H.A.L.T. (4)
Brothers, do not get tired of doing what is right. 2 Thessalonians 3:13 ISV
Tired – Dead tired. Exhausted. 3 AM in the morning. But I can’t sleep. My body clock is off by 13 hours. Who said jet travel was wonderful? Maybe there’s a good reason for crossing the oceans by ship.
“Tired” is the last of the addict’s warning signs. But which kind of “tired” causes the onset of addictive temptation? Certainly not (usually) physical effort. That kind of tired is good. The muscles have been used. Small victories ensued. Life is experienced as a wholesome interplay between intention and outcome. No, the “tired” of the addict is more like Paul’s choice of enkakesete, “to grow weary.” The root of this aorist form is enkakeo and that reveals the real problem. You see, it is made up from the preposition en and the verb kakoo, a verb that means, “to hurt,” in this case “to bring about what is evil, bad, incapable, weak or ruinous.” This is not tired after passionately exercising God’s design for your life. This is exhausted from fighting to survive. This is weariness of life itself, mentally or physically fatigued by attempting to bend the will of the world. God is not part of this exhaustion. This condition is the temple built with human hands.
There is a reason why the rabbis warned us not to pray when the mind is not at rest. When we are weary but unable to experience shabbat, we can’t even speak with God. We can only blurt out our hopeless dissatisfaction. This is Jeremiah’s concept of inner illness resident in the heart of Man. It is the victory of the yetzer ha’ra expressed in the psychic suicide of capitulation. Too tired to fight and too tired to care about it. When we reach this stage there is only medication and even that will not bring relief.
What is the cure for enkakeo? The Bible offers two natural remedies. The first is a time capsule. Today’s weariness is absorbed in the eternal purposes of God. Until we understand that God is working His good pleasure even in our difficulties, we will not be able to move away from our immediate temporal injury to the comfort of His eternal care. Time is not on our side, but eternity is. The sabbath rest we must have is not to be found in the temporal repetition of chronos. God’s rest for us is found in kairos. The difference is substantial.
The second remedy occurs after the paradigm shift of temporal orientation. Today’s difficulties are not roadblocks to life. They are expressions of God’s trust in His children. We do not grow weary even though exhausted if we are living testimonies of His endorsement of our ability to be like Him. Weariness comes from hopelessness. It is the evil snare of believing there is no good purpose to continue. But God trusts us to fulfill the Kingdom assignments He has commissioned and therefore every trial is for good purpose. Tired can be joyful. Weary cannot.
Topical Index: tired, weary, enkakeo, kakoo, evil, 2 Thessalonians 3:13
This series of posts have been right on time for me. I think this one – tired – is the one I struggle with the most! It seems like everything is moving so fast! I am surprised how quickly my days go by. Working in Corporate America only contributes to this feeling where work is all about how much you can multi-task! Sitting on conference calls, reading emails, responding to Instant messages and watching text messages on my phone wear me out. Sometimes I just want the world to stop so I can get off of this maddening cycle. There was a time when I found myself constantly using the “T” word, everything was about being tired. I would say I was tired before I even started! God had to wake me up to it as He started letting me hear it every time I would say it. He began to amplify it in my hearing and I realized part of my problem was that I was saying it all the time. I have become better at watching that so that I am not always saying it. But there are times still, when I stop to take a breath from all my running and doing, that I am overwhelmed with all that there remains to do and I am tired before I even start. One of the things that I am learning however, is that as I get better at observing Shabbat, it is helping me. Please pray for me in this area as I try to balance my heart’s desire with really observing Shabbat with a family (especially my husband) who is all about running errands and things like that on our only “one day off” (because he sees Sunday as church day).
I will pray for you Charlene.
Thank you so much!
The last few days have made so much sense to me. And week after week I read and learn and want more and more to follow Ha Shem. And yet I continue to fail and fall further into despair at my inability to break free from my addictive behaviour. The Lord himself set me free from a long-standing stronghold ten years ago, and I believe all other chains were broken at that time, yet today I am on the point of hospitalisation because I continue to choose the old road when life seems too hard and I am so weary from the fight. I know that the answer is simple – hear and obey. And yet…. Can anybody help me?
