I spent years running from stillness.
The moment life became quiet, I reached for something to fill the space. Drugs. Sex. Attention. Fantasy. Chaos. Busyness. It hardly mattered what the distraction was, only that it kept me from being alone with myself for too long.
I thought I was avoiding boredom.
Looking back, I think I was avoiding intimacy.
Because boredom is often just the first thing we feel when all the distractions are stripped away.
Beneath boredom is vulnerability.
Beneath vulnerability is longing.
And beneath longing is God.
I did not understand that then. I thought freedom meant having endless ways to escape discomfort. I thought the answer was more stimulation, more excitement, more intensity.
But all those things accomplished was keeping me moving fast enough to avoid the deeper questions.
To avoid being fully present.
To avoid being known.
God was not absent during those years. If anything, He was the one I was trying hardest not to encounter. Not because I hated Him, but because intimacy is frightening. To be seen completely, without performance, without distraction, without anesthetic, requires a kind of surrender I wasn’t ready for.
I sometimes wonder if what we call boredom is actually an invitation.
An invitation to stop running.
An invitation to become present.
An invitation to discover that what we’ve been trying to escape may be the very place where God has been waiting for us all along.
B🤍
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