It is during the lone times that you can use to bring a soul to God

By ANNE ANJAO-eboi

All of man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone — Blaise Pascal

If ever there was a time I was bored, it was the period after doing a major exam. Everybody was busy but I. Well, they say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, and it is not uncommon to find youngsters filling this time with the most useless ventures like parties, drugs and alcohol.

Mercifully, my knowledge in literature came about due to this boredom. This period saw me read and re-read even what I considered to be difficult works by Athol Fugard, Wole Soyinka and others. In my ministry in prisons, one thing that stands out is that many prisoners quote the Bible as if it is written on the backs of their hands.

People succeed at battling boredom with an array of meaningless pastimes such as television, game consoles and the Internet. These are not sins. The problem is they appear so harmless that we never stop to think if they are not the enemy’s way of unnecessarily occupying our minds.

Each one of us was born for a purpose; to serve God. Spending ten straight hours twice a week watching a drama series is blatant theft of God’s time that could have been used to bring another person into the kingdom of God. We need to realise we were born for more than not sinning, more than own entertainment, more than being nice.

Now, one may ask what else they can do with their time. If one is on vacation in the Caribbean, for instance, what can he do on the five days away from home? After all, he has spent eleven months working non-stop, meeting deadlines and generally working like crazy. What else can he do if not swim, play darts, dance, eat, nap, read a novel, walk, surf, watch TV etc?

You will do all those, and justifiably so, but this cannot be your lifestyle throughout the year. Yes, you work from 7am to 5pm, but what do you do after 5pm?

I know some will say the jam in Nairobi eats up time, so that they get home well past 8pm, tired and with hardly enough time to spend with the family before they retire to bed.

INTERNALISE

But what do you occupy your mind with during those three hours in the jam? Has it occurred to you that you can intercede for a sick relative, listen to a gospel radio station and internalise the messages, or even praise and worship God? Or better still, why not turn off from the highway and sit with a sick child, who will always ask God to bless you for your kindness?

God asks us to always rejoice, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances. Can you ever run out on these? He tells us to consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds and always assembling as believers and to encourage one another. Can you ever be short of who to meet or who to encourage?

Who lied to you that boredom kills? It may just be the beginning of an amazingly fulfilled life.