Motivation Article: Don’t Faint
May 5, 2023 by admin
Filed under Faith, Faith Articles
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By Jack Lewis |
| It's amazing how much our physical condition affects our emotional condition. When you're exhausted challenges seem overwhelming. When you're well-rested and feeling good, challenges feel, well, challenging, but in a good way. Sometimes when I feel physically weak or tired I think about certain things I'd like to accomplish or experience and they seem too difficult. They seem out of reach. Legendary football coach, Vince Lombardi, famously said that "fatigue makes cowards of us all." Ain't that the truth. Lately, I've been learning to remind myself that periods of low energy and dwindling optimism are only temporary. |
| I love this verse from Isaiah: "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" (Isa. 41:30-31). If we're patient, God will renew our strength. There's no reason to throw in the towel. Part of the problem is that when we're feeling down we tend to look into the future and we feel woefully inadequate for the challenges we know are coming. That is the exact wrong thing to do. When we're weak and weary we need to lean on God in the present. Tomorrow has enough trouble of its own. Besides, it doesn't do us any good to worry about the future anyway. It only saps are strength for the present. God will supply his grace to us moment-by-moment and day-by-day as we look to Him. (Of course it is okay, even necessary, to look to the future in the sense of having a biblical "hope". Obviously that's different than worrying about the future.) What God has shown us on the mountaintop we ought not to forget in the valley just because we're feeling a little tired. Sometimes we're just a good meal or a short nap away from an entirely new perspective and fresh supplies of energy. (The prophet Elijah is the perfect example of this.) So don't forget, how you feel physically greatly impacts how you feel emotionally (and even spiritually). Therefore, take care of yourself the best you can and learn to recognize that when you're exhausted you're probably not going to be thinking very clearly or feeling very cheery. This too shall pass. |
