Grosse Fatiguee

            If you were here for worship at FCC last week or engaged me in any significant way over the course of the last couple of weeks, you know that I have been dreadfully weary. It is a weariness in my bones and in my spirit that can only be articulated through the psalmist: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death” (Psalm 22:14-15).

            I don’t like feeling that way at all. It is miserable. As one who loves to race, I feel a special poignancy and vulnerability in this. I train my body to be strong and resilient. To build endurance, I train my body to withstand stress and fatigue.

            One of the reasons I love racing and training is because of the parallels one can draw to a life of discipleship under the lordship of Jesus Christ. One of the things I often forget is that physical endurance is only built through stress, hardship, and fatigue. Why should it be any different in our spiritual training?

            The Apostle Paul knew a thing or two about physical training and spiritual training (1 Tim. 4:7-8) and the connection between the two (Phil. 3:14). He writes to the church in Corinth in the midst of his weariness and affliction: “Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Cor. 12:8-9).

            In physical training, the body is broken down and made stronger through affliction. So, too, in spiritual training, the body and spirit is being broken down and made stronger through affliction, that we may find our strength in the Lord.

            Today, I will rejoice in my weariness. I will rejoice in my affliction—“for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10b). God’s power is made manifest in my weakness, so that His glory shines through and so I don’t get in the way!

            And in the midst of the weakness, affliction, and suffering, God is present. In his sovereign grace he is at work shaping, refining, and molding me in righteousness. And so…

“We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).

Christ be with you all this week.