Hope for the Weary Heart

Shalom to all of you reading this blog. Whether you are new here or a recent subbie, I pray this blog finds you well. The focus of today's blog is how to keep yourself motivated and focused on your goals when the odds seem to be stacked against you or you have grown weary in the waiting period. I can speak on this because for the past couple of weeks, I have found myself in this same predicament. Weariness affects all of us at some point on our journey to success. Weariness can develop as a result of our own poor choices, or it can be due to no fault of our own. Regardless of what led you here, it is important to acknowledge the feeling but at the same time, not give in to it. Many times, society tries to tell us to suppress our feelings and keep going no matter what. I disagree. While I agree we shouldn't wallow in our misery, we should definitely acknowledge it and realize that we are human with real feelings. Don't dwell on those feelings and allow them to dictate your life but absolutely acknowledge them long enough to seek help/advice from wise counsel.

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines weariness as one who is 1. exhausted in strength, endurance, vigor, or freshness 2. expressing or characteristic of weariness 3. having one's patience, tolerance, or pleasure exhausted. This definition exemplifies how I have been feeling lately. I have tried praying, listening to sermons, and listening to worship music. But if im honest, these times are HEAVY. Aside from everything that we May personally be going through, the media adds to the unstableness of our lives by constantly reporting on covid-19, police brutality, and natural disasters. While we are not oblivious to these occurrences, it can truly weigh heavily on our hearts, mind, and spirit. So how does one remain hopeful in such turbulent times? I personally try to remind myself of scriptures such as Psalm 27:13-14 which reads"I will remain confident in this, I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." It reminds me that God is in control.

If you are feeling weary and are at a place where you are still waiting for the promises of God to come to pass, be encouraged that the process of waiting is not to punish you but to strengthen you and allow your dependency to solely be on God. 2 Peter 2:9 states "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promises as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." When things don't go our way, we often get discouraged and question the choices we made along the way that led us to that moment where everything in our life came crumbling down. You wonder what would have been the outcome if you had taken another route, chose a different career path, worked harder etc.. but I'm here to tell you that some things that happen to you, are not the result of your own doing, but is simply the will of God for your life. Each and everyone of us have our own paths to walk down and each path taken has valuable lessons in them that we need to learn in order to produce the godly characteristic that HE is trying to instill in us. Romans 5:3-5 reads "We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." There are currently 7.8 billion people in the world--each one of our paths are different. Some were born with great wealth and some had to pour out their blood, sweat, and tears to achieve their goals. We have all heard of the saying, "its not what you know, but who you know." This is true. Those of us living in the U.S. understand this very well. In a capitalistic system, everyone is trying to reach the top. It is imbedded in us to compete for everything we have. But weariness is not a feeling experienced by millennials or people of this modern age. It is instead a feeling that even some of the Bible greats experienced.

Moses was in the dessert for 40 years with the Israelites and he undoubtedly grew weary because it should not have taken them that long to reach the promise land but the Israelites were a stubborn group. Exodus 17:12 reads:

But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

**This is an example of how we (because of our stubbornness and resistance to obeying God, we can prolong our journey to the promises that God has for us but below, there is hope.

The Bible goes on to explain that "As long as Moses held up his hands, Israel prevailed; but when he lowered them, Amalek prevailed. " Exodus 17:11

This passage gives us the blue print to victory. (1.) keeping our hands lifted up towards heaven in a posture of surrender. This is where our strength comes from. (2) having people around you that support you and keep you uplifted when you do go through those moments of weariness. To sum it up, Moses was victorious when he kept his hands raised up to God, but when his hands went down, the enemy won. My hope is that our hands would always stay raised up to the only one who can bring us victory over everything that tries to steal our joy.

Other people in the Bible that death with weariness are:

Job 10:1

"My soul is weary of my life: I will give free course to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul."

David

Psalm 69:3

"I am weary with my crying, my throat is parched; mine eyes fail while I wait for my God."

Jeremiah

Lamentations 5:5

"Our pursuers are on our necks: we are weary, we have no rest."

What the Bible promises

"For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes.”Jeremiah 31:25

"For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."Hebrews 12:3

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

**This last verse is well known and quite popular. I believe it's because here, God is telling us that he wants to help carry our loads and the things that weigh heavy in our hearts. We are not meant to go through this life alone, and he reassures us that if we give him our burdens, pains, disappointments, and even our weariness, he will exchange it for his peace which will in turn will make our load lighter to carry.

So today, I pray that you entrust your life with all its disappointments to God. The moments when you are feeling weary, I hope you put your hope in HIM and know that he is here to help you navigate through those tough times.

Be encouraged and know that God loves you so much!