Calvary Road Baptist Church
“IT IS CALLED DAYDREAMING”
First Corinthians 7.35
I believe in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. That is, it is my conviction that the Lord Jesus Christ is the perfectly capable and competent Savior of sinner’s souls. He does not need your help to save sinners, nor does he want your help to save sinners.
Thus, I am persuaded that good works are unnecessary to obtain one’s salvation but are crucial to demonstrate one’s salvation because Jesus and Jesus alone is the sufficient Savior. Paul reflected this truth in Ephesians 2.10, writing,
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
My conviction about the sufficiency of Jesus Christ is derived from my conviction concerning the sufficiency of Scripture. That is, it is my conviction that the book that we know as the Bible, comprised of the sixty-six books included in the canon of Scripture, is sufficient to communicate the faith once delivered to the saints.
Thus, I am persuaded that everything necessary to make good Christians, to communicate the Christian Gospel to the next generation, and to know how to live by faith and do God’s blessed will, is found in the Bible. No other source of spiritual information is necessary. God’s Word is sufficient.
Those things established up front allow me to further state that I am opposed to the Medical Model of mental illness. I believe God did not leave us without hope for thousands of years, but gave us His Word to address the spiritual problems that plague the human race.
I agree with noted research psychologist O. Hobart Mowrer, former president of the American Psychological Association, who wrote in his book The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion, that the entire field of psychiatry is a failure.[1]
The Medical Model of mental illness so prevalent today shifts personal responsibility for a person’s conduct away from himself to something other than himself, leaving him to helplessly rely on so-called experts to help him “get well.”
“Mowrer rightly maintained that the Medical Model took away the sense of personal responsibility. As a result, psychotherapy became a search into the past to find others (parents, the church, society, grandmother) on whom to place the blame.”[2]
My, how such thinking is popularized these days.
It is to be observed that this trend sounds far too much like Adam attempting to blame Eve for his poor decision in the Garden of Eden or Eve’s attempt to blame the serpent for her poor decision.[3] As difficult as it may be to accept, and many will never accept responsibility for their actions and decisions, God is merciful to hold each of us responsible for our decisions, conduct, and behavior.
Since we cannot do anything about those we would prefer to blame without violating their personal freedoms, it is only right that we assume responsibility for our thoughts and actions. Come to think of it, is it not true that violating the freedoms of others is now commonly preferred in our society to assuming responsibility for your own weight, health, orientation, and other choices you make?
Allow me to suggest a notion that is contrary to much modern thinking. Jude 3 directs believers in Christ to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” By “the faith,” Jude refers to the Christian faith, that system of truth God has made known in His Word. How was this Christian faith delivered to us once and for all? By means of the infallible Word of God, I hold this blessed Book in my hand.
I stir up this issue so that I might grab your attention about an approach to conduct that has swept the western civilized world almost without opposition. I once had exposure to this default setting in our culture from the late Andrew Breitbart, a famous culture warrior who mentored among other people the now famous and fast-talking Ben Shapiro, cofounder of the Daily Wire, the largest pod cast producer on the Internet.
Before Brietbart was murdered (Yes, I am persuaded that not only was Andrew Brietbart murdered, but that the LA County Chief Coroner who was investigating Breitbart’s death and who was subsequently himself murdered, was murdered to cover up Brietbart’s assassination). Do an Internet search of Andrew Brietbart’s murder and see what comes up.
Before the healthy Andrew Breitbart was murdered at only 43, he was frequently seen on television and the Internet. He became famous for publicizing the videos produced by a young journalist named James O’Keefe and a young pastor’s daughter, Hannah Giles. The two posed as a white pimp and a young white prostitute seeking government loans to finance a small prostitution business.
You heard me right. Brietbart and his now-famous actors exposed the Acorn organization’s willingness to help pimps and prostitutes obtain government loans for small business ventures to market sex for sale. Breitbart and that video he produced brought Acorn down, much to the chagrin of Acorn’s primary political backer, Barack Hussein Obama, before he ran for president.
Back to Andrew Breitbart. He once appeared on television, commented about his short attention span, and blamed his short attention span on his ADHD, Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder. Think about it, beloved. A very bright and successful grown man explained his inability to control himself to the degree he desired, his inability to concentrate on important matters for as long as he subjectively imagined was necessary, to a condition he supposedly had that was not his fault.
Andrew Breitbart’s blame-shifting perfectly illustrated the Medical Model notion of mental illness. Just as no one is blamed for contracting measles or chickenpox, which are real medical issues, it is no one’s responsibility to control his impulses so that he can pay attention for more extended periods.
I once saw a show advertised on Public Television purporting to show people how to discover their undiagnosed ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder. Is the diagnosis of ADHD really an advance of science, or has mankind at long succeeded in shifting the blame for inattention to essential matters to someone else or something else?
