Today I feel exhausted. Really exhausted. And it's easy when you feel exhausted to only give 50% to your spouse, or your friends, or your job, or even to God. Sometimes I feel like I give God an attitude of "I should get a free pass for this. You don't understand how difficult this is, You're God, you don't get tired. Just trust me, i'm justified in be lazy and/or being a jerk."
I just read a prayer from a sermon by Mark Driscoll entitled Joy in Exhaustion. I look forward to learning even more from the rest of the sermon, but the prayer with which he opened it was enough to convict and comfort me. I thought you might like to hear it too.
"Father, we begin acknowledging that Jesus is God and that he came to live on this earth, and as a result, he experienced exhaustion. God, we know that he had to be physically fatigued. Scripture tells us. Emotionally fatigued. Scripture tells us. Spiritually just exhausted, God, and we thank you Lord Jesus for continuing with your earthly ministry through the cross where you paid for our sins and through the empty tomb where you purchased for us new life. And God we are thankful for men like Paul who writes the letter to the Philippians that we have the privilege of studying, though he’s in jail after living a very hard life: 30 years as a Christian, in prison, homeless, beaten, shipwrecked, left for dead, exhausted, occasionally working a part-time job on the side. In addition to all of that, he continues to press forward. So God it is our hope today that you would send us the Holy Spirit to enable and empower our lives to be marked by perseverance and sanctification and continued learning and forward progress, so that despite our exhaustion, it might be purposeful – that you might do something good in us and through us. So as we open the scriptures, we ask for your Holy Spirit that we may become like your son and in whose name we pray. Amen."
my dear sisterfriend, the vitality of being "marked by perseverance and sanctification and continued learning and forward progress" is something i've been profoundly aware of in the last few weeks. and as i look back on it, the need for it in my life comes out of my most exhausted moments. the times i find myself most worn out and weary of...well, everything...are the most poignant opportunities for me to be marked by these things.
ReplyDeletemr. ford and i are learning this together and what that looks like with each other specifically, as we come ever nearer our wedding date. what a blessing and joy it has been to learn this lesson with my future mr. and carry it with us into the early years of our marriage. thanks for yet another reminder...
i really can't tell you how much i love this blog you've got now. it really is filling a bit of the giant sisterfriend sized void in my life. iloveyousomuch!