Buying Time

“Feeding the flock with his brethren.” - Gen. 37:2c

Few tasks could be as menial as watching sheep graze on a hill. So boring is the pastime that counting sheep is proven to produce sleep. The beginning of Joseph’s story is about as regular and monotonous as anyone’s. He finds himself in a similar situation to many young men who are sitting idle in today’s society. They are like the workers Jesus described in his parable who “sit idle in the marketplace.” (Matthew 20:1-15)
They are hanging around without a mission, without direction, or a will to obey. Since the late 1960s a booming counter-culture has successfully dismantled the institutions that used to give a young man direction, purpose, and challenge in his life. The government can no longer be trusted following decades of deceit and scandal. The institution of the family has been steadily eroded to the point that parents have little influence over the morality, career decisions, spirituality, and life paths of youth. The church has become labeled a hypocritical, irrelevant institution with little to offer the post-modern, technology driven world. Schools, civic institutions, military, and the traditional morals of Western society have lost their influence on the minds of youth, and therefore left a great vacuum in which there is little compelling vision to be had. “Where there is no vision, the people perish,” (Prov. 29:18) and the practical result for man is the life of quiet desperation, “counting sheep,” and a resignation to the insignificance of post-modern man.
We have been disconnected from the center and many are wandering aimlessly in search of a higher purpose. Video games, i-places, cyberspace, headphones, and a fixation with entertainment serve to soften the pain.
Boredom is becoming the grand destruction of many a youth in our culture. The fruit of boredom in America is widespread drug and alcohol abuse, senseless violence, and increasingly disconnected behavior. If there is one word that could describe the feelings of many between the ages of 14 and 21 it would be apathy. No passion, no purpose, nothing to live or die for, no challenge, no variety, no call greater than themselves, and no abiding sense of mission and purpose haunt the lives of many an idle teenager in this land of plenty.
These are shepherds passing time in the field of the father. These are young men the age of Joseph who have yet been challenged to dream a dream larger than their ability to achieve. And these are the idle workers that Jesus wants to enlist into His service. Consider yourself called.

Lord, enlist me in your service,
Capture my heart for Your purpose.