I'm Tired

A little while back, I had found myself in a place of exhaustion...

A lot of the times tiredness can come from excessive amounts of non-stop work. Spiritually, we can become weak from lack of stopping to re-group and resourcing ourselves in the Life Giver.

Obviously, not getting enough rest can lead to feeling tired spiritually, physically, emotionally and in whatever other way you can think of. We weren't made to never stop. God created the sabbath for a reason. This I'm sure you know.

But I've learned that not always when we feel tired is it because we've been doing something wrong, or even because we've missed our devotional filling up time with God.

You and I as Christians will always be learning dependency. We will always be figuring out how to continue to rest in God and rely on Him and let Him be strong in our weakness.

So I've come to understand that I think that I will probably always come to moments in life where I become very tired, and not always just because I've been working non-stop without breaks, but because I believe that there are moments in life that I can't learn a certain type of dependency without first being weak.

It can be so easy to become apathetic and get caught up in doing life the same exact way you always have over and over without thinking about growing. It's just easier to live in comfort, to live on our own strength. This way we don't have to trust something we can't see. We don't have to have much faith. But the thing is is that we can't learn things in comfort, on our own strength that we can learn in weakness. There is a purpose for weakness. There is for sure a dependency, a reliance that we just can't learn outside of human weakness.

"...For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." - 2 Corinthians 1:8-9

I think that if our hearts desire is to please God and become more like Him then He will challenge us with everything that we put above Him.

I think we often put comfort above Him.

Comfort in created things can obscure the One. And so for our benefit I think God can sometimes take comfort away to help us see up close and personal our hearts truest need.

Him.

I don't think that life is quite right if we don't admit that we were created to live off of a strength that's not our own.

Knowing this gives me perspective.

I believe that the truest part of me is that I'm loved by Jesus Christ through and through and so I know more than anything that my God has got my back and that He wants to use anything and everything to continue me on forward down the path toward wholeness. It may not look rational, or normal to me, but His ways really are higher than mine and He knows where I'm at and what I need and what He is doing way way better than I do...

Lately I feel as though I've been learning to trust Him more in the moments of my weakness where it feels like I've got nothing left to give and I'm about to fall over... but then at the perfect time, He meets me and together we pull off way more than I could ever have if I was in perfect shape on my own. It's quite beautiful really. "...My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness..." - 2 Corinthians 12:9

Not always in the middle of the hardship can we see the hand that is holding us, but that doesn't mean it's not there. Remembering that the hand is there at all times is how we keep perspective in the bleak and unsure moments. Remembering that the hand is there is how we grow in trust, how we can fall into His arms even when we can't feel Him there with us.

"Never doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the light" - David Winter

We gain in trust when we remember what He's already done.

Father, You are my hope, my peace, my strong foundation, the reason I live. I want nothing as much as I want You. To know You more is my purpose, to do Your will is what drives me, and to make You known is my life. Take all of me, every single part. Get my attention any way possible, I surrender again all that I am for Your kingdoms cause. Make me more like You in any way You please. I just want You. I want You more than anything else. Use Your servant for Your glory. Have Your way in me. I am desperate for You. Consume me, immerse me, shake me, shape me, move me, take a hold of me like never before. I am all Yours.

"Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with Himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. I want to suffer with Him, sharing in His death,so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!" - Philippians 3:8-11