Suffering & Hardship
I am worn down to nothing and I want to give up: the effort, the trying, the pretending. How do people keep going?
“And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.”
Elijah had just won the greatest victory of his life and then collapsed under a tree in the desert, exhausted and finished with it all. What God sends is not a rebuke and not a new assignment. An angel wakes him twice, feeds him, and lets him sleep, saying only that the journey is too great for him. God's first response to a burnt out prophet was food and rest.
“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Paul wrote this to Christians who had started well and were flagging badly. The phrase he uses, if we faint not, assumes that fainting is a live possibility rather than a failure of character. Notice too that he says in due season, not soon. He is not promising quick relief. He is saying your weariness is not evidence that any of it has been pointless.
A path forward
Deal with the physical first: sleep, food, and an appointment with your doctor if you have been running on empty for months. Elijah was fed before he was talked to, and the order was not accidental.
Give yourself permission to stop one thing entirely. Not everything you are carrying was ever actually yours, and endurance is not the same as refusing to set anything down.
Tell one person the true state of things this week and ask them to check on you in a fortnight. Say it out loud even if your voice is flat, and let them pray with you rather than only for you.
Closing verse
“Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.”
- Psalm 31:24
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