fatigue

Your eyes are tired and dry. Your neck is stiff or your back is sore. You have had enough but life goes on. You fall asleep when someone is talking to you. Your eyes drift shut but a second later you are wide awake and you feel fine. It's fatigue.

Maybe you've pushed yourself too far. Maybe you've burnt your candle at both ends. A few late nights, a few too many early mornings and your fatigued. But that's not the only way.

Fatigue

TV fatigues the mind as the screen continually refreshes to mimic the actual movement of real life. (Watching TV is not rest.) Emotional moments fatigue a person psychologically. The brain creates chemicals and chemical byproducts of emotions build up so that only rest will free the brain for proper balance.

Fatigue

Water is used in virtually every process of the body and tons of people (I think maybe almost all ordinary people) are struggling under the effects of dehydration. I even think that sometime when people's body are calling out for water they eat (resulting in all sorts of other problems.) Hydration makes health and strength possible. Drink more water (nope-more than that.)

Fatigue

Good health is the antithesis of Fatigue. Sure, we will still get tired but not so much fatigued. Exercise, hydration, proper nutrition, periods of peace, and Sabbath are the solution. I say that knowing that I sometimes fail in these areas. In fact I am fatigued this morning after a long weekend and missing my Sabbath yesterday due to an emergency.

Peace. No God? No Peace. I'm not stirring up trouble. Realizing that living without the one you were created to relate to is fatiguing is absolutely necessary. Dodging that reality has become a pass time for some. They work very hard at it even finding substitutes for as long as they hold out. Sounds Fatiguing doesn't it?

Sabbath: Sabbath is the time set apart to reflect on God, yourself, and especially your relationship to God. Leave God out, scripture out, or reflection out and you are not having Sabbath. Rest is good but Sabbath is the God given answer to fatigue.

So, you tell me? Should the TV be on during Sabbath? Should read a good book? Should you sleep it away? I think, no. I think you can incorporate these things in small amounts but the Bible, you, and quiet are the principle ingredients. One more thing ,the ratio is 1/7th. The Bible teaches that you need to take the equivalent of one entire day every week. This is not complete rest. It is as described above...

Lord help us. We have become a nation that has forgotten this most important principle.

and the result?

Fatigue.

Pastor Dan Stevenson
http://www.newheightsfellowshipchurch.org/

Monday mornings

Every pastor probably faces the same conundrum for Monday mornings. Because Sundays are our most extreme work day- At least I hope we get pretty worked up and pour out a lot of energy on Sunday-Monday mornings are a tired time.

Just for the record, I don't really believe that Christians should be a sleeping-in kinda' people. Sleeping in isn't a sin unless of course you are supposed to be doing something else while you are snoozing away. So, how do you avoid this? Develop a regular sleep pattern and stick with it. You can control your diet and develop a regular regimen of exercise. Being tired is pretty much a normal state for active people. No one is ever really at their absolute best endurance level. What I'm saying is that sleeping in does not necessarily solve your fatigue problem. While Getting enough sleep at regular structured intervals is important, eating right, proper hydration, and exercise actually remedy the fatigue problem.

Now, where was I. Yes, Monday mornings... I few hours for Sabbath which usually means rest and thinking about how good God is. Often, I include some Bible and certainly meditating on the word. By late morning I am ready to tackle some projects that have been nagging at me-there are always plenty of these-and I'm off to the races again.I do schedule sabbath times throughout the week. I never seem to get a full day sabbath but I do take a one-seventh model into account when planning my schedule. Then I treat these times like they are VERY important.

Praise God for work and rest and the wonderful way they go together like book ends.

What is up with bookends anyway? I gues there was a time when bookends were needed cause people wanted to stand up books on a table rather than putting them on a book shelf. Other than that, what's the point? For a while I had a set of book ends that I really liked and I put them on the ends of my books on my book shelf. Then one day it occurred to me that they were taking up valuable book shelf space. Now, they are gone. Admittedly, the one little boat had broken and the piece had gone missing ... I liked them but not as much as the books themselves. Bookends-go figure...

Pastor Dan
http://www.newheightsfellowshipchurch.org/