Tired?
Freely and Lightly series, #1.
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
~ Matthew 11:28-30 msg
When is the last time you felt physically exhausted? Go ahead, think back until you find that moment. Where were you? What were you doing? Was it a workplace thing, were you exercising, did you get lost on a hike?
I’m not talking about good-tired… I’m talking about bad-tired. Depleted. Utterly empty. Maybe even scary-tired. Dangerously tired.
Or maybe it was emotional exhaustion, where all your inner reserves of joy and connection and meaning and resiliency were completely drained and you felt like an empty shell of yourself. A shadow that could blow away in a stiff breeze.
You’ve been there, haven’t you. So have I. It’s hard to even wrap words around that experience. Maybe you feel like you’re close to that place even now. And I want to say to you that it’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay…in the sense that we’re not meant for this! But it is okay…in the sense that you are secured and sustained with an enduring Love. A Love stronger than fatigue. We need to be reminded of that larger truth periodically, so go ahead and breathe that Reality into your soul.
Breathe. Can you feel it?
Jesus knew all about tired. When Jesus met the woman at the well in Samaria, John says that he was tired from his journey. How tired? We don’t really know. Tired enough for mention.
Matthew describes a long day of ministry for Jesus in Capernaum and eventually says, “When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake” (Mt 8:18). Sounds to me like Jesus was running on empty and ready to escape the crowd for a bit. Right at that moment a teacher of the law declares his loyalty by saying that he will follow Jesus anywhere. Jesus’ reply: “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Sounds tired to me.
Mark describes it this way: “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, [Jesus] said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mk 6:31). The whole lot of them were pretty fried.
In the events surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion, his emotional exhaustion strikes me even more forcefully than the obvious physical suffering. He is abandoned by all his disciples and ultimately feels abandoned by God. That is distress in the extreme, so the author of Hebrews is dead on when he says that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses.” Oh yes, Jesus knows tired.
In the modern world, it seems like the pace of life only gets faster, demands get louder, our souls get thinner. We get it from all sides, don’t we? External pressure to run harder, internal pressure to perform better. Our entire sense of worth is at least influenced, if not downright defined, by what we can produce. All this is overlaid with an existential angst that Shakespeare poignantly described as “the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Are you ready to quit reading yet? “Thanks a lot, Jerome. I feel so much better now!” Yeah, I get it. But sometimes we can’t find the healing our souls need so desperately until we can name just how great is the need. Sometimes it feels easier to numb the pain by climbing back on the gerbil wheel and running it out again. But at some point, we have to hit the pause button and take an honest look at ourselves. And Jesus invites us to do just that.
Does it surprise you that Jesus spoke these words to an ancient, agrarian audience? Were they over-busy too? That surprises me. Apparently, they too needed these words of stillness and hope in a time that seems much simpler than ours. There must be something intrinsic to the human condition that gets weary. And maybe that’s by design. Maybe God wants to meet us in our weariness. Jesus seems to have that precisely in mind in this passage…and we’re going to be unpacking that in detail in the coming months, so stay tuned.
Contemplate
In the meantime, journal your thoughts to these questions:
What part of your life feels tired right now? Is it more physical, mental, or emotional?
Let Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit on you afresh now (Jn 20:22). Can you receive that? How does it feel?
Now find your Breath Prayer and practice it each day this week. What happens for you in this practice?
Takeaway
Fatigue invites Rest.