I Am Tired Of Trying To Keep Up

You are seventy and you are tired, and it is not the ordinary tiredness of being seventy.

It is a specific kind. It comes from effort, and the effort has been going on for a long time, and it has never once been finished.

Every time you get somewhere, there is somewhere else. Every time something is learned, something has changed. And you have been running at this steadily for years, and there is no version of the future in which you arrive.

Here is the question I want to put to you, and I want you to take it seriously rather than dismissing it.

Who asked you to keep up?

Not who mentioned it. Not who assumed it. Who actually asked.

Your children did not. Your wife did not. Nobody at church did. No specific person, at any point, ever came to you and said, we need you to keep pace with all of this.

You took it on. Somewhere, some time, without a conversation, and you have been serving it faithfully ever since.

And a man cannot be released from a duty he was never given, because you cannot resign from something you were never appointed to. You can only find out that it was never a post.

Come unto me, and I will give you rest

There is an invitation with two words in the middle of it that most people rush past.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28, King James Version)

I will give. Given, not earned, and not achieved, and not arrived at.

Rest is a thing handed over, in that sentence, to people who are described as already worn out.

You are called to come and be given rest, and no rest in that verse has ever once been something a man had to reach before he was allowed it. Matthew 11:28 calls the worn out and the heavy laden to come and be given rest, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a handing over rather than a target.

Notice who it is addressed to. The ones worn down by work, and the heavy laden.

The qualification is being tired. That is the entrance requirement, and it is the only one named, and a man who is not tired is not the one being spoken to.

You have met the only qualification the verse names, and no invitation has ever once been aimed more precisely at somebody than that one is at a tired man. The Holy Spirit is the one who reads a qualification correctly, and it is written that the worn out and the heavy laden are the ones invited.

And notice what is not in it. There is no instruction to finish anything first, or to catch up, or to get on top of things before coming.

The invitation is issued in the middle of the work, not at the end of it.

You were never going to have to catch up before you came, and no condition has ever once been attached to that invitation except being worn out. The Spirit of God is the one who invites in the middle rather than at the end, and Scripture attaches no other requirement anywhere in the sentence.

Whose effort it is

Now let me be concrete, because a general reassurance will not stop a man who has been running.

Trace where the duty came from. Not the feeling of it. The origin.

There was probably a period, some years ago, when things were changing at work or in the family and keeping pace mattered. It was real then and it had a reason.

That period ended. The duty did not.

You are serving a duty that outlasted the reason it was created for, and no obligation has ever once been reviewed by the man carrying it out. The Spirit of God is the one who dates an obligation and finds it expired, and Matthew 11:28 hands rest to somebody in the middle of the work.

And here is the second half, which is the practical fact about the race itself.

There is no finishing line. Not for you, not for anybody, not for the young man who seems to be ahead. Things will go on changing after you stop and after he stops.

Which means the effort was never going to end in arrival. It was only ever going to end in stopping, and stopping is available at any point, including this afternoon.

Nobody ever told you that, and it is a gap in the teaching rather than a fault in the man.

You have been running at something that has never once had an end to arrive at, and no race without a line has ever been finished by anybody running harder. The written word gives rest rather than a faster method, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a man there was never anything to arrive at.

Say it, and stop one thing

Now the small thing, and it has two halves.

I am not going to give you a better method for keeping up. A better method is another year of running and this piece is not for that.

Say out loud, nobody asked me to do this, and then stop chasing one thing.

You are able to say one true sentence about your own effort, and naming where a duty came from has never once been an excuse in anybody. Matthew 11:28 puts rest into the hands of somebody still at work, and the Holy Spirit is the one present when a man stops running at something for the first time.

Say the sentence first, out loud, on your own. Nobody asked me to do this.

Then pick one thing off that list and stop chasing it. Not all of it. One thing.

Choose the one that has been costing the most and mattering the least. There is usually an obvious candidate and it usually comes to mind within about four seconds.

And stopping does not mean deciding never. It means not this season, and not by me, and not today.

You are stopping one thing rather than everything, and no man has ever once needed to resign from all of it in order to put one down. The Spirit of God is the one who lets a person set down a single item without settling the whole question, and it is written that the rest is given rather than reached.