Tuesday, October 4, 2011
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Now, if you're a night person, there is nothing more aggravating than a bright-eyed morning person who's trying to get you to be a morning person along with them! And one of the great, interesting, fun things about God is He tends to kind of put those kind of people together in a marriage. Maybe so there's a night shift and a day shift. I don't know. Maybe you have the other kind of metabolism; maybe you're a morning person. Well, then there's nothing more aggravating than a raring-to-go night person who's trying to get you moving when you're ready to put it away.
In fact somehow, yeah, these people marry each other, and that makes for some very interesting chemistry. It does seem that most of us have a time of day when our metabolism isn't doing much. It varies for each of us, but we all have our kind of our slow-down, blah, down time. And that down time of the day when we're just tired and depleted...it often brings out our worst doesn't it? Just ask the people who have to live with us when we're exhausted—depleted. I know that most of what I wished I had not said or done happened when I was, as my kids would say, "blitzed"...really tired. But it doesn't have to be that way.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Tired But Still Ticking."
Well, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke 5:3-5. Now, we have got a tired man on our hands here. Yeah, Simon Peter has returned from fishing all night. Okay, it's hard, physical work; he's done it all night long; he's ready to go to bed. Fishermen find the best pickings all night long, so now it's morning and he's back and he's cleaning his nets. And it says, "Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the shore."
Now look. I can't read into what the Bible says, but I've got to imagine that he's like, "I am so tired!" Well, then it says, "Jesus sat down and taught the people from the boat." Now, I can imagine Simon going, "Can I go home and get some sleep now?" "And when he had finished speaking, He said to Simon, 'Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.'" "Let's go fishing again." "Simon answered, 'Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because You say so, I will let down the nets.'"
Well, as I said, we're dealing with a man who had to be exhausted. He's just done an "all-nighter." I would guess he is in no mood to sailing on a floating pulpit. Jesus wants to have a pulpit out there in the water so He can deal with a larger crowd. And I would guess that Simon Peter wants to go to bed; not to go out again. And then Jesus says, "Let's go out and try to catch fish again." But Peter knew what it was to be tired and yet still be obedient. He could still listen to, he could still respond to the prompting of Jesus, even when he was exhausted.
Now during the good hours of the day, I find myself pretty consciously trying to be like Jesus, to be in touch with Him, to care for other people, to consecrate things to Him. But exhaustion often makes me, well, a self-centered, self-conscious, self-serving person. You probably notice the key word—self.
I don't know about you, but when we're tired we tend to become impatient, sarcastic, and negative, and touchy, which opens up a whole new beachhead for us to bring unto the Lordship of Christ. "Lord, here's the tired me. I want to hear Your voice through my weariness. I want to obey You and be like You, and do what You want me to do even when I'm too tired to feel like doing it." And He may say to you, "Well, then, help someone who needs it. Pitch in at home. Take time to listen, to hug, to confront a problem." You say, "Well, I'm so tired, I don't feel like it." But when you obey Christ in your tired moments, you break the cycle. That is the more tired I become, the more self-centered I become. Well, if you see your vulnerability and you consciously, daily consecrate your down time to Jesus, you can have a whole new spiritual breakthrough.
When a weary fisherman listened to Jesus in his weariest moments, he enjoyed a wonderful catch. He saw a miracle! Obey the Lord. Give, in those moments when you feel like giving out, and you will receive a surprise in return. Christ can enable you each day to be tired but still ticking.