The Recliner I Fell Asleep In Still Wearing My Work Boots
I woke up at two in the morning in the same recliner I had sat down in after dinner, still wearing my work boots, the television throwing blue light across a living room nobody else was in. My neck was bent at an angle that would cost me the whole next day, and the last thing I remembered was telling myself I would just close my eyes for five minutes before I dealt with the dishes, the lawn mower still parked crooked in the yard where I had abandoned it, the inbox I had not touched since lunch. I sat there in the dark for a minute, boots still laced, and realized I could not actually remember the last day that had not ended exactly like this one.
I have been sober eight years, and for a long time I assumed exhaustion was simply the tax a man pays for a full life, proof that I was finally doing enough to matter after wasting so many years doing nothing but drink. What I have had to admit sitting in that recliner is that most of my exhaustion was never about how much I was carrying. It was about how certain I was that nobody else could carry it, that if I slowed down for even an afternoon the whole fragile structure of my work and my marriage and my recovery would come apart in my absence. I used to think that kind of tiredness was a badge. Lately it just feels like a debt I keep paying interest on and never actually retiring.
Isaiah describes a tiredness that has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with limits I keep refusing to admit I have. "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall" (Isaiah 40:30, NKJV). I am no longer a young man, and I have been running on a young man's assumption anyway, that my body and my attention could simply be willed into doing one more thing. The same chapter names exactly what I have been trying to replace with coffee and sheer stubbornness. "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength" (Isaiah 40:28-29, NKJV). I had been going to every source for strength except the one that does not run out.
The psalmist names the particular kind of exhaustion I know best, the self-inflicted kind. "It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2, NKJV). I used to read that verse as permission to be lazy, which is exactly why I avoided it for years. Sitting in that recliner at two in the morning, I heard it differently. Vain is the word that convicts me. Not wrong, not sinful, just vain, empty effort spent proving something to myself that was never actually in question.
Jesus did not tell the exhausted crowd that followed Him to try harder or manage their time better. He said something far more direct. "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 have read that passage a hundred times and still kept reaching for my own yoke instead, the one I built myself out of obligation and fear, heavier every year because I was the one who kept adding to it.
Here is where my own reasoning cannot finish what it starts. I can explain to myself exactly why I am tired, name every meeting and deadline and small fire I put out that week, and the explanation changes nothing about the weight still sitting on my chest in that recliner. Reasoning can account for exhaustion. It has never once been able to lift it. Paul tells the Galatians where the actual strength to keep going is found, and it is not in a better accounting of my own effort. "And 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). Due season, not this exact night, which is precisely the part my own impatience keeps refusing to accept.
This is what abiding in the Spirit gives that my own grinding never could, not a longer burst of energy but a different source entirely, one that was never going to run dry the way mine does by nine at night. The prophet Zechariah heard the word of the Lord concerning a task that looked impossible by human effort alone. "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6, NKJV). I have tried for years to finish my days by might, which is to say by force, and the Spirit was offering something underneath all that strain the whole time, a strength that shows up precisely where mine runs out. When Moses asked God not to send him anywhere without His presence, God did not answer with a strategy. "And He said, 'My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest'" (Exodus 33:14, NKJV).
I untied my boots in that recliner at two in the morning, left the dishes for the actual morning, and for the first time in longer than I want to admit, asked God to carry what I had spent all day insisting only I could carry. The lawn is still parked crooked in the yard. It will keep until tomorrow. God is alive tonight, and He already knows exactly how long you have been running on a strength that was never going to replenish itself. He has a plan for you that does not require you to prove anything to Him by staying up late to earn it, and He has already told you Himself that He will never leave you to carry it alone. "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest" (Exodus 33:14, NKJV).
Scriptures used (NKJV): Isaiah 40:28-30; Psalm 127:2; Matthew 11:28-30; Galatians 6:9; Zechariah 4:6; Exodus 33:14.
I have been sober eight years, and for a long time I assumed exhaustion was simply the tax a man pays for a full life, proof that I was finally doing enough to matter after wasting so many years doing nothing but drink. What I have had to admit sitting in that recliner is that most of my exhaustion was never about how much I was carrying. It was about how certain I was that nobody else could carry it, that if I slowed down for even an afternoon the whole fragile structure of my work and my marriage and my recovery would come apart in my absence. I used to think that kind of tiredness was a badge. Lately it just feels like a debt I keep paying interest on and never actually retiring.
Isaiah describes a tiredness that has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with limits I keep refusing to admit I have. "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall" (Isaiah 40:30, NKJV). I am no longer a young man, and I have been running on a young man's assumption anyway, that my body and my attention could simply be willed into doing one more thing. The same chapter names exactly what I have been trying to replace with coffee and sheer stubbornness. "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength" (Isaiah 40:28-29, NKJV). I had been going to every source for strength except the one that does not run out.
The psalmist names the particular kind of exhaustion I know best, the self-inflicted kind. "It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2, NKJV). I used to read that verse as permission to be lazy, which is exactly why I avoided it for years. Sitting in that recliner at two in the morning, I heard it differently. Vain is the word that convicts me. Not wrong, not sinful, just vain, empty effort spent proving something to myself that was never actually in question.
Jesus did not tell the exhausted crowd that followed Him to try harder or manage their time better. He said something far more direct. "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 have read that passage a hundred times and still kept reaching for my own yoke instead, the one I built myself out of obligation and fear, heavier every year because I was the one who kept adding to it.
Here is where my own reasoning cannot finish what it starts. I can explain to myself exactly why I am tired, name every meeting and deadline and small fire I put out that week, and the explanation changes nothing about the weight still sitting on my chest in that recliner. Reasoning can account for exhaustion. It has never once been able to lift it. Paul tells the Galatians where the actual strength to keep going is found, and it is not in a better accounting of my own effort. "And 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). Due season, not this exact night, which is precisely the part my own impatience keeps refusing to accept.
This is what abiding in the Spirit gives that my own grinding never could, not a longer burst of energy but a different source entirely, one that was never going to run dry the way mine does by nine at night. The prophet Zechariah heard the word of the Lord concerning a task that looked impossible by human effort alone. "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6, NKJV). I have tried for years to finish my days by might, which is to say by force, and the Spirit was offering something underneath all that strain the whole time, a strength that shows up precisely where mine runs out. When Moses asked God not to send him anywhere without His presence, God did not answer with a strategy. "And He said, 'My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest'" (Exodus 33:14, NKJV).
I untied my boots in that recliner at two in the morning, left the dishes for the actual morning, and for the first time in longer than I want to admit, asked God to carry what I had spent all day insisting only I could carry. The lawn is still parked crooked in the yard. It will keep until tomorrow. God is alive tonight, and He already knows exactly how long you have been running on a strength that was never going to replenish itself. He has a plan for you that does not require you to prove anything to Him by staying up late to earn it, and He has already told you Himself that He will never leave you to carry it alone. "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest" (Exodus 33:14, NKJV).
Scriptures used (NKJV): Isaiah 40:28-30; Psalm 127:2; Matthew 11:28-30; Galatians 6:9; Zechariah 4:6; Exodus 33:14.
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