Tired

I have spent most of my life being tired. Physically, emotionally and spiritually. Today I feel exceptionally tired, I don’t know why, I don’t know how but I just do. And in this I know that I am not alone. I think that all of humanity is tired. From the ninety year olds to the toddlers, we are all tired. Whether we are tired of eating broccoli, our relationships or even tired of living a life that none of us will survive. We are simply tired. That is one thing that we all have in common from Canada to Calcutta.
You see life just drains us. A million things a day demand our attention. It’s the human condition. Some of us have gotten so tired that we have fallen asleep at the wheel. Our lives spin out of control and crash, leaving us broken, stunned and disoriented. We end up wondering how it all went wrong and how things could have gotten this bad and we always fail to realize that it started because we weren’t paying attention and got a little too close to the fire.
In this day and age who wouldn’t be tired? No wonder we are all tired. We spend 20 hours a day fighting. Fighting with the mirror because everyday it seems to betray us. Combating the morning commute. Laying siege on the checkbook because it won’t balance. And, finally, battling the business of our minds when it comes time to return to our dreamlands. Fight, fight, fight. Resist, resist, resist. That is what we are getting from the world.
Teenagers do it. I had a friend in high school who fought and fought with her boyfriend until she was too tired to say no to his demands for sex. Now she is too tired to have enough self-respect to say no to any guy who asks. Parents do it. They fight to make the mortgage and tuition costs that at the end of the day they are too tired for each other and eventually grow into strangers. Children do it. They fight the stigma of being a loser and end up leaving their true friends behind. I do it. I fight my pride and earthy nature and every night crawl into bed too tired to offer a prayer to the One who pulled me through the day.
There was a point in my life where I didn’t want to fight anymore. I turned to things I shouldn’t have in pursuit of ending the fight and ended up in this twisted web of dependency and addiction. I remember feeling a hundred years old and like I was fighting world war three all by myself. I would hide in my room, behind my scars hoping to evade the depression that stalked me. I felt like a prisoner in my own skin. My soul was ravaged by the enemy’s constant bombings and attacks that it was hardly recognizable- even to me.
I would look into the mirror and wonder who was looking back at me. I would sit and think about how I got this way and I wouldn’t be able to think of anything. “Surely I haven’t always been this way”, I would tell myself. What went wrong I would wonder. It wasn’t until months later that I had it figured out. I had fallen asleep at the wheel. I had carelessly given my heart away to anything that offered love and distraction. I hadn’t even noticed but somehow the enemy had moved into my territory and has set up camp. Slowly I watched as my life went into self-destruct mode and I was powerless to stop it. The enemy had caught me and I didn’t even know it. I dropped out, of faith, church, friends and life.
I lived with defeat and exhaustion for the better part of a year before God released it. It was then that I learned, truly, for the first time that God carries our burdens. One of the songs that my friend Simon wrote goes something like this, “Arrest me. Let this tired heart be captured.” And that is exactly what God did for me. He released my exhaustion and exchanged it for joy. He captured my heart back from the enemy’s clutches and breathed life into me. He fought the battles for me and won.
He longs to do the same for you. That checkbook? God can balance it. Your children? God can take them for a weekend while you catch your breath. Your need for rest? You haven’t slept until you have fallen asleep in His arms. Your heart? It hasn’t been loved until it has felt the warm love a savior.
God wants your struggles. There are things that we just aren’t meant to carry the brunt of. God’s plan isn’t so that you spend your days tired and barely scraping by. His plan is for you to spend your life praising Him. He wants your all and that includes your hopes, exhaustion and failures. Give it all to God. Offer Him up a simple prayer; He’ll take your guilt and fatigue. Don’t believe me? Then ask yourself why He went to the Cross in the first place.