Strength Will Rise… My Journey out of Continual Tiredness

Having just written on the danger of getting tired, I wanted to post about what got me out of my state of continual exhaustion and burnout.

It took me going to a pastor’s wives’ retreat last October where the topic was a few verses in Isaiah for me to suddenly click what they meant for me. I KNEW these verses, but I hadn’t applied them to my situation… and when I did, it was life-changing.

I went to that retreat, knowing that my struggle above all else, was tiredness… continual tiredness. Then I saw this verse come up on the screen overhead and it suddenly hit me. 

It is a promise from God – ‘those that wait on the Lord will renew their strength’. He will renew our strength IF we wait on Him. He will keep us going and give us strength again, so that we aren’t continually tired!

Promises from God never fail because He is eternally faithful. I realise that some people have physical illnesses which tiredness comes hand in hand with, and that’s not what I think this is talking about, or that we will never be tired again. But I believe God was telling me I don’t need to live like this!

So if waiting on God would renew my strength, then I had to find out how!

I have come to the conclusion that two practical things are needed in waiting on God, at the very least. Those are:

1. Time spent with Him in prayer and reading His word
2. Taking time to find out what He wants us to do with regard to our decisions, our schedule and our commitments.

Spending Time with God

Ever since we had our first newborn baby, I had decreased my time that I spent with God from an hour to half an hour a day, and it was a bit haphazard.  I would try to do it in the morning, but often fail because of being too tired to get up. Then later on in the day I didn’t have a set time for it, so it was squished in somewhere and not as good.

After this retreat I came to the conclusion that this verse meant I need to spend more time with God if I am tired, not less! So I went back to an hour a day, and I made time to do my devotions in the afternoons when the children were up in their rooms. That way if I didn’t manage to get up early, I would have a scheduled time in the afternoon to do it.

The change has been amazing! It took a few months before the tiredness started easing, but it did, and I know it is due to this change more than anything else. I am not saying you need to spend an hour with God everyday – that is completely up to you, and we have freedom in Christ. For me though, having a goal like that helps me to be disciplined, and it has made a big difference.

Finding God’s Will

I also prayed and fasted and studied to try and figure out what God wanted me to do with my time. I didn’t find everything out straight away, but I believe because I was spending quality time in prayer and the word anyway, it meant I was a lot more sensitive to hearing His voice, and I would often get convicted or challenged about something in my life just from reading the Bible.

I made sure I really prayed before committing to anything so that I would know that it was right first. And this has meant that I have sacrificed doing some things I would have liked to have done, but in the end I would rather be in God’s will.

There are a tonne of good things we can do, but they may not be the best things, and we can stretch ourselves so thinly that we’re not doing our most important jobs well.

I think by far the most important thing to avoid getting too exhausted is to wait on the Lord, and keep Him as our priority, to walk where He wants us to. Practical things do help too of course, and I wrote a post on some of those recently.

I love that now when people ask me how I am, I don’t have to say either “I’m tired”, or “I’m fine” and not really mean it! I am able to enjoy my children, and be more joyous and hopefully more fruitful.

Maybe if you are struggling with tiredness you could figure out how to spend a bit more time with God every day, and pray to make sure that you are doing the things that He wants you to be doing?

Have you ever found that spending time with God has helped give you more strength during busy seasons? Have you seen the promise in this verse fulfilled in your own life? I would love to hear about it if you want to share in the comments.