It seems that for us as addicts life is always on the verge of being too hard. That’s why addiction works. It numbs the pain. And I cannot endure the pain alone. God didn’t make a mistake when He designed us for community. Only in OTHERS can be find a way to release the pain and recover. There are no sole solutions to soul sickness.
Thank you Skip. Do you mean in serving others? I have no-one nearby who shares my faith.
Maybe in others serving you as well! Even if you aren’t physically near others who share your faith, at least you have reached out here! I live outside of Nashville, TN and if I can help in a physical way or if you would like to chat, please send me an email. I am not a counselor of any type but I know how helpful a listening ear can be! Praying for you Helen! inettagaines@comcast.net
Serving others is important, but when addicts are in real trouble, they need others to draw close to them. The temptation to escape, to conceal, to withdraw is powerful since it allows temporary relief, but never permanent repose. Someone needs to draw near to you and you must put yourself in a place where that can happen.
I agree
Hi Helen don’t know where u are, but would like to help in any way I can
My e mail Atkins 49@live.com hope to hear from u so
YAH’S Blessings always, and thank you skip for always helping us to look down the road through with an
Hebraic mind set.
Inetta and Monica – thank you both SO much for reaching out. It took a lot of courage to raise my head above the parapet, and your response makes me feel a little less alone. But I am away on a Scottish island, and really don’t have the words just now to email. Just desperately trying to stay out of hospital and needing the mercy of Ha Shem to enable me to choose life when the enemy and my flesh are both pulling hard the other way.
The Lord bless you both
Before I retired last December, I was physically run down to the point of utter exhaustion. My immune system was depleted, I had a fungal respiratory infection that wasn’t responding to treatment and there were times, in the months before the decision was made to retire, when I couldn’t move or breathe and I really thought I might die. My life was one of being busy all the time – but not with things that were necessary to the Kingdom. They were necessary for doing my job, they were necessary for the church we were part of, but after leaving, I realized they weren’t necessary for me to do all of them. This has been a year of change and reflection about what is really required. Looking back, I realize that I could have delegated more, but the job itself had too many tasks for one person – yet, I took pride in the fact that I was able to “do it all”. Pride before the fall….. I know now that I was just a replaceable cog in the wheel. I needed to say “no” more often and get off the merry-go-round of advancing to a higher position. My theme song was “Stop the world, I want to get off”. I didn’t really want to get off though. I wanted to do it all. So God gave me over to my own desires and let me run with circumstances, until I dropped. Thank GOD, that He did. Too often I prayed for endurance, when I should have been repenting of my ways.
Thanks for this series, Skip. Too often we think of addiction only with regard to substance abuse. My addiction was perfection. I still struggle with it (too often), but now I have a thorn in the side to remind me when I need to let go of things. God is good.
Is there anyone here who can explain, “What is the cure for enkakeo” using language that might be easier for me to understand? I don’t understand the next paragraph either. I would like to understand; I will admit that my existence has been too much about survival and not enough about life.
Helen, I hope you’ll get a message on that island that will let you know you are not alone. I hope that surrounded by the beauty of His creation you can trust that you really are, or can be whole, even if you don’t feel that way now. You can love and forgive yourself and trust that your tabernacle/body can be cleansed and rededicated from those who sought to defile it. That is the message of Chanukah. It won’t happen without a fight. But, the Commander has a pretty good track record.
Skip, I have a very practical, down-to-earth (literally) bit of advice on how to quickly overcome jet lag. According to an American born Israeli (you may know him), Reuven Doron, if you walk barefoot on the dirt (ground, sod) – he likes to walk on the beach – right after a long jet ride across time zones – this will help your body reset its clock again. I’ve never had the opportunity to do this,but it’s worth a try!