Perhaps like me you’re having a day, or a season, when you’re feeling a little tired, when you’re struggling with aches in your bones or your heart. “What happened?” “I thought I was doing OK.”
Things like growth, healing and progress never happen as one continual climb but come in waves. Victory, then struggle. Strength, then weariness. Success, then a setback. This isn’t a sign we are falling behind . This is simply the rhythm of a human body and soul.
Jesus starts his ministry speaking powerfully and gaining disciples. He performs a miracle at the wedding. Has a physical altercation at the temple courts. He teaches Nicodemus. Then he leaves town and we’re told this, “Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon” (John 4:6). We may be in a season of a tiring journey too.
If you’re tired and weary and need to sit down, it isn’t failure. It isn’t a weakness. It isn’t proof you can’t keep up.
If you’re tired and weary and need to sit down, you’re following the example of Jesus who knew what it was like to be human.
It’s at this well where Jesus sits down that he meets a Samaritan woman and has a transformational conversation with her. I’m encouraged because it shows me that God worked through Jesus when he was tired and weary.
Jesus needing to slow down and rest didn’t pause God’s plan for his life. Instead, it opened a different kind of opportunity for God to work.
It’s easy to believe God can only use us when we’re at our best, strongest, and fastest. But God’s purposes don’t require a certain amount of energy or a pace we must maintain. He can work in our slowest moments, in times when we’re moving forward and when we can’t take one more step.
Craig
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