's life, we have more volumes written about this three years than we than we than anybody else ever, ever, ever, ever in history. And those three years of this beautiful son, his life, his everything has changed more people, has changed the world, will continue to do it forever and ever. Thirty years we got nothing. Why is that? Like, there's so much said in what is unsaid. There's there's so much substance in the lack of information we have about Christ 30 years. I don't think we talk about that enough. Like, again, we talk about the three years, we talk about the miracles, we talk about his public ministry, talk about all the places he went, we talk about for sure, for sure, the week leading up in up to his death and his crucifixion, and ultimately the pinnacle of it all, the resurrection, like as we should. We need why not talk about those things? Why not discuss and make that the focal point of church and faith and teaching and you know trying to missionary, be a missionary to others? However, like I bet you Christ, I mean, not every day in those 30 years for Christ was he healing the sick, was he doing those things, right? Like, what was he doing in his private time? Well, we know he was a carpenter, we know he was raised in Jewish tradition, we know at 12 years old he was teaching teaching people in the temple things that were astonishing to them, leaving them speechless. So he was a student, he was a carpenter with his father. Um, no doubt he was very like well equated or um well versed in just like all the cultural things and the vineyards, and I mean you think about the parables he taught, like that was his that was to the people that was relevant. He he was observant of his communities. I mean, um Nazareth? Nazareth, what's modern-day Nazareth? I don't know. 29 Palms, like just a place that doesn't matter. Um and it was probably so mundane and so boring, like objectively, but did it not, you know, did he not prepare in that 30 years for those three? Like, would would he would Christ tell you that those 30 years were pointless? I really don't think so. He's Christ, and yeah, maybe he could have there's a I don't know, uh loophole there or something, but like that 30 years was I believe critical, crucial to his mission, and we get nothing, and maybe it is because it was just that mundane, because there wasn't that much that went on, and he just studied and was a great son and a great worker, and he just was in his community, like you know what I mean. Like, Christ just is like, yeah, like there's not much there. Well, is that not the sum of our lives? Like, the day in, day out, there might not be much there, and that is okay. That is so okay, because three years is all it takes for Christ, and because we're believers in Christ, through Christ we can do all things. What can we do in our equivalent three years of faith? And are we gonna capitalize on those moments? Are we gonna make the most of those miraculous experiences if we're not quietly living the gospel? If we're not day in, day out doing the little things that don't seem to really matter. That's important. Um, I just wrote a couple like little things, but just obedience when you don't feel it is pure worship. Sometimes we just don't feel it, just don't feel like it today. This Sunday, I just don't want to go to church. I just don't want to. Well, Christ knows you feel that way, but if you're able to obey him and your heart's in the right place, that's again, that's real substance there. Um, it's not exciting. That's okay. Christ doesn't need you to be jazzed about doing everything in the gospel. I mean, there's things that are objectively hard to live and obey. That's okay to like acknowledge that, but do you still do it because you have faith that Christ knows best and that his will needs to be above yours? Um, God isn't disappointed by your ordinary life, he's glorified by it. I think that's also good to remember. There's no there's no part of God that looks down at your life and goes, dang, that's boring. Because at that point he would have said that about Christ and the 30 years he, you know, to us didn't do anything. Again, I don't think that's true. I'm sure he ministered and changed a lot of people's lives privately. We just don't have record of that. So um, and I just the the point of today is just embrace embrace the quiet faithfulness, find joy and meaning in the ordinary. Again, excitement. I love being excited, but the joy, meaning, substance, the same analogy my brother gave, the peace that you get from just doing what you gotta do in solitude is is priceless. Don't just seek the miracles, don't just seek the grand gestures from God. Seek the again, the quiet, the solitude, the reverence, the reverence that happens. And uh should make life a little bit better. Thanks for watching. We'll chat next week.