I’ve been tired all my life. I’m not tired because I’m lazy, not eating right, or not praying enough. I’m tired because I have a rare type of anemia.
In a calling that glorifies boundless energy and charisma, I must confess to more than a few feelings of personal inadequacy. Over the years, though, God has given me a new perspective on my weak hemoglobin: it just may be a strength.
Some time ago I gave up trying to be like my high-octane brethren and started to grapple with what it means to be me, and more specifically, what it means to be tired. I’ve birthed a kind of fatigue theology. I’ve seen surprising victories won from my personal battle with tiredness. So here they are: the good things fatigue brings to my life and ministry.
Fatigue softens my soul
My soul often resembles soil in need of a good upturning. Having lived in the prairies and southwest, I have seen some of God’s most stubborn soils. When we garden at my house, we rent a jackhammer (no fooling) to break up the dirt. It actually resembles concrete.
The soul of the professional minister can easily make prairie sod or desert caliche look like loam.
Cliches, one-upmanship, higher education, and battle wounds often harden our souls so little may enter, be it spiritual seed, water, or plow.
Fatigue is good because it softens the soul.
I’m often with a man named Rick from our church, who resembles Grizzly Adams but has a Winnie the Pooh heart. Time and again he has found me washed up, exhausted, on the beach of ministry. He innocently asks, “How are you doing?” I find that my answers tend to be more honest the more fatigued I am.
The grind of ministry wears down my professional defenses to the point where I crack under the load, confessing how I’m really feeling.
In those vulnerable moments, I receive a great treasure: intimacy with a brother in Christ. Rick’s posture has always indicated he wants a sincere answer and can handle it.
If I were never weary, I would never need to lean on someone.
If I never leaned, I would never have known the warmth of a supporting shoulder and never have developed this valued friendship.
Fatigue molds my message
I often fall into the meat grinder of modern productionism, and I may preach it to the people I love. Though I know these folks work long and hard, I have felt pressure to preach sermons calling for increased commitment (translated: Be busier for God).
But when I relentlessly beat that drum, I miss the fact that such is not a rhythm they always need to hear. They may need to hear the softer melody of discernment. Fatigue helps me hear that tune personally and then replay it so my people can understand it. The message I often need to preach is “slow down!”
The calls of Eugene Peterson and others to a contemplative pastoral role are not only appealing but biblical. The temptation to be a spiritual pharmacist lustily calls me from my place of prayer. It drives me to be producing, dispensing, and fixing. But in doing all those things, I just get tired. I find my fatigue lets me see the limitations of productionism, and thus brings me to God. And that’s a good thing.
Effective ministry often occurs at the end of our rope, not the beginning.
I have found myself increasingly speaking of the need to simplify commitment. In our church we try not to load people down with five different tasks. Instead we encourage them to choose one or two, and we’ll protect them from any more.
In addition we’ve trimmed our schedule. For example, we canceled Sunday night services a few years ago. Though the trombones of guilt still blow from time to time, most of our folks love the soft tune of free time on Sunday nights. It’s the only still moment in their week. Our church has grown from such decisions. I count it a gift from the hand of personal fatigue.
Fatigue teaches me to preach a more human Christianity. What attracted people to Christ was his divinity and humanity. He too got tired. He slept through a storm! When preaching on biblical heroes, it’s easy to emphasize Elijah slaughtering false prophets and miss his extended nap after running from Jezebel.
Personal fatigue causes me to look deeper into biblical lives and see their humanity, which boundless energy might prevent me from seeing. In fact, greater energy might make me judgmental toward folks who feel weak.
As I look with tired eyes at biblical lives, I see in the spiritual greats men and women who were, at times, not much different from me.
My people will know from this fresh look that God doesn’t just call people in their strength but in their weakness.
Fatigue motivates personal change
As our church grows, I find myself balancing more pastoral plates in the air.
Just when I think I need to work harder (there it is again), I realize I may simply need to change how I’m working. Then I face the most recalcitrant member of my church when it comes to change: me.
Fatigue is a powerful motivator for changing personal work habits. It forces me to invest in a few rather than everybody. That’s hard because I’m used to jumping in and doing whatever needs to be done. Fatigue is my Jethro. He comes and says, “This thing you’re doing is not good—not for you, not for the people you claim to be serving.”
When I offer the old “But they need me” excuse, Jethro replies, “They’re not getting you, just a tired facsimile.” It’s then I realize I must change my habits.
Bob is a good friend and mentor. In 1983 he started a church, and the going was tough. After eleven demanding years, he found himself in the pulpit one Sunday with nothing left to give. Leaning against a stool for support, he told his people he couldn’t go on one more Sunday.
His church responded by giving him time off for rest and counsel. For months Bob felt only numbness. Slowly the numbness gave way to pain and eventually to the understanding of the significant life adjustments he needed to make. Gradually Bob regained not merely his strength to preach but a powerful new story of hope.
Recently Bob came and shared his story during a week of renewal at our church. I had never seen him preach with more power or effectiveness.
Fatigue makes room for God
Sometimes with all our meetings and programing, I can’t help but wonder where God fits in. Where do I say with Paul, “I’ve learned that his grace is sufficient for me”?
I want things happening around our church that cannot be explained by my effort. Kingdom success is something that is beyond human effort. Though human effort is important, I can’t work a person into the kingdom.
Weariness causes me to fall before God and confess ultimate dependence upon him. He reminds me it is “not by might nor by power but by my Spirit.” I then connect with the biblical heritage in which God encouraged his people to be still and watch the Lord fight for them.
Fatigue makes me receptive to the command to be still. In fatigue I know I’m spent. And when God’s blessing comes, both of us know it was given, not earned.
Fatigue actually prepares me for certain ministry situations, which I would have overlooked if I had been energetic.
As Jesus sat on Jacob’s well in John 4, he was tired. That led to a key conversation with a woman who influenced the whole town. Fatigue makes us still, and in that stillness, far from being less effective, we can actually become better ministers.
Though often seen as a cross to bear, fatigue is a gift from God that keeps us near the Cross. As Hannah Hurnard wrote in Hind’s Feet on High Places: “These two handicaps which had so tormented me were, in reality, two special gifts from my Lord. They were the two sharp nails which nailed me to him, so that I could never want or dare to go on my own again.”
Effective ministry often begins at the end of our rope, not the beginning. When I’m tired, I find myself desperately leaning on God’s sustaining grace. If the grace of God becomes great when we are small, fatigue can become one of those ego reducers that allows God to show himself strong.
Anthony Laird is pastor of East Tucson Baptist Church in Tucson, Arizona.
1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
