Idle hands are not a problem for me.
Most of the time, I am either doing something or reveling in the fact that I am NOT doing anything.
An idle mind though? That’s another story entirely.
It happened to me just the other day.
Most of the time, I guard against Idle Brain Syndrome pretty well. I’ve read Proverbs 19:15 where it warns, “Laziness brings on deep sleep; an idle person will suffer hunger.” Lord knows I’d do almost anything to avoid hunger.
So, when I am in the middle of a monotonous or repetitive activity (like exercising or working in the yard), I am pretty good at finding ways to keep my brain engaged. I will go ahead and offer the spiritual answer right off the bat and tell you that I regularly use that idle time to talk with God.
But not always.
[Honestly, I sometimes wonder if God gets a little tired of me and my nonsense. God is too polite to come right out and say it, but I’m sure he wants to interrupt me right at the beginning and say something like, “Again, Russell? You know, we’ve been over this territory AT LEAST six thousand times already! Can you come back later when you’ve got some fresh material?”]
Sometimes I listen to music during my tedious stretches.
At other times I listen to podcasts through my Bluetooth device (… some of my favorites include TED Talks, Hidden Brain, The Next Right Thing, Maybe God, Unlocking Us, and Revisionist History).
But yesterday, while I toiled away at the wearisome task of putting a brick border around one of our front flower beds, I had NOTHING. No music. No podcasts. No prayers.
Just a dull job and an idle mind.
And now I know why God seems to be such a non-fan of idle brains.
That’s because they can go anywhere, y’all! They can latch onto an insipid song lyric and wear it smooth. They can invent entire conversations out of whole cloth and orchestrate them so that I ALWAYS come out on top! They can rehash events from the past that should be left well enough alone. They can start imagining things that might/could/should/ possibly happen at some unspecified time in the future and turn them into a nightmare apocalyptic scenario.
Or they can just descend into meaningless gibberish.
And once again I am reminded of the incredible width and breadth of possibilities we possess as human beings. The same brain that can become inescapably fixated on the Baby Shark song is also capable of creating art that stirs hearts and souls, or devising words to soothe a grieving friend, or naming all the states of the U.S. in order alphabetically.
James, the half-brother of Jesus, once wrote, “Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs?” (James 3:11-12, NRSV).
No. But the human brain can perform an amazing array of complex and even contradictory tasks, all without breaking a sweat.
And ALL of that is a gift from the God who loves and trusts us.
Is that cool or what?
Abundant blessings;
