Dealing with Weariness – part 2

So far we have looked at a number of scriptures that talk about weariness. We have looked at how weariness can affect us and how it “grows” and develops. In my last post, we also started to look at how we deal with weariness. If you remember, there were four principles that we took from Scripture. The first one, which we covered last time, was how to wait on the Lord. In this post, we will look at the final three: consider Him, balance and serve.

Consider Him

Hebrews 12:3 (New International Version)
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

When we become weary is easy to become self-absorbed. To think only of our world. To think we’re the only ones affected. We start feel sorry for ourselves. I remember a time when I badly injured my right hand. I managed to put my hand through a table saw, and pretty much destroyed three of my fingers. I spent several days in hospital, had surgery and quite a lot of pain. My wife had just given birth to our second son, and all was not good in life. In hospital, I tried to remain optimistic but when I got home I began to suffer, not just physically but mentally. I couldn’t use my right hand and basic things like getting dressed and making toast were incredibly difficult to do. I couldn’t drive and I couldn’t work that well as I always used computers (typing was a problem). I am usually quite an active and independent guy – and it felt like a lot of this was taken away suddenly from me. I still had a lot of pain and whilst the surgeons with God’s help to the great job on repairing my fingers they still had to remove part of my right index finger (something that I found very hard to accept).

I began to feel sorry for myself. I began to question “why me?” Especially as I was doing a good deed, a favour, for a friend of mine. I was like this for a couple of days, and I didn’t seem to be getting better but worse. Then one night I turned on the TV and watched ER. At the time this was something I normally did, but this episode was to really challenge me. If you watch ER you may remember this episode, it was the one where Carter decided to go and work in Africa and the whole episode was about what he saw and what he had to learn to cope with in those camps. It challenge me because it made me think “who am I to complain, when compared to these kids in Africa, I have nothing to complain about everything to be thankful for?”

What I did is consider somebody other than me. And this very quickly took me out of feeling very sorry for myself into feeling very grateful. I stopped thinking about what I’d lost it started to rejoice in the things which had been saved.

And this is the essence of this verse. We are to consider him who ensured such opposition… because if we don’t would become very self-absorbed, very self-centred, very selfish, very inward and very weary. We are to consider him, Jesus, who went through so much for and on behalf of us and compare what we’re going through with what he went through. It puts what we are going through into much more sober terms and helps us focus. It stops that spiral of thinking which leads nowhere except to weariness. And it will become weary eventually lose heart. When you feel yourself becoming weary, take a pen, a piece of paper, and a few hours and just consider him and put your situation in comparison to that. This is not to underplay on what you are going through or how you’re feeling, it is just to put it in more realistic terms and to control negative thoughts and emotions from robbing your joy and strength any more than they have to.

Balance

I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the movie The Karate Kid? If you haven’t, then I suggest you rent it or buy it in your next opportunity. It is a great 80s film, one from my childhood, and one with so many life lessons contained in it.

If you have seen the film then you’ll remember the scene where Mr Miyagi and Daniel are talking about Balance:

Miyagi: What matter?
Daniel: I’m just scared. The tournament and everything.
Miyagi: You remember lesson about balance?
Daniel: Yeah.
Miyagi: Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have a balance. Everything be better. Understand?

Miyagi teaches Daniel a great life lesson here. Balance is not just karate, that is for whole life. When your life has balance everything seems to work well. Before you panic though and think that I’m becoming too Zen and mystical there is a wonderful verse from Scripture:

Proverbs 25:16-17 (The Message)
When you’re given a box of candy, don’t gulp it all down; eat too much chocolate and you’ll make yourself sick; And when you find a friend, don’t outwear your welcome; show up at all hours and he’ll soon get fed up [become weary].

Balance is not just about increasing your “me” time. As this verse shows us, too much of a good thing can be out of balance.

I’ve just finished reading an interesting book called 59 Seconds: Think a little, change a lot, by Richard Wiseman in his book wise men looks at some of the myths of self-help and compares them to scientific research and study. In his chapter on happiness he looks at the subject of giving and I was fascinated by some study results he refers to. A researcher called Sonja Lyubomirsky arranged for a group of people to perform five non-financial acts of kindness each week to 6 weeks. These acts were to be simple things, such as writing a thank you note, giving blood or helping our friend. The participants were broken down into two groups: one group performed one of the acts each day was the other group carried out all five acts on the same day.

And the results of this test I find absolutely fascinating. The group who performed their kind acts each day showed a small increase in happiness. However the group who carried out all the acts of kindness on just one day each week increased their happiness by an incredible 40%.

When I read this I made a note in the book: I wonder if this is the same of those who do Christian acts of service? I see a lot of faithful servants in church who do a lot of the things that need doing. Day in and day out they give their time, effort and emotion to incredible acts of kindness. Add into that mix home group, Sunday service and prayer meetings it is easy to see how many people seem to spend every spare hour on church activities. And like the research group, their experience a small increase in happiness at the start. But weariness is coming. I wonder if life would be better if we were in a church five nights a week but rather one night a week. Would we, like the research group, feel happier and therefore be a lot less weary?

This is not an excuse for passivity, but rather focusing your passion and choosing a place where you can serve and give to that, be happy, be effective and be there for the long term.

Sometimes life is just out of balance and oftentimes I believe that weariness is a sign of this. If you’re weary, check your balance.

Serve

You may remember at the start of this study I talked about how our church was transitioning to clusters and how I saw this as an opportunity to take a step back and have some time out (“me” time). In the back of my mind I saw this is reasonable and could have given you a well reasoned, well articulated reason why. The Lord then began to speak to me through this study on weariness, and serving is where I ended up. At this point in my life I still don’t want to lead a cluster, and I wouldn’t know what type of cluster to lead. What I do know is that this is no reason to take a step back and disengage. So I decided to serve. My aim is to find someone whom I can serve, and to do that in a way that keeps me engaged, that maintains a happy church-life balance, that is effective and will benefit others.

Sure like many others in church, I have been growing weary. I see that now and I don’t want this to be a reason for me to take a back seat — that is not who I am, or God’s call on my life. So in the absence of knowing anything else, I know enough to begin to serve.