One of the greatest tragedies I think of our life in this world, this life in the flesh, is the proneness that all of us have toward boredom, toward weariness of good things. The fact that things wear off, that they don’t have the same impact on us as time goes on. And that is a great grief to us. The first time I probably noticed it, and I’ve mentioned it before in passing, is Christmas day when I didn’t have the same delight in the afternoon that I had with the toys I received in the morning.
Do you remember that feeling? And it’s like, I still can’t believe when kids come to us and say, “I’m bored” on Christmas afternoon. How does that even happen? How do we grow weary with the good gifts of life? How is that even possible? And it’s something I’ve seen in my own life, again and again. I remember going on a trip with my daughter Jenny, and we were in Switzerland
I’d never been there before, always wanted to go there and just felt so privileged by God to be there. And we had, from our hotel room, probably the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever seen in my life from a hotel room.I’ve been in a lot of hotel rooms, I’ve been to some in some places where you look out and you’re not seeing that kind of scenery.
And so I thought, “Boy, this is beautiful.” And it was breathtaking and amazing. But as the week went on, as the week wore on, it just wore off. And it just didn’t have the same impact. I thought it was beautiful and all that, but I could see how people who lived there all their lives would barely even notice it. I remember another time I flew to Southern California,
I flew from Massachusetts in March, and I was to be a best man at a good friend of mine’s wedding. And March in Massachusetts is among the ugliest things in God’s universe. There is sand and salt all over the roads, and everyone is just so waiting for spring and it just never seems to come.
And then I got off this airplane in LA, and it was 68 and a nice gentle breeze and fair weather clouds. And I said to my friend Mike, I said, “Man, the weather here is amazing.” He said, “Yeah, I guess it is.” He lived there, and yes, he wasn’t a native of Southern California but he was just so used to it, it didn’t mean anything to him.
