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Lord I'm Tired - Part 1 - Who Doesn't Get Tired?

by Jerry Ousley  
6/29/2012 / Christian Living

Man was I feeling it! I had promised Debbie that I'd help her get the house put back together. It was the day after Thanksgiving. We had about a dozen people over for the celebration; she had cleaned, cooked, decorated and had the house looking just right for the occasion. It had required that a lot of things be temporarily stored upstairs and folding tables, chairs and decorations be brought downstairs. I faithfully promised her that I would help.

As it turned out, our granddaughter spent the night and didn't have a very good one. Needless to say, neither did Debbie. I was up very early that morning trying to help with the baby, but to be honest I didn't do much; Deb, once again, had done all the hard stuff. The baby finally went back to sleep and due to the fact that it was only 4:30, we decided to go back to bed ourselves. But I couldn't sleep so I got up. I decided to surprise Deb and as quietly as I possibly could began making trips up and down the stairs. I tried to make each trip count so when I went up I took a load and when I came down I brought a load. All those trips began to wear on me.

That afternoon we decided we needed to get the Christmas lights going. She had come up with the brilliant idea of putting all the lights up a week earlier when a spell of warm weather had hit. That way all we had to do was to plug them in. It was an excellent idea. I went out and ran the extension cords, carefully taping up all the connections to seal out any moisture and then hooked them all up. It should have been a half an hour job. When I tried them out they all worked except for the lights on one particular tree we had decorated. The year before we had purchased ten strands of the big colored lights when they had gone on sale, after the previous Christmas. We had decided to decorate this tree with those lights and we just knew that it would be beautiful and it should have been. We had spent nearly two hours trying to get all those lights situated just right on that tree. Two hundred and fifty of the big brightly colored lights would certainly be a wonderful sight to behold. Only, they didn't work.

I spent the entire afternoon trying to get those lights to work. What I discovered, to my utter frustration, was that apparently the load was too heavy. Every time I plugged them in they would light for about five minutes then blow a fuse built in the individual strands of lights. I used every spare fuse that had come with them and never could get them to work.

I had made several trips up and down the ladder trying to get those lights to work, but I couldn't get the job accomplished. I was tired and so we decided to just unplug those lights and use the ones that did work for that first night.

All those trips up and down the stairs put together with all those trips up and down the ladder took their toll. I was exhausted. Fatigue is our body's way of telling us, "Hey, man; it's time to stop!" We all get tired especially when we try to cram too much in a day's time. Our body is wonderfully made and includes a mechanism that tells us that it's time to rest. When we are obedient to that mechanism then it helps us to stay healthy and strong. But when we don't, in a weakened condition our body becomes subject to sickness. Sometimes that sickness is our body's way of telling us, "If you don't stop, then I'll make you stop."

In the work of the Lord we have to learn to balance ourselves so that we take time out to rest. Even Jesus got tired. We read of instances where He retreated to a mountain or a desert alone in order to recuperate. In Hebrews 12 we are told that a great crowd of witnesses watch as we compete in the game of life. Somehow we have been taught that we have to push ourselves to the extreme to prove our faith. So, what is the balance between running our race, making sure that we are fit and in shape, while at the same time taking advantage of the rest we so desperately need? We'll talk more next time.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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