The alarm bell rings and you jump out of bed, still groggy from getting to bed late the night before. You reach for a Bible to skim with heavy eyes over a passage of scripture, mumbling sleepy and meaningless words of prayer, passing seamlessly into a place of joy, surrounded by laughing friends with a rainbow-like sun painting everything around you an interesting shade of gold, you hear the voice of your spouse saying to you:
“Are you not going to work today?!” You had already drifted back off into dreamland!
As shock takes over at your “re-napping”, you dash towards the bathroom, undressing as you go – and tripping over shoes you hardly had time to put away the night before. Then it’s a quick shower – ‘miraculously leaving a big section of your back dry and unwashed – hurried brushing, covering just the front of your teeth, and you’re off to work.
Slowly, you come awake in traffic as you joust through the frenzy of gladiator vehicles, an endless sea of chariots full of angry and partly mad drivers – but you get to the office, and just in time. So you reward yourself with a large double helping of coffee. Before you finally ‘settle in’ though, you make your way to the bathroom to relieve yourself and as you wash your hands, you realize taking too much coffee has given your badly brushed teeth an additional shade of brown, and somewhere at the back of your mind, the question lingers:
Why do I feel so tired…everyday?
We live in an environment that unconsciously reinforces certain patterns that are not exactly ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’, but that are sub-optimal & unproductive. First, there is a great tendency to equate activity as ‘work’. However, this way of thinking is based on a more subtle malady; the dangerous tendency to go through life and your days without living DELIBERATELY.
In martial arts, there is a principle called “The Economy of Motion,” which in summary is about effectively defeating an opponent utilizing minimal effort and with an emphasis on NOT wasting ANY movement. So instead of swinging an arm to punch, one uses a straight punch to strike, and instead of blocking an attack and then countering, one learns to block the strike simultaneously. Now, while I am not writing about fighting, the fundamental principle being highlighted is you are able to more out of life, in a shorter time, if you spend time planning FIRST and having clear objectives for your day, and then focusing on activities that deliver on key objectives every day. .. This will always (often) give ample time for a critical activity utilized by God Himself: Rest.
Think about it for a few seconds. Do you have a timetable for your week that was designed by YOU to achieve the objectives that are important to you, and crafted to provide time for the important responsibilities that God has given you to handle? OR, like the majority of people, do you live life in a timetable determined by everyone except you, working a 9-5 as determined by your boss, driving from 6 – 8pm as determined by traffic, ‘relaxing’ from 8 – 9pm as determined by African (or Movie) Magic, spending your whole weekend in your church activity as determined by your religious affiliation?
Do you have a time set aside to practice your hobby or improve your craft or side business? Do you have a specific time to work on exercising your body? Do you have a specific time to spend with your spouse? Do you have specific times to know your children? Do you have a specific time to plan and track your finances by yourself or with your spouse? Do you have a specific time for rest and relaxation? Do you have a special time to meditate? Are you constantly fine-tuning your plans to identify the inefficiencies and cut out the non-essentials? Do you have mechanisms in place that automate your daily or weekly schedules? Do you have mechanisms in place that automatically save or invest for you?
Or are you just “working hard”, constantly sweating with no results or clear goals to show for all that frantic input, which leads to nothing but constant worrying and more frantic purposeless activity? Like scripture says, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2) #SelahMoment
Like someone said, a brilliant sculptor is not created by adding, but by taking away what is not needed.
So, step back. Rethink your life. Craft your plans – and find the rest He has already given.