If I was a little bird who went on a human watching week with all my bird friends observing the life of your average human adult, I think I would have gone home after the second day out of boredem.
Random comment, I know. But I am a random individual = D
My point is, if you didn't get it, that human life is so.... so.... repetitive! Repetition leads to exhaustion, exhaustion leads to breakdown! We work ourselves stupid everyday whether it be school, college uni or the business world. When Friday comes we fill our weekends with all the fun we can find; clubbing, t.v., Internet, day trips, friends; and hey, even sitting down and doing nothing constitutes as fun these days in the busyness of human life. I mean compared to all that working, its like a weekend trip to Italy. And guess what? Monday comes and you do it all again.
I'm just coming to the end of my degree now (one more week of dissertationing to go!) but I can tell you, this course has been a challenge, in a very different way to the way I imagined. Whereas before I was mostly always a sub par achiever, on this course I seemed to have become the best (I'm joking I'm not that full of myself, but yeah I do better than average now). So the challenge has been to keep the status I guess. Every day I would slave away for coming up lectures and assignments, and with every good grade there was more effort that followed. And then came the dissertation. I've had this summer to do it and pretty much my whole summer has just blurred into one day where all that happened was I'd go to work in the morning, go to uni for the rest of the day, come home and eat in the evening and be too tired to do anything else but watch an episode of The Tribe (yes I was a fan) and just collapse on the bed. To be honest, I don't think relaxing times were weekends for me. Sometimes I would go out every evening of the week. Weekends were work times.
Now as I am inclined to using metaphors, I'm gonna throw one in. Humans are a bit like your average car. You can drive them into the ground, go 60mph over speed bumps and crash into curbs without a second thought but it doesn't take a genius to tell you that's not good for them. When they run out of juice, you can just park it and fuel it to the max and do the whole thing again until it's out of gas; but the fact remains that it's going to have suffered internal damage and when it breaks down, no matter how much petrol you put in, that car ain't gonna move. You'll have to invest quite a bit in repairs, or just buy a new car and write the old one off.
We do that way too often with our fragile human selves. When we are so rushed off our feet, we cant be bothered to invest our money (in other words, time) in repairs. "Just a bit longer, I'm sure we can go another week" we say to ourselves... every week. We just want to keep filling up the tank, in other words, just have fun or whatever until we have to go back to the same exhausting week again.
But Jesus said, "Come to me, all who are tired and weary, and I will give you rest" Matt 11:28
After a week of this exhaustive repetition (in fact maybe even less!) I often find myself feeling empty, frustrated and a little depressed as if a part of myself died inside. No amount of fun things to do could fill that emptiness. I would crave for God so much. Church was the one thing I would look forward to the whole week. Sometimes worship was great, preach was great, after chruch socialising was great.... other times it was.... meh. Then I'd have to wait another week until church and..... argh! I just couldn't face it, but I did because I had to.
Then it occurred to me as I went through the week that I couldn't just wait until church. Jesus never said "Come to me on Sunday all who are tired and weary..." and thank the Lord for that! It's an open invitation to come any day of the week at any time and I will receive his rest. Simple! And so what I did was every time I was travelling on the bus I would whip out my phone, open the bible app, and read a Psalm. Or on the train I would just rest my tired head an thank God for the day and just pray for his sustenance. Or when I was trying to do an assignment in the week and my mind kept distracting itself I'd say a prayer that got would help me. Or even, if I was supposed to be getting on with some work but just couldn't, I would just read my bible anyway, collapse on the bed and call on his spirit of rest or even just dance around the room and worship him = D.
This set my focuses back on my current work but ultimately on Him. Sure it didn't always happen straight away, but I got there. Looking back on frustrating days I could really see his grace and how it all worked out to his glory. So basically, we need God every day because his presence to us is like the most skilled mechanic in the world to a beat up old car; and he doesn't charge, it's completely free.
All the fuel that we class as 'fun' is a short term solution to a long term problem, but God's presence is a lifetime solution. I'm not saying don't have fun. I love fun! We all do; God made us for rest and enjoyment as well as work. But remember where our ultimate fun comes from. I'd love to talk about fun and adventure in another blog but for now I'm signing off and I'll leave you with this verse:
"The Lord is near to all who call upon him; to all who call upon him in truth" Psalm 145:18
Blessings
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