Mindset of Cynicism
I’m sitting in church… yet again. It’s 10:30 a.m. I glance at the clock and imagine the hands moving forward two hours. That would be perfect. Honestly, I’m just looking forward to lunch. It’s been a long week and weekend, and I just want to relax and have a quiet afternoon. “Ok, snap out of it. You’re in church,” I think to myself.
All right, we’re singing now. “Man, we’re singing that song. I was hoping we could sing some of the more contemporary worship songs, rather than those old hymns. They’re outdated, monotonous, and just kind of boring.” I sing on… half the time simply mouthing the words.
Prayer lasts a good five or ten minutes… and I confess, I am guilty of being thankful for prayer simply because of the opportunity it presents to close my eyes and drift into sleep, if but only for five minutes.
Finally, the sermon… anywhere from 30 minutes to 45 minutes to an hour. Why do I always measure the sermon by it’s length? A good one = short. A boring one = long. Ok, there may occasionally be some truth to that, but I can hardly remember a time where time itself was not an issue running through my mind. And if it’s not me simply watching the clock slowly tick by, I am engaged for the purpose of simply finding something wrong with the words of the pastor.
I don’t like to call myself a cynical or critical person. Who does? But too often, I find that I am just that. I criticize without offering a better solution to the problem. I critique the words of the sermon in a bad way… of course, there are plenty of opportunities to dig into what the pastor is teaching in order to learn from it… but when we’re just critiquing for the sake of critiquing, it’s time to find something better to do.
To be continued…
Published on 9 Nov 2007 at 7:24 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under Real Life Issues, Thoughts.
thank you for you’re honesty….i hate how hypocritical we are at times. thankfully, though, his grace is enough :)
Olivia on 10 Nov 2007 at 10:00 am.
Philip, do you mind me asking, “why did you post that on your blog?” It’s one thing for us to struggle at times with these types of things, but why post it on your blog (especially one that is linked from Covenent.edu–that is, not a private blog)? What result/goal does this type of “confessional” post accomplish?
-A Christian Brother
Daniel F on 18 Dec 2007 at 1:37 pm.
I can understand where you’re coming from, Daniel… and people have asked me that before. Despite the fact that my blog is linked to the Covenant website, I treat it as my personal blog. I write my thoughts down (obviously, I don’t always right down everything that ever crosses my mind for the pure reason that it’s the internet - if people want to know me that well, they can meet me and know me in person). But I want people to know that I am real. You’re right in that it’s a Covenant blog - but I’m a real person with real problems. I love to share and relate to people, and I find it easier to relate and talk to people when I’m honest with them.
Another reason why I share openly is that for a long time I struggled with little things like these while believing in my mind that I was the only one who struggled with them. I never heard about anyone else who struggled with them, so it made me beat up on myself while thinking I was an especially “bad” person. I want people to understand that they’re not the only one struggling out there… and that it’s okay to be honest about it (not just about falling asleep in church, but about all areas of struggle :). That’s the first step in overcoming those struggles. Does that make sense?
Philip Codington on 20 Dec 2007 at 3:43 pm.