The Day the Coffee Stopped Working
The Day the Coffee Stopped Working
There is a particular kind of tired that no amount of sleep fixes, and I found it the hard way in the years before I got sober. I would run myself down to nothing, then prop myself back up with whatever was closest at hand, coffee in the morning, something stronger by night, telling myself that if I could just push through one more day the rest would sort itself out later. It never did. I just found new ways to keep standing on legs that had already given out underneath me, and I called that strength because collapsing in front of people felt like the one thing I could not afford to do.
I know now that exhaustion is not only a body problem. It is a soul problem wearing a body's clothes. You can sleep eight hours and wake up just as hollowed out as when you lay down, because what is worn thin is not your muscles but the part of you that has been carrying more than it was built to carry, alone, for far too long. I spent years mistaking that hollowness for a character flaw. I did not understand I was trying to run on a fuel never meant to sustain a human life, which was myself.
Jesus said something to a crowd of worn out people that I read for years without ever really hearing it. "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30, NKJV). I used to think rest meant an absence of labor. He is describing something else, an offer to trade the yoke I built for myself, made of proving and performing and holding it all together, for one actually shaped to fit me. My exhaustion was never proof I needed to try harder. It was proof I was pulling the wrong weight.
Isaiah names the lie exhaustion tells, that everyone eventually runs dry no matter how strong they start out. "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall" (Isaiah 40:30, NKJV). That is not a threat, it is an honest diagnosis, and it includes every version of me that ever thought willpower alone would be enough this time. But the verse does not end there. "He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength... But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:29, 31, NKJV). The qualification is weakness, not strength. He is not looking for people with enough left in the tank to impress Him. He is looking for people honest enough to admit the tank is empty.
Waiting is a word I resisted for most of my life because it felt like doing nothing while the walls closed in. But waiting on the Lord is not passivity. It is the posture of someone who has stopped trying to generate their own strength and started drawing on a source outside themselves. God told Moses something in the middle of an exhausting stretch of leading people who complained at every turn. "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest" (Exodus 33:14, NKJV). Not a technique for managing the exhaustion better. His actual presence, going with you into the very thing that is wearing you down.
Paul understood this from inside a body that would not cooperate no matter how much faith he had. He asked God three times to remove a weakness grinding him down, and the answer was not the relief he asked for. "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9, NKJV). That verse used to sound like a consolation prize. Now it sounds like the gospel in miniature. His strength does not show up despite your weakness. It shows up because of it, made perfect in the exact place you have nothing left to offer.
David put words to what that abiding feels like from the inside. "He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul" (Psalm 23:2-3, NKJV). A shepherd does not scold an exhausted sheep for being tired. He makes it lie down. The restoring is not something the sheep does for itself, but something done to it, by a presence that already knew exactly how depleted it was.
This kind of abiding does not run on a schedule you control. "Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart" (Galatians 6:9, NKJV). The strength the Spirit supplies is not always felt the moment you ask, but it is never withheld from someone still turning toward Him instead of toward one more cup of coffee or one more hour of pretending.
If you are running on fumes tonight, too tired to even name what is wrong, you do not have to find one more reserve of willpower to keep going. God is alive, and He is not waiting for you to get your strength back before He will meet you. He knows exactly how depleted you are right now, He has a plan that includes this exact exhaustion, and He will never leave you to run on empty by yourself.
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Scriptures used (NKJV): Matthew 11:28-30; Isaiah 40:29-31; Exodus 33:14; 2 Corinthians 12:9; Psalm 23:2-3; Galatians 6:9.
There is a particular kind of tired that no amount of sleep fixes, and I found it the hard way in the years before I got sober. I would run myself down to nothing, then prop myself back up with whatever was closest at hand, coffee in the morning, something stronger by night, telling myself that if I could just push through one more day the rest would sort itself out later. It never did. I just found new ways to keep standing on legs that had already given out underneath me, and I called that strength because collapsing in front of people felt like the one thing I could not afford to do.
I know now that exhaustion is not only a body problem. It is a soul problem wearing a body's clothes. You can sleep eight hours and wake up just as hollowed out as when you lay down, because what is worn thin is not your muscles but the part of you that has been carrying more than it was built to carry, alone, for far too long. I spent years mistaking that hollowness for a character flaw. I did not understand I was trying to run on a fuel never meant to sustain a human life, which was myself.
Jesus said something to a crowd of worn out people that I read for years without ever really hearing it. "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30, NKJV). I used to think rest meant an absence of labor. He is describing something else, an offer to trade the yoke I built for myself, made of proving and performing and holding it all together, for one actually shaped to fit me. My exhaustion was never proof I needed to try harder. It was proof I was pulling the wrong weight.
Isaiah names the lie exhaustion tells, that everyone eventually runs dry no matter how strong they start out. "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall" (Isaiah 40:30, NKJV). That is not a threat, it is an honest diagnosis, and it includes every version of me that ever thought willpower alone would be enough this time. But the verse does not end there. "He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength... But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:29, 31, NKJV). The qualification is weakness, not strength. He is not looking for people with enough left in the tank to impress Him. He is looking for people honest enough to admit the tank is empty.
Waiting is a word I resisted for most of my life because it felt like doing nothing while the walls closed in. But waiting on the Lord is not passivity. It is the posture of someone who has stopped trying to generate their own strength and started drawing on a source outside themselves. God told Moses something in the middle of an exhausting stretch of leading people who complained at every turn. "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest" (Exodus 33:14, NKJV). Not a technique for managing the exhaustion better. His actual presence, going with you into the very thing that is wearing you down.
Paul understood this from inside a body that would not cooperate no matter how much faith he had. He asked God three times to remove a weakness grinding him down, and the answer was not the relief he asked for. "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9, NKJV). That verse used to sound like a consolation prize. Now it sounds like the gospel in miniature. His strength does not show up despite your weakness. It shows up because of it, made perfect in the exact place you have nothing left to offer.
David put words to what that abiding feels like from the inside. "He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul" (Psalm 23:2-3, NKJV). A shepherd does not scold an exhausted sheep for being tired. He makes it lie down. The restoring is not something the sheep does for itself, but something done to it, by a presence that already knew exactly how depleted it was.
This kind of abiding does not run on a schedule you control. "Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart" (Galatians 6:9, NKJV). The strength the Spirit supplies is not always felt the moment you ask, but it is never withheld from someone still turning toward Him instead of toward one more cup of coffee or one more hour of pretending.
If you are running on fumes tonight, too tired to even name what is wrong, you do not have to find one more reserve of willpower to keep going. God is alive, and He is not waiting for you to get your strength back before He will meet you. He knows exactly how depleted you are right now, He has a plan that includes this exact exhaustion, and He will never leave you to run on empty by yourself.
---
Scriptures used (NKJV): Matthew 11:28-30; Isaiah 40:29-31; Exodus 33:14; 2 Corinthians 12:9; Psalm 23:2-3; Galatians 6:9.
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