For the Days When We're Just Too Tired
An invitation to unforced rhythms of grace.
Full disclosure—I’m waking up to this new day exhausted.
In all transparency, I’m starting to write this post sitting in my daughters’ room rocking my youngest. She has been up most of the night, and yet again I find myself in the rocking chair before the sun has risen on our farm’s hill. Their room doesn’t even face a window that I can see the sun coming up through—all I see are dark walls, toys strewn on the floor, and blankets next to my toddler’s crib where my husband and I took turns soothing her last night. It was a long night. I’m sure it’ll be a long day with a tired toddler, and who knows if we will get any reprieve when she goes to sleep again.
Days and nights can often bleed together into foggy hazes throughout our seasons of life. It can be a daily physical weariness, a mentally hard season, an emotionally painful situation, a spiritually dry desert, or all of them combined in some way.
Maybe it’s the newborn phase that lasts for what seems like years.
Perhaps you have a child that has special needs who requires around-the-clock care.
It could be aging parents that need you at 2 a.m. and you have a work presentation at 8 a.m.
Maybe your mind keeps you up for hours every night, playing out scenarios that instill fear and hopelessness into your life.
Perhaps it’s been season after season of grief and your heart and mind are just so tired of processing the pain.
Whatever your season of life, as humans who follow Jesus, we encounter times when “we are just too tired.”
We’re too tired to pray.
We’re too tired to go to church.
We’re too tired to read our Bible.
We’re too tired to engage with God.
We’re too tired to notice His hand weaving and working in our lives.1
We know and we believe that the God who parted the Red Sea is parting through pain and sorrow in our life. We trust that the Savior who healed the blind and lame can and is working in our own lives (whether it is hidden and unseen to the outside world). We know that the God who breathed life into existence is forming, redeeming, healing, and moving in our every day lives.
We know, because we’ve seen it.
We’ve witnessed His glory.
We’ve inhaled His love, and exhaled His grace.
We’ve seen mountains move in our own lives,
even if it wasn’t what we thought it would look like.
We’ve been held in our grief,
loved in our sin,
comforted in our loneliness,
and known in our hidden comings and goings of life.
But what about the seasons of life, whether they be days, weeks, months, or years—where we are just too tired to look for God? We’re too worn down by our grief to see His goodness. We’re too stretched thin to notice His movements. We’re too physically tired to proclaim His hand on our life.
In our church culture when we’re feeling “dry” or “weary” in our spiritual lives, so often there is a pull to “do more”—read the bible more, prayer longer, remember to meditate on scripture more frequently, share the gospel more consistently. Shame and guilt will often creep into our hearts saying, “You are never doing enough” or “If you just did more of (fill in the blank) you wouldn’t feel so far away from God.”
What if we just paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and stopped trying so hard?
My friend, God is, was, and always will be.
He doesn’t change.
He will always be working.
His love is forever weaving itself throughout our everyday moments.
I imagine our friend Jesus smiling at us, in our sleepless nights and heavy-hearted seasons gently whispering,
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”2
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. That sentence of this scripture is so powerful to me, because it feels so unnatural in our culture and lives. I personally have a deep love for learning, so in my humanness I want to “figure out” what unforced rhythms of grace are so I can do them well. Sound familiar? We are a culture and human race that loves instantly mastering something to show our competency in an area. I personally don’t believe that is the invitation of Jesus here.
What if living in our weakness and dependence on Jesus is one of our greatest strengths?
What if our unforced rhythms of grace were an invitation to just be in the presence of Love?
I recently had a conversation with someone who asked me a very poignant question, “Brianna, do you think you’ll miss what God is doing if you’re not vigilantly on the lookout for it?” I sat back and pondered. In my heart I knew my answer was yes to this question. Because, if I “missed” what God is doing right now in my life, would seeds of resentment and fear be planted instead? If I “missed” what God was doing, would the pains of suffering and grief feel bigger than my God?
My journey with God has held so much, as I’m sure yours has too. My walk with Jesus has been the rawest it’s every felt over the past five years. I’ve had to open my eyes to a heavenly perspective to see the goodness of God this side of heaven. I’ve had to learn to trust that what I don’t see with my human eyes, will be revealed when I enter into His glory. But the waiting on this earth becomes tiresome—as the scripture above says, we are worn out and weary.
There are times in our lives where we just need to name this weariness—to point it out, vocalize it and stop ignoring it. We have the permission to name our tiredness, not just in a physical sense, but in any area of life.
We’re invited to name where we are at in our spiritual journey, and let that be held in the love and grace of God.
I don’t have an amazing application or a powerful story to end this with, because this is real life—messy, hard, and not perfectly wrapped up in the end. But I’m feeling the invitation in this season to just “be” with Jesus more and I wonder if you are, too? Here are some ways that has unfolded for me in the past, but I’m also open to new invitations of it in this season.
Sitting in silent prayer in the presence of God.
Letting the warm sun on my face be the reminder of His love.
Holding the thought and prayer throughout my day that I am held and loved.
Listening to my body and slowing down, even napping if I’m able to.
Letting go of the pressure to pray a certain way, but just be loved—allowing the Holy Spirit to intercede with the words I don’t have.
Reading scripture, not to check a box off, but to just let the words soak into my soul.
Being with Jesus feels so much more welcoming and lighter to me in this season. I wonder what feels welcoming and lighter to you, dear reader? I’ll leave you with some questions to ponder in your season, as I sit with them myself.
What areas of your life feel that they need rest?
What feelings rise in you when you think of rest (not just physical)—do they feel like invitations or do you hold resistance?
What would unforced rhythms of grace look like in your life?
What does being in the presence of God look like for you?
Where are you being invited into deeper love today?
May we remember with each moment of life, we’re held in the loving gaze of God.
I just want to note that there is a fine line of laziness and tiredness/weariness in our lives. There are seasons where action is necessary and needed in our spiritual journeys—where we’re being invited and called to move and take steps towards Jesus. I won’t get into my analysis of that in this post. This post is primarily focussing on the seasons of life where we just need a break from the earthly pull to “do more” and instead “be more” with Jesus.
Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)
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So good!
I was diagnosed with breast cancer in November. I’m so thankful for God’s grace through this season. Sitting with Him was all I could do some days- being exhausted and sick because of treatment or terrible brain fog- to say to Him or read anything was nearly impossible. He was always near.
This is really encouraging thank you.