"The dull monotony of religious routine palls on a person.
But there is but one thing to do, and that is to keep on going in the same
path. There is monotony in work, the tedium of household cares, the grind of
church services, the petty details of pastoral life, the minutiae of
scholarship and all forms of Bible study, the treadmill of spiritual exercises
(prayer, reading the Scriptures, singing, church attendance, work for Christ),
the humdrum of things like three meals a day and going to bed every night—these
things tend to pall on the sensitive spirit. But we shall die if we do not eat,
sleep, walk, work, breathe. We shall die without the common details in the
spiritual life. The lesson for our time is precisely this—to keep at it."
For many of us, that is precisely the problem. We want our lives to be interesting and exciting. The same for our faith, or "spirituality." We don't want tedium. And yet, almost anything amazing that has been accomplished has been preceded by a vast amount of tedium. Olympic athletes work out daily for years to achieve their goals. The same is true for musicians, artists, and intellectuals in almost any field you can name. Why should we think the life of the Spirit should be any different?
I am probably as bad as anyone in that I want things to happen instantly and immediately. Most things in life don't work that way. Babies take months to be born, and then years to grow to maturity. The same is true in our spiritual lives. We can't be mature believers right away, and we won't ever be if we don't do the hard work of spiritual exercise. Just like physical exercise, it's not fun, but it yields incredible rewards, if only we will keep at it.