Throughout my lifetime, I have observed a troubling trend. When I was a kid, the effort was to redefine drunkenness from being a sin to being the disease of alcoholism. As a young adult, professional baseball player Wade Boggs (whose marriage blew up when he committed serial adultery) was the first man I heard to blame the serial adultery problem on sexual addiction.
Whoremongering is now no longer a sin but a mental illness. Thieves are now kleptomaniacs. No one is at fault for their sins any longer. The Mental Model of mental illness has penetrated our whole society. And our natural sinfulness delights in blaming almost everything on everyone else but ourselves.
Allow some autobiography. If anyone in this room exhibited the symptoms of ADHD as a kid, it was me. I was wired. From the time I woke up in the morning until long after it was a proper time to go to bed, I was a nonstop high-energy noise and motion machine.
I never stopped moving but wiggled constantly to adjust my socks, my waistband, my collar, my cap, my shoes, or to shift this way, that way, and the other way in my chair, before standing up so I could sit down, so I could stand up again. I was always itching, scratching, rubbing, and touching.
On top of all this, I was constantly making noise. I would whistle, snort, cough, sneeze, yawn, burp, scream, sing, whistle, pop my knuckles, click my ballpoint pen, break my pencil, drum my fingers, or tap my shoes. That was when there was no one to talk to.
I started asking questions if there was someone to talk to: “Whatcha doing?” “Why are you doing it that way?” “How come you hold it that way instead of the other way?” On and on and on it went, with the telephone man climbing the pole, with the gas station attendant filling the car with gas, with the painter next door, or whoever was around, until my mother, bless her soul, would shriek at me, “Would you please be quiet for just a little while?”
She even tried to make me take naps so that she could get some much-needed rest. But as soon as she closed her eyes on the bed next to me, I would gradually shift to the edge to escape prison and go out and play. I usually moved too soon, stirring her, provoking a spanking, and repeating the cycle until she was so tired she fell soundly asleep. I was always outside playing when she woke up, and she was never mad at me then. I could never figure out why she didn’t just let me go outside so she could nap. After walking, I never again napped, and it almost wrecked her.
Mind you, I was not a mean kid. I did not try to bug people all the time. I liked people and wanted them to like me. However, when my behavior was contrasted with my younger brother, who never made a sound, disturbed anyone, or wanted to be left completely alone, I was like the Tasmanian Devil shown in the cartoons. I dare not try to imagine how I might have turned out with parents who did not lean on me to obey.
I remember Mrs. Randall, my second-grade teacher, telling me to repeatedly stop looking out the window. Miss Daggs had successfully trained me to remain in my seat in first grade and not impulsively talk out, so Mrs. Randall was working on getting me to be still at my desk and face the front of the classroom.
On one occasion, moments after telling me to stop looking out the classroom window yet again and with my eyes drawn to the scenery outside, I felt the thump of the biggest book in the room landing on my head. Mrs. Randall had had enough.
If I had been born in 1980 or 1990 instead of 1950, my problem could have been someone else’s fault, or some condition diagnosed by a trained psychiatrist or later by an untrained school teacher and treated with medication. However, when I was a kid, the Medical Model had not taken over in everyone’s thoughts as an explanation for a kid’s inability to control himself.
Then it was my fault that I did not pay attention and was treated accordingly. Nowadays, it would not be my fault, and I would be medicated for it, so no one would have to patiently hold me accountable for my behavior by busting my britches repeatedly until control gradually came with the onset of puberty.
By the time most people reach adulthood they no longer explain away their lack of self-control. By adulthood, most people can sit still for fairly long periods of time, with some shifting every so often. However, with the arrival of one’s ability to control his outward actions, the habit frequently formed that used to be called daydreaming.
There are other kinds of distractions of the mind that both children and adults exhibit, but I would like to focus on only this one aspect of a mind that is out of control, daydreaming. I know some people do not daydream. Instead, they look for spider webs in the lights or find the dust left on the fake plant leaves engrossing. Still others fidget in this way and that. Perhaps I will deal with those types of distracted behavior at another time. This evening, we deal with daydreaming.
What is daydreaming? Suffice it to say at this point that some who do not attend unto the Lord without distraction are distracted by what they see, hear, smell, or feel while sitting in the Church auditorium during a time of worship.
Others, however, turn their thoughts inward, where they are distracted from the ministry of the Word, not by the air conditioning, not by the sound of the fans, not by a door swinging open and then closing, not by the water fountain cooler coming on or the flush of the toilet, or the crackling of hard candy wrappers, but by the thoughts that are streaming through their own minds.
