Tuning in to Monotony

The Peanuts comic gave us several icons, one of them being Charlie Brown’s teacher’s droning voice. Hers might be the greatest depiction in recent history of voice to a tuned-out mind.

Like Peppermint Patty nodding off to her teacher’s drone, it’s the norm to tune out monotony. So, I was surprised the other day when the opposite happened.

The book of Luke was playing on my phone while I was busy doing other things. I started out partly listening and partly playing it to keep me company. The more I got into my work, the more I tuned out the words. Then, a repeating sound broke into my train of thought. The narrator was saying the same phrase over and over like a cd repeatedly skipping backwards. My ears perked up to hear what was going on.

The narrator was rifling through all the generations from Jesus back to Adam in the garden and God. From one generation to the next—and there were lots of them—he said “which-was-the-son-of” then named the father. The persistence of Luke’s cadence when read aloud by the narrator gained my attention in an otherwise droning passage.

In chapter three, Luke rolls through 75 generations in under 20 verses. His account of Jesus’ genealogy at the front sounds like a list of names. At the back, though, is a story of God’s faithfulness to perform His plan throughout time. Connection after connection. This dot to that dot. Each generation drums a persistent message of God’s faithfulness to perform His work and complete it.

That moment of tuning in to monotony was a reminder that important details are easily missed in the repetitive monotony of life. Sometimes it seems like life never changes or that it’s never going to change when I want it to. I keep moving to the rhythm of day to day, not noticing the significance behind the cadence. If life seems something different than ideal, boring, listless, purposeless, frustrated, or even from a positive perspective occupied with entertainment, adventure, or achievement, I am reminded to be aware that there is a lot of purpose taking place and being put into place. Our lives are not only for today or tomorrow or for whatever plan we see or imagine. There is a bigger picture, a longer-range plan, and God is persistently working out His master plan.

When life makes us want to tune out, remember in that monotonous passage of Luke 3:23-38 with every phrase the people were changing. The story was moving. God was working out an amazing plan to bring redemption to humanity. We don’t get to see the whole story and may not know where we fit in it. But if we will purpose (and repurpose as the need may be) to serve God, acknowledge Him, and live for Him, He will work out His will. He will position us where we need to be at our place in the line of time.

If the book of your life seems stuck in monotony, consider that this passage in your story may involve critical pieces of your destiny, of God working out a grand plan to continue His redemptive work. Tune in. God’s doing something.