The sameness of life can drain a soul. Personally, I don’t think we were ever meant to simply stay the same. There are even laws in the universe that assert this. So what do we do when the days start looking despairingly normal and banal and boring?
I would blame these feelings of monotony and insipid sameness on a mid-life crisis, except that I’ve lived through childhood, and adolescence, and young adulthood, and during all of those life eras, there existed at least a day or two when I got bored and wanted something different. When your 10 and this happens, you break out the toys from the back of the closet. When you’re 50, you start to question your existence.
Most of us aren’t adrenalin junkies, so we are all pretty much doing the same things day after day. School/Work, Relationships (the same ones), and Eat/Sleep. Occasionally we might mix it up a bit. Change jobs, make a new friend, try a different food, but basically it’s wash, rinse, repeat. There’s nothing magical about it.
Some people take drastic measures to put an end to the uninflected life. These things can be negative like affairs and theft and a total loss of moral inhibitions. As if none of those actions will not eventually lead back to the same bit of repetition. I’m fairly certain that a life filled with no commitment, greed, and immorality would eventually become boring too. It’s the sameness that gets you.
But sometimes the sameness isn’t so mind-numbing.
Take the view from your kitchen window. You see it every day. It doesn’t change much, but cover it with a billion tiny snowflakes and suddenly it becomes enchanting*. It’s the same—the trees, the bushes and the gnome collection lining your neighbor’s sidewalk, but with the snow, it takes on a magical quality that carries you off on adventures.
In literature, snow can be a symbol for death.
It is a death of sorts when it falls across your yard. It extinguishes the smoldering continuation of another day going by without the slightest change. That, my friends, is the excitement of snow. And that is also the promise of the kingdom of God.
Believing in God and trusting that Jesus did all the things he said he would do makes it impossible to not change. I know we do it. I’ve done it. I’ve spent years in mediocrity and not feeling bad about it, but God didn’t leave me there. He won’t leave any of us alone to live out our lives without purpose and without hope. It’s part of his grace that he continues to challenge, to call, and to change us.
It may take months and months of waiting (even years). It might feel like it’s not going to happen. It might even seem impossible. But God did not save us to live little, maintained lives. There’s a promise of abundant life, of losing our life, of running a race, of giving us a hope and a future.
So if you are feeling caught in a cycle you don’t want to be in, ask God where he would have you to go, and then listen and wait. Eventually, he will answer you. He will deal with you in the dark places you have hidden away, and he will amaze you with what he can do through you. And maybe that will be like a fresh coating of snow, covering you with billions of I love yous and helping you see life differently.
*(Note: This may only be true of the first or second snow fall of the year. After the tenth, it can be more annoying than magical.)
