Do not grow weary in doing good…

Can I blame age for my lack of ambition? The body isn’t as strong now so that is a good excuse for those activities that require physical strength. I’d rather nap than exercise, watch a game on television than do the dishes, wear wrinkled clothes than iron them. Many times during the day I find myself doing chores out of sheer will power than any desire. Most of the time, once I get started it isn’t as challenging as my thoughts made it.

This stage, if it is a stage, is new for me. I’ve always been an eager worker. One summer I dug a hillside beside our house and made it a series of steps. This was hard physical work and turned out well. I’ve made king-size quilts and now view that similar to constructing a four-man tent. This decline in ambition bothers me, not the aging part but the attitude of resentment toward doing what needs to be done, or should be done.

It hits spiritual responsibilities too. No one person can do all that the Bible calls Christians to do, but I’m often shirking even those things that God puts on my plate. I’m too tired or I have easier tasks and put the more important at the bottom of the list.

A few principles come to mind. One is when Moses led a battle. His army won as long as he held up his hands…

But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. (Exodus 17:12)

When his hands dropped, the army started to lose, but as others supported their leader, they won the battle. This says much about the importance of Christian fellowship and the need to be supported. Don’t be a loner, and I tend to like be alone, but this is not always the best choice.

In another OT narrative, David was being attacked by his son. The son’s advisor said…

I will come upon him while he is weary and discouraged and throw him into a panic, and all the people who are with him will flee. I will strike down only the king, (2 Samuel 17:2)

This is a spiritual warfare principle: the enemy goes after God’s people when we get weary and discouraged. Sometimes more sleep is the issue, yet in this story God sent another advisor with a different plan that sounded good but led to David’s victory.

I need to be alert. Fatigue and feeling discouraged is to be vulnerable, yet the answer is not always in being rested — it is in trusting God to get me where I need to be and with the energy I need to have, just as the psalmist did:

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. (Psalm 63:1)

One friend says the next verses are about spiritual weariness, not physical, yet it seems to me they are partners that require the same solution:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:28–31)

God also says: “I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.” (Jeremiah 31:25) and “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9) and “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” (Hebrews 12:3)

PRAY: Jesus, forgive me for turning my mind toward how I feel instead of toward You. Your grace is sufficient. I may get tired, but You are enough and You always supply whatever I need for whatever You want me to be and do. Give me wisdom so I don’t try to do too much for me, but rely on You for whatever you put on my to-do list.

Super Satisfaction

 

St. Augustine said of God, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

C. S. Lewis wrote it this way, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Both knew the reality of an empty human heart and the fullness that only God can bring. He alone SATISFIES our every need.

Note, this is not ‘our every greed’ or assumption that more of anything else will satisfy. I once wanted a big, fancy house. Been there, done that — not satisfied. It is true of all things. Even at the dinner table, if I eat what I want instead of a well-balanced meal in proper proportion — not satisfied. This is so true in spiritual matters. Matthew 6:33 tells me to “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Experience tells me, ‘herein lies contentment.’

In the OT, satisfy is about having enough and being filled. It applies to food and nourishment, but also death and destruction. Several verses compare this hunger to that emptiness when people feel as if something is missing and they do not have enough. This emptiness, usually vague and unidentified, explains many actions of ‘driven’ people and the motivation behind power trips and wars:

Proverbs 27:20. Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man.

Habakkuk 2:5. “Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.”

Ecclesiastes 1:8. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

However the OT people of God knew where to go regarding the yearnings of their hearts. Psalm 81:16 tells how God can “feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

If the need is emotional, physical, or any other desire, wisdom turns to the promises of God:

Psalm 90:14. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Psalm 145:16. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.

Isaiah 58:11. The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

Psalm 91:16. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

Jeremiah 31:25. For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.”

The NT also speaks of physical appetites concerning food, but uses this hunger to tell how God satisfies our longing hearts, as long as that longing is not misplaced. He says:

James 4:1–3. “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

Instead, Jesus says in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Instead of seeking ‘bigger, better, and more’ in worldly goods and prestige, I am to seek becoming more like Jesus. when I do that, God satisfies me.

Paul learned that contentment, and it is a learning process. He said in Philippians 4:12, “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”

This is contentment. Whatever God gave was enough and he was satisfied. He adds in verse 19, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” This contentment is in knowing Jesus and knowing He will grant to me whatever is necessary for that deep and full sense of satisfaction.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Focusing on Jesus and eternal matters helps. So does looking at my home, family, all situations and thinking of God’s sovereignty. He is in charge and if I need anything, He has or will supply it. I trust Him to keep His promises and in times of needs, I can with confidence draw near to the throne of grace knowing His mercy and experiencing His grace will always satisfy me.