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.

Longing to be fed . . .

My sister met Jesus Christ in a country where Christianity was forbidden. She was taught how to read the Bible devotionally and when she returned to our home country, she discovered that I also had met Christ and needed the same instruction.

First, she told me to read John’s gospel five times, then the book of Romans twice. She said to read until God stopped me, then write in a notebook the verses and the thoughts that He gave me. I loved reading anyway, and yet felt ignorant about how to live having spent prolonged periods of time in the hospital and at home studying by distance learning. It was like handing me food for my soul, including the sweetness of dessert!

I have boxes of those notebooks from the early 60s to 1975 and then began putting those devotional thoughts from God in computer files. For me, this was an easy habit. I’d watched my mother read the Bible every day as a child and started doing the same thing when I was about 13 years old. I didn’t understand it until Christ came in, but the habit was there. The harder challenge was getting rid of the sin revealed by this daily reading:

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. (1 Peter 2:1–2)

Those sins in that verse sound like a mean-spirited person but they did not totally warp and twist my life. They were just there at times, along with other things like pride, selfishness, and insisting on my own way. I soon realized that continual Bible reading is something like peeling an onion. Layer upon layer comes off before the core of each problem is finally exposed. And onion-peeling often makes tears flow. The good part is that the more sin is revealed and confessed, the more the grace of God is experienced. The enigma is that by now I should be more like Jesus, yet realize that the onion is still being peeled. How deep is God’s love to persist with uncovering and cleansing my sin.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. (Psalm 19:9–10)

Yet I sometimes resist, not in the reading but in applying what I read, even in really listening to what God says. He reminds me — like my PC pings to let me know I have new email. I’m tempted to drop whatever I’m doing and go read it. Isn’t God saying I should have that same eagerness to hear from Him and drop everything to do what He says? I can be ‘hard of hearing’ at times just as a baby resists food at times. Too full? Never. It is more like being stubborn or distracted. This day and these verses are good reminders to be thankful for God giving me space, time, and desire to long for His Word and to outgrow my childish ways.

PRAY: Jesus, if my old notebooks were better sorted, it would be interesting, even helpful, to find what You revealed to me each day from the time I began seeking Your thoughts from Your Word. That would be more than fifty daily entries, first from those notebooks, then from my PC. The latter would be easier to find. Yet I know that You want me to live for today, to pay attention to what You say to me today. The amazing thing is that Your Word is like spiritual milk, like the Bread of life, and sweeter than honey. And in all these years, each day You gave me something new to think about or a reminder of what I knew that was needed at the time — more than 18,000 loving messages. You are amazing!

PONDER: Think that billions do not have the Bible, that many believers hunger for a copy, that many are dying because they do read and believe it and are hated for their faith. Think of those whose lives are lost before they know the wonder of being able to hear God speak to them, the wonder of prayer and of being blessed in ways they never imagined. I’m joyful that God has given me the desire to feed on His truth every day and the time and ability to do so, but at the same time look around me and feel some “survivor’s guilt” and angst for those that are missing out on the simple pleasure and privilege of hearing God speak.