S2E31 When the Soul is tired

Hello and welcome to the Spray United Methodist Church podcast.

I'm Hoyt, and I'm so glad you're here.

There is a kind of tiredness that a good night's sleep cannot cure.

Sometimes the body is tired and we know that we need rest.

But sometimes the tiredness goes deeper.

You still believe in God, you still love Jesus, yet prayer requires more effort.

Worship feels distant, and words that once came from the heart begin to only come from the mouth.

That is what I mean when I speak about a tired soul.

It can happen even while we are doing all the things we believe a Christian ought to do.

We attend worship, we read scripture, we pray before meals, we serve other people.

From the outside, everything may look normal, yet inside we may feel as though we were walking through deep mud.

Every spiritual step seems to require more strength than it used to.

Sometimes we feel guilty about that weariness.

We think a faithful Christian should always feel joyful, eager, and spiritually strong.

But scripture never pretends that God's people are untouched by exhaustion.

The Psalms contained prayers from people who felt discouraged, overwhelmed, and distant from God.

They did not hide their condition from Him.

They brought it into His presence.

The Christian life requires effort and obedience matters.

But when the soul grows tired, we can confuse faithfulness with performance.

We begin acting as though communion with God depends upon saying the right words, feeling the right emotions, and doing everything well enough.

Yes, we want to live in a manner that pleases God.

We want our choices, words, and conduct to honor Him.

But we must remember why we obey.

We do not obey so that God will finally decide to love us.

We obey because in Jesus Christ God has already shown his love for us.

Our relationship with God rests upon grace.

We come through Jesus Christ even when our hearts feel tired and our prayers feel weak.

I have experienced this with something as familiar as the Apostles' Creed.

For years I could recite the creed from memory and say every word correctly.

But familiarity can allow the mouth to continue while the heart stops paying attention.

That can happen with many parts of our faith.

We can say the Lord's Prayer without thinking about what it means for God's kingdom to come.

We can sing a hymn while our mind is somewhere else.

We can hear a familiar Bible verse and assume that, because we recognize the words, we have received everything God may want to show us through them.

This does not mean that those prayers, hymns, or passages have become empty.

It means that we have become tired, distracted, or overly familiar with them.

The treasure is still there, but we may have stopped looking closely.

Now that changed when I began researching the creed for this podcast.

We slowed down and examined each phrase through Scripture.

I believe in God the Father Almighty was no longer simply an opening line.

Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, became a confession about the one who saves us.

The forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting became promises filled with hope.

As I studied, I began to understand that the creed is not merely a list of doctrines Christians are expected to memorize.

It tells the story of the God who created us, the Son who came to serve us, and the Holy Spirit who remains at work among us.

It carries us from creation through the cross and resurrection and towards the promise of everlasting life.

The creed had not changed.

The truth, the truth had not lost its power.

I had simply begun listening again.

That experience taught me something important.

A tired soul does not always need something new.

Sometimes it needs to see an old truth with fresh attention.

We often assume that spiritual tiredness requires a new book, a new method, or some dramatic experience.

But sometimes God leads us back to truths we have known for years.

Think about the words, the Lord is my shepherd.

Many of us have heard Psalms 23 since childhood.

Because it is so familiar, we may move over it quickly.

But when your soul is tired, stop after those five words.

If the Lord is your shepherd, then you are not wandering through life unseen.

You belong to Him.

And He has not abandoned His care for you.

Or consider the simple confession, Jesus Christ is Lord.

That means our weariness is not Lord, our fear is not Lord.

Our circumstances do not have the final word.

Jesus does.

The one who died for us and rose again remains Lord even on the days when we feel very little.

God is our Father.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Our sins can be forgiven.

Christ is risen.

We are not alone.

These truths are familiar but never ordinary.

A weary heart may need to slow down and hear one familiar promise as though it matters today.

Jesus says in Matthew 11 28, Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

He does not say, make yourself feel spiritual again and then come to me.

He does not say find better words and then come.

He says simply, Come to me.

We come with distracted thoughts.

We come with prayers that sound mechanical.

We come with a heart that may not feel what the mouth is saying.

We come because Christ is our rest.

Rest in Christ does not always mean that every burden immediately disappears.

Sometimes His rest is the assurance that we do not carry the burden by ourselves.

Sometimes it is enough strength for the next strep.

Sometimes it is a quiet reminder that our salvation rests in what Christ has done, not in how energetic or inspired we feel today.

If your soul is tired, begin honestly.

Lord, I am saying the words, but my heart feels far away.

Help me hear them again.

That is not a failed prayer.

It is an honest prayer.

God is not impressed by religious words that conceal what is truly happening within us.

He already knows our hearts.

Honest prayer opens the door for us to stop pretending and to receive His mercy where we actually are.

Then stay with one familiar truth.

Read one verse slowly.

Pray one line of the Lord's Prayer.

Take one statement from the creed and ask what it reveals about Christ.

Give your heart time to catch up with your mouth.

You might choose the words our Father, say them slowly.

Remember that you are speaking to the God who knows you and welcomes you as his child.

Or choose the words the forgiveness of sins.

Remember that the failure you confessed is not stronger than the mercy of Christ.

Or simply say, He is risen.

Let that old truth remind you that no darkness, not even death itself, has defeated Jesus.

Do not try to force a feeling.

Our faith is not made true by the strength of our emotions.

Instead, place your detention upon what is true and allow that truth to rest before God.

Feelings may return quickly, or they may not.

Either way, Christ remains faithful.

Romans 8 reminds us that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness and intercedes for us when we do not know what to pray.

Even when our words are weak, we are not praying alone.

That is the great comfort.

The effectiveness of prayer does not depend upon our ability to produce beautiful sentences.

A sigh offered to God can be a prayer.

A whispered help me can be a prayer.

Sitting quietly before the Lord when no words will come can also be an act of faith.

There are days when faithfulness feels strong and joyful.

There are other days when faithfulness means quietly returning to Jesus with very little strength.

God is present in both kind of days.

A tired soul is not a faithless soul, and it is not a forgotten soul.

Sometimes it simply needs to rest in grace and hear an old truth again.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, you know when our bodies are tired and when the weariness has reached our souls.

You also know that when our mouth continues praying while our hearts struggle to pay attention.

Forgive us when we treat communion with you as something we must earn.

Remind us that we come through the grace of Jesus Christ, not through perfect words or perfect performance.

Take the truths we have heard many times and help us receive them with fresh attention.

Remind us that you are our Father, that Jesus is Lord, that our sins can be forgiven, that Christ is risen, and that we are never alone.

Lord Jesus, thank you for inviting the weary and burdened to come to you.

Give rest to every tired soul listening today and help us take the next faithful step.

We pray in your holy name.

Amen.

Thank you for spending these few minutes with me on the Spray UMC Podcast.

If you don't have a church home, we'd love to invite you to worship with us in person.

Our Sunday service is at 10 a.m.

at Spray United Methodist Church in Eden, North Carolina.

We are a loving church that loves God and loves people.

All people.

Remember, new podcast episodes come out every Friday.

Until next time, may the grace of God rise before you and keep you safe.

Goodbye.