I lived in the city for my first 10 years in Canada. I didn’t like it. Too chaotic. I have always preferred the quietness of country life. So when we moved to the suburbs, I was pretty thrilled. It offered the tranquility I desired – and as a bonus, we even had a mama and papa deer who lived about 100 meters from our house. Truly blissful. One thing that fascinated me was the double-decker GO train that daily ferried people from the sleepy suburbs into the city for work. Every time I saw one go by, I thought to myself “I can’t wait to hop onto one of those!” Well, the day finally came. I had gotten a job downtown and I joined the thousands of suburbanites for the chaotic morning commute. As soon as I got on to the train, I made a beeline to the top floor and sat by the window. My nose was pasted to the window the entire trip. I couldn’t get over the gorgeous views of the lake, of sunrise, of the woods, of beautiful lakeside homes, of horses in someone’s backyard, of the stunning Toronto skyline… I recall being very confused though. Pretty much everyone on the train had their nose down – looking at their phones. How could they not marvel at the beauty outside? I wanted to stand up and yell “Hey guys! You’re missing out! Look outside!”
For the first week, day after day, I had the same routine. I sat on the top floor by the window and stared outside the entire trip – enthralled by the breathtaking beauty that sped past me. However, around the second week in, my gaze toggled between the window and my phone, and as the days went on, more time was spent on my phone than it was looking outside – and eventually, predictably, I too became exactly like everyone else. I never once glanced outside. The beauty of my commute became common place. It lost its novelty. It lost its appeal. It lost its hold on me. I became so lost in my own little world that most times I couldn’t even tell you the gender, let alone the race, age or fashion choice of the person sitting next to me on the train.
We get bored easily, don’t we? With everything! Remember the first time you got something new that you really desired? Remember how much time you spent interacting with it and taking great care of it? What about that expensive toy your kid just had to have? Where is it now? How about when you first met your best friend? Or when you first started dating your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend? Remember how they could do no wrong? How you let them get away with “murder”? Remember how consumed you were by them? How difficult it was to end a conversation with them? How about now? Different story huh? Now when you answer the phone it’s no longer “hi baby” but “what?” or “uh huh?” LOL! Chances are that nothing about that item you bought, or the person you married/dated changed drastically. What changed is that we started taking them for granted. We stopped saying thank you. We stopped giving compliments. We stopped seeing the beauty. We stopped exercising grace and showing mercy. We stopped appreciating the little things. We started sweating the small stuff. We started demanding perfection from them. We lost the novelty. We stopped trying. We got comfortable. We got jaded – which means tired, bored, or lacking enthusiasm, typically after having had too much of something. We are all guilty of this to some degree – and if you’re not, message me because I want tips from you.
Unfortunately we do this in our relationship with God. We start off all fiery and passionate – but slowly by slowly the fire sizzles and the passion dies out. We become jaded. I recall a time when I had reached this stage. I did one simple thing that made a world of difference in my relationship with God. I simply followed the advice of a simple yet powerful Sunday school chorus: “Count your blessings name them one by one, count your blessings see what God has done, count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”
Every morning when I got up, and throughout my day, I thanked God for everything good in my life…and I mean EVERYTHING – down to legs that walk, eyes that see, clothes to wear, tea to drink… you get the point. Soon enough I found myself thanking Him even for things in the past that I thought were punitive or not good – and I did that because my eyes of understanding had been opened to see that God truly does cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). I could finally understand why He permitted certain “unfavorable” things to touch me. By constantly and literally counting my blessings, what I was essentially doing was following 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. As simple as this exercise was, it did wonders for my Christian walk. It trained me not to take my King for granted; not to treat Him as common place or ordinary. It reconnected me to my Father and reopened my eyes, ears, and heart to Him – and in turn He shared His heart with me and I could hear from Him a lot more clearly. My relationship has never been as rich, robust, or meaningful as it was then.
It is hard to be jaded and take things/people for granted after only one day; being jaded takes a while to build up. Perhaps this is why God emphasizes the “daily” in the Bible: He gives us our daily bread; His mercies are new every morning; He daily bears our burdens; He asks us to pick up our crosses daily and follow Him; He asks us to watch daily at His doors …. So let’s strive to have a daily relationship with God. If you find you’ve been a little lukewarm lately in your faith or relationships, try counting your blessings and naming them one by one; try remembering why you fell in love with your spouse in the first place; and don’t allow yourself to lose the awe and intrigue you had at first.
You may want to check out these related blog posts: Wall Unit and the Guest and That Empty Feeling.
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This is Rosie lol