He Gives Power to the Weary - Isaiah 40:29

He Gives Power to the Weary – Isaiah 40:29

Consider the weariness of an extended day's work.  After you have worked twelve or sixteen or eighteen hours, you must still exert the energy to travel home.  Have you ever pulled an all-nighter?  Presumably, you did this mostly as a college student who did not have responsibilities of a working professional.  You recall the morning follow an all-nighter dawns with a new burst of energy and adrenaline which enables you to get through that day.  However, when you wake-up on the following morning, try as hard as you may to counteract it weariness and exhaustion overwhelm you.  

There are seasons in the journey of faith when a person grows incredibly weary.  Persistent daily challenges appear to eclipse Almighty God's presence.  Adversaries seem to win despite ceaseless prayer for valid and divine aid.  Years of preparation and hard work yield failure and defeat.  Fellow believers are indifferent to your integrity and diligence.  There does not appear to be any discernible difference between the values of the Church and secular, humanistic society. Charisma equates with leadership regardless of whether any personal integrity or moral and ethical character supports it.  Financial scandals and sexual misconduct are as pervasive among clergy and church lay leaders as they are among public officials and corporate directors.  On a more personal level, your longstanding and heartfelt dreams and goals resemble a heap of ashes without any burning embers.  On any given day, you wonder why God gave you a set of gifts but allow every possible impediment to your success.  Summarily, you simply grow weary and ponder if faith is meaningless. 

At one juncture in my pastoral career, I knew five pastors who were dismissed from their churches although they had not done anything to warrant dismissal.  None of these men committed any moral or ethical violations of their ministerial vows.  They had not failed in their performance of their pastoral duties.  They had adhered to their fiduciary obligations; no one could reasonably accuse them of any financial mismanagement.  Simultaneously, they had clergy colleagues reputed to have committed the foregoing violations.  Yet, the latter group had congregants who defended uncritically their questionable behavior.  The former group of clergy was terminated essentially because members of the church did not like them for unknown reasons.   Incredulously, one of the pastors was voted out of his office because some people did not like the way he dressed. Another pastor was told a group of parishioners did not believe he possessed the wherewithal to grow the church although they did nothing to assist him.  Each of these cases causes considerable weariness in the hearts of these pastors. 

One wonders why God bestows His gracious gifts but seems indifferent to your efforts to actualize them.  This predicament appears as a cruel joke.  Shakespeare says, "Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.  It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothings." (Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5 Lines 24-28)  During a season of weariness, it appears you cannot surmount life’s daily complexities.  Earnest efforts to resolve them seem inadequate.  The quantity and quality of these difficulties nearly paralyze you.  You rightly discover you are in an inexplicable and indescribable crisis of faith as you bewilderingly ask “Where is God?”  Weariness increases as you no longer feel or know whether your faithfulness is meaningful.  I know a clergy colleague who questions his continuance in pastoral ministry as he achieved more observable success in the secular world for a decade when contrasted with a similar period of time in the church.  His weariness seems limitless.  

Isaiah reassures us of Almighty God’s gracious empowerment.  "He giveth power to the faint; and to them who have no might, He giveth strength." God understands the Church which is His chosen instrument to spread His gospel and build Christ's kingdom is a compilation of broken, hurting and imperfect human beings whose behavior and choices do not always cohere with their professions of faith and principles.  During crises of faith, Almighty God reminds us to focus more clearly upon Him.  Chances are we begin to concentrate upon our complex, inexplicable circumstances.  I think of Peter's request to get out of the boat during a tumultuous storm.  The Lord grants Peter's wish; Peter miraculously walks on water as long as he focuses upon the Lord. When, Peter feels fierce winds and sees threatening waves, he sinks into the lake.  In life’s treacherous weariness, we sink into the muck and mire of complaining and doubt if we focus upon circumstances.  

As a Pastor, I greatly lament the pervasive and seemingly intractable biblical illiteracy that plagues the contemporary American Church.  Sunday School will become extinct if a renaissance of Christian education does not occur soon.  Admittedly, spiritual growth groups present an alternative means of encouraging and empowering disciples with wisdom from the scriptures.  The minuscule attendance at Weekly Bible Study and Prayer Meeting is the most substantial indicator of decline in the spirituality.  Indifference toward individual and collective Christian education weakens the Church's ability to fulfill The Great Commission.  I decry the fact that less than ten percent (10%) of the congregation in the average church faithfully participates in any Christian education offerings.  I weep in weariness as the Lord wept for Jerusalem. 

Living with many unanswered questions about God's will, compounds spiritual weariness.  I hasten to clarify weariness is a synonym for cynicism.  Weariness emerges when you experience a prolonged period of fruitlessness.  Imagine the months of April to October in the life of a farmer as he waits to harvest his crop without knowing what quality or quantity his hard labor will yield.  Periods of waiting undoubtedly result in weariness as bewilderment may set in as you ponder what God is doing. 

Excessively ruminating about past defeats creates disillusionment.  Combined with physical exhaustion, anger, hunger and isolation, this lethal emotional cocktail seduces you into believing you are a failure.  A very practical means of combating spiritual weariness and vocational monotony is keeping a journal of personal and professional accomplishments.  During the dreary days of discouragement, consulting a written record of past successes dissipates clouds of doubt.  Through spiritual disciplines (self-evaluation, prayer, affirmation and meditation)  Almighty God encourages and empowers anyone who is weary.