When was the last time you were properly bored?

Not waiting for your coffee while checking Instagram bored. Not sitting on the bus with a podcast playing bored.

Actually bored.

Nothing playing. Nothing scrolling. Nothing productive happening. Just you, silence, and absolutely nothing to fill it.

Feels uncomfortable, right?

We've become so good at eliminating boredom there is almost no empty space left in our lives.

Waiting for coffee? Check your phone. Driving somewhere? Podcast. Doing the dishes? YouTube. Sitting on the toilet? Well... you know.

Every little gap gets filled.

And I wonder if we've accidentally removed something important along the way?

Christians have always talked about hearing from God. We pray for direction. We ask God what we should do next. We want clarity about the job, the relationship, the decision, the thing keeping us awake at night.

God, just tell me what to do.

Preferably before lunch.

Because immediate answers are what we've become accustomed to.

Messages arrive instantly and information is searchable in seconds. If we don't know something, we pull a tiny rectangle out of our pocket and ask it. We barely have to wonder anymore.

We have solved boredom.

I'm just not sure it has made us better.

All this instant access is discipling us in ways we don't really notice. Teaching us that waiting is a problem to be solved, that silence is empty space and that every unanswered question needs an immediate answer.

We've been trained to expect everything now.

But being a disciple of Jesus requires something our world is slowly training out of us.

The ability to wait. To be still. To sit in a moment without immediately trying to fill it.

To waste a little time with God.

That's probably a strange way to describe prayer, but maybe that's why I like it.

Because so much of our relationship with God can quietly become transactional. I pray because I need an answer. I read because I need guidance. I worship because I need breakthrough.

There's always an outcome attached.

But what if sometimes there isn't?

What if I sit with God simply because... He's God?

No agenda or productivity. No five-point devotional squeezed into the twelve minutes before I leave for work.

Just time.

From the outside, it might look like we're doing absolutely nothing.

And maybe that's the point.

There's this beautiful moment in 1 Kings 19 where Elijah is waiting for God. First comes a powerful wind, but God isn't in the wind. Then an earthquake, but God isn't in the earthquake. Then fire, but God isn't in the fire either.

And after all the spectacular stuff passes, there's a gentle whisper.

A still, small voice.

There's something about that story that feels uncomfortable in our generation.

Because we like the wind, we like the earthquake and we definitely like the fire.

We like the conference moment and the great sermon and the worship song building at exactly the right second.

And God can absolutely meet us there.

But apparently... He can also be found in the whisper.

But the problem with whispers is that they're very difficult to hear when everything else is loud.

Maybe boredom isn't the enemy we've made it out to be.
Learning not to reach for something might itself be a spiritual discipline.

Because if every quiet moment is immediately filled, when do we actually listen?

We ask God to speak, then surround ourselves with noise. We pray for direction, then reach for our phones before we've given ourselves a chance to be still.

Hearing from God isn't always about finding the right sermon or reading another book. Sometimes the next step is much less impressive.

It's putting the phone down.

Choosing not to fill the silence.

Letting yourself get bored.

And waiting.

God might not speak on demand. You might sit there and hear nothing at all.

But perhaps learning to hear the whisper begins by making room for one.

Just sit still.

Waste a little time with God.

And listen.