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But Lord I'm Tired - Part 3 - What is and isn't Faith

by Jerry Ousley  
7/13/2012 / Christian Living

Ralph was tired. He had walked many miles with a fifty pound back pack. He longed for a rest but he had to keep moving to reach his destination by nightfall. Weary and fatigued, his steps grew heavier and heavier.

In a little while a farmer happened by in a horse-drawn wagon. The farmer saw Ralph and quickly surmised that this man was worn out. He stopped and spoke to Ralph and asked him, "I'm on my way into town; would you like to ride in the back?"

Ralph was ecstatic with gratitude as he climbed up on the farmer's wagon. Now he could get some rest and continue his journey as well. But the farmer noticed that he kept his heavy back pack on. After a bit the farmer looked back at Ralph and asked, "Son, why don't you take that heavy load off your back for a while?" To which Ralph responded, "Sir, I didn't want to take advantage of your generosity; you're already hauling me and I couldn't possibly ask that you haul my load too." He didn't realize that with Ralph's full weight on the wagon the farmer was already carrying his load.

Now, while this story doesn't do much for Ralph's intelligence, it does illustrate the attitude of many Christians and Christian workers today. Somehow we have come to think of ourselves as a generation of super-human Christians. We want to do a good job and in so doing we often take on too many responsibilities and duties we aren't really called to do, only because they have somehow been incorporated in our "job description."

We want to be good witnesses. We want that great cloud of witnesses described in Hebrews 12 to be not only satisfied with our work, our race, and our faith, but inside we feel like that we'd like to impress them a little with our dedication and hard work.

There are things that are reflective of our faith and there are things that we do just because they are a good idea. Congregations today have over-extended in programs and outreaches to the point that their workers are over-taxed and over-worked. It is a statistical fact that only about ten percent of a congregation does all the work. There are probably exceptions to this rule but they are far and few in-between.

Programs can be very good. They can be tools through which the Gospel can flow. But we have to stop and analyze why we are doing them. Are we doing them just because the "big church" down the road has had great success with the same thing? Or are we doing them because God has impressed our hearts to do so? It does make a big difference.

I'm not going to tell you what is obedience of your faith and what isn't. If you are being obedient to God (not to man) then it isn't for me to judge your particular situation. However, let me remind you of one thing; in Matthew 11:30 Jesus said, "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." What Jesus was saying was that the work He has called us to do isn't a hard yoke to pull and it is a light load to carry. That's because He has called us and that makes all the difference in the world. How often have we looked forward to a weekend off work and wound up working harder than we would have if we had worked? You know why that is? It's because we were doing something we wanted to do. That makes it fun and not a job.

It's the same in our call for God. If we are doing what He has put within us to do then the yoke isn't hard to pull, and the burden is light. That's because we are doing what God made us to do. Too often we are pulling yokes and carry burdens we weren't created or called to do. In those cases we will become weary, worn out and plain old exhausted. What we've got to do is to see what our Lord has really called us to do and then put off the weights that burden us down and do what we were meant to accomplish. When we do we may get tired once in a while, but it's a good tired.

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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