Go from Meh to Meaningful, Part 1
Part 1 of 3
In this 3-part series, I will address the feelings of meh, or spiritual blah, that mentors and mentees encounter on the path toward becoming wholehearted followers of Christ who rest in Him fully and reflect Him faithfully. Through Luke 9:51-62, I will highlight some major root causes of meh, the power to overcome it, and 5 simple practices for mentors and mentees alike to mitigate it. This series serves as a teaser for more in-depth writing I have been doing on this subject over the past year.
A few months ago, I messaged a Christian friend who has experienced repeated life challenges recently: “how are you doing?” His curt, one-word response? “Meh”. Recently, I have been thinking a lot about “meh.” According to etymologists, the word “meh” may have come from the Yiddish language, but it was certainly popularized in more modern times by the Simpsons, a show known for its cynical take on the world. Oxford Languages says meh indicates “a lack of interest or enthusiasm.” Wikipedia says it is the verbal equivalent of shrugging your shoulders. “The use of the term ‘meh’ shows that the speaker is apathetic, uninterested, or indifferent to the question or subject at hand… In expressing an opinion, it means the speaker's opinion is that of apathy.”
Lack of interest or enthusiasm, shoulder shrugging, uninterested, indifferent, apathetic. If you are meh about powerlifting, Harry Potter, or podcasting, that’s your business. But can Christians afford to tolerate a mindset of meh about the important matters of life? Someone once said that the opposite of love isn’t hatred, but apathy. We follow a God who calls himself “love.” We worship a Savior who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” and “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another…” Meh is not acceptable in God’s Family.
And yet, meh sometimes creeps through the tiny cracks in our hearts and nibbles away at faith, hope, and love in dark corners. We should care more about the plight of our unsaved neighbors, the addicted, the homeless, and the hopeless than the plight of Tony Stark and the Great House of Stark. We should care more about our walk with Christ than the next episode of our latest binge. We should care more about service than sports. We should care more about God’s praise than petty politics. We should be more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. But meh is often more of a persistent specter in our lives than we care to admit.
If you struggle with meh like me, then you are in the right place. First, we will diagnose our problem through Luke 9:51-62; then, we will find power through Christ, and finally we will learn some godly practices to help mitigate meh.
Our Problem
Luke 9:51–62
51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them. 56 Then he and his disciples went to another village. 57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 59 He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” 62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Since ancient times, commentators have proposed that Luke intentionally arranged these 12 verses together to show us four unhelpful attitudes toward following Jesus. Here is how I will label them for our study: The Self-Righteous Follower, the Unrealistic Follower, the Flaky Follower, and the Waffling Follower. Let’s inspect them briefly.
First, the Self-Righteous Follower. This is verses 51-56. James and John were certainly loyal to Jesus and enthusiastic about their faith. But, to use the words of the apostle Paul, their zeal was not based upon knowledge, a true understanding of themselves and the economy of grace. Many Jews had rejected Jesus, but we don’t hear about James and John want to roast them like marshmallows. Their excessive vehemence was, unfortunately, driven by self-righteousness and the sense that they were, somehow, better than the Samaritans.
The more we develop a sense of superiority to others, whether people of another race, coworkers, family members, or fellow Christians, the less we see our need for God’s grace, and the more meh we become about spiritual matters. Proverbs 27:7 states it poetically, “One who is full loathes honey from the comb.” When we are full of ourselves, we have little hunger for God’s Word, for the law and the gospel. When that honey is offered us, we may think, “meh”. If your daily walk with God has become a bit meh, this is the first place to look.