Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28 (NLT)
It had been a long day; between my regular obligations, running errands, and my son’s appointment with his pediatrician, I was exhausted. As I lay on my bed with lights out and the door closed to mute sound, I suddenly realized what I was feeling was so much more than just fatigue. I was weary.
Weariness extends beyond tiredness or exhaustion. It is a physical as well as emotional–and sometimes spiritual–feeling of hollowness. Like a balloon that had been stretched full of air and then suddenly emptied, I felt completely drained. I simply wanted to surrender to the peace and quiet of my room to the extent that even my senses longed to shut down for a time.
In that moment, I understood some of my son’s sensory issues; the noises, the lights, the constant stimulations in the everyday world that stretch his mind and body into overload to the point where he feels like he’s about to burst. According to an article I read on sensory overload, “The brain seems unable to balance the senses appropriately in cases of Sensory Integration Dysfunction. The brain may not be able to filter out background stimuli yet admit what is important, so the person with autism or Asperger’s may have to deal with overwhelming amounts of sensory input day and night.” (1)
Weariness is much like sensory overload. We try to do it all and to be everything to everyone. We stay up late and get up early, we try to control the uncontrollable, to the point where we feel like we’re about to burst. Some people do, and the damage can be devastating.
God offers another solution. He invites us to surrender our heavy burden in exchange for His rest. He’s not talking about a temporary shutdown such as when we sleep. He’s not offering a fleeting respite from the worries of life, a “Go out and have some fun and forget about life for a while,” kind of reprieve. He invites us to breathe out despair and breathe in hope, to breathe out worry and breathe in peace, to breathe in His presence and find life-restoring rest in Him.
Thought: “Worry is the antithesis of trust. You simply cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive.” – Elizabeth Elliot
For further reading:
- Isaiah 40:28-31
- Isaiah 41:10
- Galatians 6:9
- Hebrews 12:1-4
(1) http://www.autism-help.org/comorbid-sensory-problems.htm
Excerpt from A Year In God’s Classroom