Bone-Tired | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Bone-Tired | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marilyn K. Smith
05/07/12
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES

When I helped plan my daughter’s wedding and had finished decorating the church sanctuary practically on my own, I was introduced to the concept of being “weary.” After she and her husband returned from their honeymoon, she was looking at the wedding photos. She remarked, “Mama you were smiling in these pictures but you looked so tired.” I glanced at them and said to her, “I was tired…even more tired than the day I had you.” We laughed but it was a true statement. It really took weeks to get back to my old self.

In Ezekiel, chapter 37, the prophet has been led by the Spirit of God to a valley strewn with dry bones and God’s question to him was “Can these bones live?” After Ezekiel answered, “O Lord, God, You know, he was told to prophecy to the bones and then the Lord, himself brought the bones back to life by “breathing” on them (v. 10). The very “breath” of God caused those old, ancient Israeli bones to become a living mighty army again! The weariness of battle was gone!

We, as Christ-followers, get bone-tired too. This world can leave us hollow-eyed and decayed from all it demands. Sometimes the strength is not there to move another mountain or even a mole hill. We’ve let the weariness of this world, brought on by carrying its burdens and cares, bring us to the point where we are no longer living but just existing. Strewn about in our desert places, the heat of trial and thirst for goals we cannot possibly achieve, leads way to nights of cold despair and darkness. Desert windstorms come in the form of tribulation, pain and suffering, swirling around us and even through us, leaving our souls depleted with a vision of a bleak future. As weary “well-doers” we often give up at this point out of sheer exhaustion. Something has left our spirit and we just can’t function any longer.

We would probably do well to remember that the same Lord who said, “Do not grow weary in well-doing” also gave the “lunch bunch” invitation to his disciples (and us) in Mark 6:32. His disciples in this verse had taught long hours against noisy voices, come against great evil, and had even suffered the sorrow and despair in the death of their friend, John the Baptist. They responded to Jesus invitation to “Come away and rest” positively. Those words “come away” evoked an invitation that was incomparable! To be alone with the Lord and rest in Him is one of the sweetest invitations we could ever consider! Did you notice that it mentions in the verse that He knew they had not eaten?

Hunger and weariness--two things that can bring a Christ-follower to his knees in a dusty and dry desert place. It is an environmental snapshot of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness in Matthew, chapter 4. Satan longs to see us there in the dust, never be able to get up again. When he has us in that desolate, desert place, we are unable to utter a word of the good news of the gospel to anyone or even meditate on it for ourselves. We are again like those bones in Ezekiel—dry, lifeless. However, the Lord has the ultimate solution to our problem. Here, longingly, Jesus, the King invites us (and the disciples) to the heavenly palace for a banquet! To be in quiet rest, in the place of His choice, with His choice of transportation, filled with whatever He provides, is a utopia of an “afternoon catnap and snack.” We’d do well, like his early disciples, to accept the invitation without further ado.

PREVIOUS ENTRY | NEXT ENTRY
SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY FOR THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE

The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.

If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE

JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.