Today’s passage is Hebrews 11:27-40. Apollo continues with “by faith” statements, first finishing the Moses story, then Jericho and Rahab, and then says he doesn't have time to name everything and everyone. He talks in general terms of those who suffered for their faith, mocked, scourged, imprisoned, killed by sword, saw, lions, and stones. He praises those who wandered deserts and mountains in destitution but did not receive the promise of God but had to wait for us.
What desert are you wandering?
Do you think you deserve something you haven’t received?
Today was a long day.
I got to bed late last night and was up early without enough sleep, so I was tired.
Despite my fatigue, it was a productive day.
Actually, it was probably productive because I was tired and couldn't focus on myself and feeling good about my energy and my decisions.
I was almost too tired to think, so God thought for me.
I was too tired to move very much, so God had others move for me, giving messages and reminding me of what I had to do and where I needed to be.
Instead of being grateful and thanking God, praising him for his thoughtfulness, I grumbled to myself about how tired I was and thought how tired I’d be tomorrow arriving late to the Sunday School QT camp.
I grumbled about the extra tasks I had to do that I hadn’t planned on and didn’t want to do.
But in doing them I found important new understandings.
For example, someone asked me for the statistics on my teachers and our students, the breakdown of gender, nationality, total numbers, etc.
I thought we had those stats ready at hand. But we didn’t.
No one had been assigned to update them. And when they were updated, I discovered a gender imbalance in my teacher numbers, which will help me in making hiring decisions.
I received a phone call from someone I thought I didn’t want to talk to but our conversation uplifted me because it turned from business to prayer and trusting in the Lord for security and significance in life.
My wife and I had supper at a mogwon’s restaurant across town and I mumbled about spending a half hour on the subway instead of ten minutes on the bus going home.
But I got a seat at rush hour and read a few pages of my book on Tolkien’s sacramental vision.
On the way home, feeling too tired to stand, God gave me a seat and then one for my wife.
Beside me sat a woman reading a Korean book that looked familiar. I asked my wife what it was. It proved to be Bill Hybels book on praying when you’re busy!
Everywhere I went in my desert of fatigue today, God was there.
If I had been full of my own energy, I doubt I would have noticed the Lord all around me.
What could I do but give praise for his lovingkindness?
Application: try to remember to see my invisible God sustaining and guiding me in my weakness.
Lord, let me always be too tired to be in charge so that I don’t get in your way.
