Endurance could be the most difficult spiritual hurdle, perhaps the biggest hurdle in life. As time passes, we simply wane, mostly from boredom. It’s obvious when we run out of strength or reach an impossible to overcome impasse that forbids our reaching a goal, but it’s boredom that is the silent killer of dreams; slowly chipping away at our desires, making the tiniest changes inside of us that over time leaves us a long distance from our original starting points when we were full of unstoppable energy, so sure of our future victories. It is boredom that ends our marriages, ends our chances at greatness, steals our delicate souls. It is boredom that tests our endurance.

That’s why humans are addicted to fast changing media, which only further creates the sickness of boredom. We’re “flicking away” our lives at alarming rates, in millisecond increments. Marketers, which used to be professionals only, now includes the everyman, because we’ve all learned how to utilize the language of marketing; feed us and feed us and feed us endless bites of useless shit, and we love it.

How can God compete with the perpetual onslaught of spoon feed dribble drabble?

Religions used to captivate people. Now they bore them with the same ‘ole. It takes the dynamic personality of a preacher and theatrics to stimulate people, only for it to wane as boredom eventually finds its way into our frail minds. Half of preaching is teaching you about God and the other half is making sure to keep your interest; half is the word of God, half is psychology. If we look at other interests, they all wane over time. What’s the adage, “too much of a good thing?” Eat your favorite food every day and it won’t take long for it to become uninteresting.

Churches have built extravagant lavish art and architecture to inspire souls to see and worship God, but it doesn’t work. We visit, snap the pics for social media, post and move on. How many of us revisit the pics we’ve taken over the last month, year, or decade? I’m guessing it’s close to 100% nobody. The new church in Spain that took 100 years to complete will attract millions of people a year, have 10 million pics taken and over 100 million likes and thumbs up, and no one will find God from the experience, not one.

God is not in the churches. God is not in the TV shows. God is not in the religions. God is in the ether out there, inside of all that exists, throughout each of our beings. God is your goal, not even understanding who God is, but simply connecting. Free yourself from the disease of a constantly salivating mind. You’re not really desiring as much as you think you are. It’s craving for the sake of it because we cannot stop. It wants because it just wants, anything, something, the whatever, the forgettable, but the most important part is keeping whatever that is coming because we’re convinced we need it.

I should be able to write one sermon and you’re on your way. It should be that simple. “Here’s what you need to know, now go.” Yet, each week is more about corralling lost sheep whose minds have been erased over the last seven days by whatever crap they’ve been ingesting. Not all of it is garbage, but it’s the garbage that spoils the soup; make a great pot of soup with amazing ingredients, but toss in some rocks and trash, it ruins whatever goodness is in there.

I do not want to have a connection to God that requires constant bible reading and neither do you. I want to transform and transcend the need for constant exterior funneling of information and just live connected to God in the natural way that it should be. We should all get our emotions boosted and improve our spiritual knowledge, but equally important we must learn how to hold onto it, and learn how to dispel boredom and sustain endurance to keep ourselves connected 24/7/365. We’re always gonna have to go to the spiritual gyms to keep our souls in shape, it’s worth it, but like eating well, keeping a steady healthy spiritual lifestyle is more important.

As we’re meandering through our spiritual life, gathering insights and figuring it all out, we must also quiet the mind and have a chat with ourselves. None of this is plug-and-play. Religions have misinformed us. There are no potions and spells, prayers that make all things better, places to visit, and so on. God is already with us, don’t you get it? We’re actually already there. We just need to remember it and keep it close, as close as breathing in the air. We won’t need endurance if it’s just who we are.

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©2026 Pastor Robert Perez