Unlike the person who wiggles, snorts, or distracts others by various movements or sounds, the daydreamer distracts no one but himself harms no one but himself, and sins against no one but himself ... and God. Before psychiatrists diagnosed it, daydreaming was considered sinful in that it was a missed opportunity, a lesson not learned, a challenge not heeded, and a whisper of the Spirit of God not heard. However, now it is a condition that is not sinful but organic or emotional and best treated with medication.
May I beg to differ? May I challenge that which is commonly accepted? I would like you to mull over the first and last phrases of our text, First Corinthians 7.35, so that I can apply what we know from God’s Word to the sinful practice of daydreaming:
“And this I speak for your own profit ... that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.”
Daydreaming, particularly during preaching God’s Word, is quite simply wrong. Why would such a thing as daydreaming, which does not seem to bother anyone else and is virtually unnoticed by all but the most careful observer, is thought wrong?
Consider daydreaming at its worst before considering daydreaming at its best:
First, DAYDREAMING AT ITS WORST
May I first clarify a possible misunderstanding? I am not opposed to anyone who thinks, who chooses to give his mind leave to wander, contemplate, imagine, probe, reflect, and elevate his thoughts within the limits of propriety and godliness. I think such exercise is vital to the development of a healthy mind. I do not think someone should engage in such things while driving a car full of children on the freeway, flying an airplane full of passengers at 30,000 feet, performing surgery in an operating room, or sitting under the preaching of God’s Word in the Church auditorium. I am all for meditation. The Bible commends meditating on things that are virtuous and praiseworthy.[4]
However, your boss does not pay your salary at work for you to sit at your desk and daydream about something else. You would not want the lifeguard charged with your kids’ safety while swimming to be daydreaming. In like manner, when God’s Word is taught or preached, when the Spirit of God is actively ministering the Word of God to influence not only your life but your eternal destiny, daydreaming is not a profitable practice for you, for your future spouse, or for the children who will someday be adversely affected by your present daydreaming.
Three things about daydreaming at its worst, what happens when you release your mind to go where it will without exercising control over your thoughts:
First, while daydreaming, some engage in reliving past sins. Look to Ecclesiastes 6.9:
“Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity and vexation of spirit.”
The wandering of the desire is another way of describing daydreaming. Solomon describes it as vanity. Why is reliving a past sin through daydreaming worse than the original sin? Daydreaming to relive a past sin is the means of holding on to something that is wrong, evil, and wicked. Reliving it through daydreaming is a means of treasuring that which God hates and deriving additional pleasure from that which is forbidden. Do not tell me that a serious problem with men in their middle age can be daydreaming about the sins of their youth, when everyone was trim and fit, to recapture the thrill and pleasure of sins committed long ago.
Next, some, while daydreaming, imagine possible sins. Romans 1.21:
“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
Here the Apostle Paul shows us the role of the imagination in developing gross and horrible sins. They first imagine committing these sins, typically while daydreaming. Most of the sins people commit are first suggested to them by others or by watching others commit them. However, the human mind is simultaneously creative and defiled, searching and scheming for inventive approaches to committing sins. This is frequently done during daydreaming.
Thirdly, some, while daydreaming, contemplate planned sins. I remember reading of a sex crime committed years ago, in which a painter spraying primer on the drywall in a group of new homes in a housing development suddenly attacked and molested a grade school girl on her way home. When the traumatized little girl arrived home and told her mother, the police were called, and the deviant was soon apprehended. Under questioning, the man admitted attacking the girl but vehemently denied planning the attack. He had never been at that location before or seen the girl walking home, so how could he have planned the attack? The man admitted to daydreaming about attacking and molesting young girls almost daily while enduring the tedious routine of spraying primer. Then, on the day he looked out the window of the new house he was working in and saw the girl walk by, he seized the opportunity that presented itself and brutalized her. James 1.14-15, where we see the death cycle of sin laid out for us to take note of:
14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
The man provided fertile soil in his thoughts for his lust to conceive and bring forth sin when he habitually daydreamed about committing that kind of sin. He did not need to look for opportunities to do the deed since opportunities present themselves or are arranged by the devil. To be sure, these are worst-case scenarios for daydreams. However, when your mind is allowed to wander, and you choose not to exercise control over your thoughts, who is to say what will run through your mind? All the more horrible when the practice of daydreaming that can lead to such ideas is engaged here at Church.
Now, DAYDREAMING AT ITS BEST
I am not suggesting that everyone who daydreams during a preaching service relives past sins, imagines possible ones, or contemplates planned ones. I am suggesting that no one who lets his mind run free at any time can guarantee that such will not take place. That said, what about daydreaming at its best?
Four considerations of daydreaming during a preaching service, even when the thoughts running through your mind are not overtly sinful:
First, daydreaming at such a time is the wrong thing to do. What is daydreaming? It is letting your mind run free. It is, by definition, the inattention to the matters at hand. At the very least, daydreaming is not paying attention to the message from God’s Word being delivered, not being intellectually present on an occasion the Spirit of God might want to grab you by the truth of His Word. However, you are mentally absent. This is why parents should be careful to quiz their kids about the sermon or the lesson on the way home from Church. If youngsters are held responsible for focusing their attention on the matters at hand, they are far less likely to daydream. Parents who anticipate quizzing their kids in this way are also far less likely to daydream. It is good parenting for Dad to tell Junior before the evening service begins, “Pay attention. I will ask you questions about Pastor’s sermon on the way home.” That is how you create opportunities to applaud attention and encourage learning. In James 1.21, we are urged to “receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.” You simply cannot do that when you are daydreaming.
Second, daydreaming in Church is the wrong time. There is a time for imagining, but not during preaching. There is a time for considering the what-ifs of life, but not during preaching. There is a time for relaxing and mentally coasting, but not during preaching. In Ephesians 5.16 and Colossians 4.5, the Apostle Paul makes mention of the importance of redeeming the time. In one letter, he mentions how limited our time is. In the other, he points out how little our opportunities are. I submit to you that daydreaming in Church is a waste of both time and opportunity that are beyond recovery. There will come a day, quite possibly in this lifetime (and certainly in the next), when I guarantee you will regret not paying closer attention. By all means, play mind games and have fun. There are times for that type of thing, but not here and not now.
Third, daydreaming in Church is the wrong place. The mind is trained to do certain things in certain places, so you should never do homework while in bed. In ways you do not realize, your brain is trained to operate in certain ways in certain settings. John R. Rice, because he traveled so much in his ministry, would always put on a suit and tie to sit at the hotel room desk to write. It was his way of getting his mind in gear to write. I am not suggesting that you put on a suit when you do your homework or attend to important personal matters. I am suggesting that the mind gets into certain moods. Therefore, I suggest you train your mind to attend to important matters with God while attending a Church service. Gear up on your way to Church, gear down on your way home from Church, but stay in gear while you are here. Anticipate on the way to Church. Welcome once you are at Church. Attend carefully during the preaching. Gracious and kind after Church. Rehearse and review on your way home. I like to sit for several hours after I get home from preaching, just reviewing, remembering, pondering, and evaluating while everyone else does their thing. Call it after Church daydreaming. Look at the matter from every perspective and you will agree that Church is no place for daydreaming.
I close by shifting gears just a bit. Daydreaming is not the best use of the means of grace. The Puritans used the phrase “means of grace” to refer to some aspect of Christian worship and lifestyle by which and through which God gives grace to people. For example, prayer is a means of grace, reading God’s Word is a means of grace, listening to God’s Word preached is a means of grace, and being in the company of other believers in worship is a means of God’s grace. Daydreaming, on the other hand, interferes with the means of grace. While daydreaming, you are not listening. While daydreaming, you are not praying. While daydreaming, you do not agree with others. While daydreaming, you are attending only to yourself and doing so in a most selfish way.
I believe God is important.
I believe Jesus Christ is important.
I believe the Holy Spirit is important.
I believe the Word of God is important.
I believe the means of grace by which God ministers to the needs of people is important. Daydreaming in a Church service, not paying attention as you should, dishonors God, dishonors Jesus, dishonors the Holy Spirit, dishonors the Word of God, and dishonors God’s chosen means to advance the Gospel and propagate the faith. You cannot attend unto the Lord without distraction while daydreaming.
Granted, the real solution to the problem of daydreaming is conversion, the infilling of the Holy Spirit, and the gradual development of that aspect of the Holy Spirit’s fruit known as temperance, or self-control. However, a certain level of self-control is attainable before conversion. It will undoubtedly help the sinner pay enough attention to receive enough of the Gospel message to come under conviction and be converted to Christ.
In the end, whether a person is saved or lost, it is not at all difficult to grasp the importance of the only setting where an individual can hear God glorified, hear Christ exalted, and experience the Spirit of God moving in the midst of His people. In such a setting, who can deny the importance of paying attention and the tragedy of daydreaming?
One must pay a price to be influenced by God, to be wooed by the Gospel, to be convicted by the Spirit, to see the enthroned Savior with the eyes of faith, to grasp the significance of the cross and the value of Christ’s shed blood. That price is attentiveness, the very opposite of daydreaming.
__________
[1] Jay E. Adams, Competent To Counsel, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986 reprint), page xvi.
[2] Ibid., page xvii
[3] Genesis 3.12-13
[4] 1 Timothy 4.15; Philippians 4.8
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