Thomas J Parlette
“How to Revive a Tired Spirit”
Luke 5:1-11
2/6/22
A study came out last year that was disturbing, but not necessarily surprising. The World Health Organization did a study of people around the world who worked 55 or more hours per week compared to those worked 35-40 hours per week. The study covered health and workplace data from the 1970’s to 2018 and included workers in 154 countries. They concluded that, “People who working 55 or more hours each week face an estimated 35% higher risk of a stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from heart disease, compared to people following the widely accepted standard of working 35-40 hours a week.” They also estimated that more than 745,000 people worldwide died in 2016 from the physical stress of working excess hours. Those are some scary numbers.
Of course, this study was completed before the recession caused by the CVOVID 19 pandemic. A lot of companies cut their workforce, and the remaining employees worked longer hours to compensate. Also, many people began working from home, which made it harder to leave work at work. The result – working unpaid overtime.(1)
We all know that the U.S. is the nation of “rise and grind.” Hard work is in our American DNA. But so is being tired. We complain about how busy and tired we are. We compare our busy schedules and shrug our shoulders. “Oh well, that’s just how life is. What can we do about it?”
A seasoned doctor was training his latest group of interns on diagnostic techniques. He wrapped up the training by saying, “Never ask your patients if they feel tired.” Why, someone asked. “Because,” said the doctor, “everybody feels tired.” He may be right about that. Everybody feels tired.
Now, I’m not against hard work. It’s good to use your skills and energies for the good of the world around you – that’s what God calls us to do. But most of us also understand that sometimes our work can be unfulfilling. When we give our best efforts to something and we don’t see any results, it’s easy to lose heart. That tired feeling isn’t just bone deep – it can be Spirit-deep.
Author Max Lucado tells the story of a man named Joseph Crater, a New York Supreme Court Justice who disappeared in August 1930. Crater was just 45 years old at the time. He had gone to dinner with some friends one night. After he left the restaurant, he hopped in a taxi and rode away, never to be seen again.
No evidence ever turned up to explain Justice Crater’s disappearance. But on the night he disappeared, he left a check for a large amount of money for his wife. Attached to the check was a brief note. It read simply, “I am very weary. Love, Joe.”(2)
Sometimes the tiredness we feel runs Spirit-deep, and it steals away our joy, our peace, our hope. That’s not what God intended for our lives. Our God is a creative God, and God made us for peace, hope and joy. So that Spirit-deep tiredness poisons the life that God intended for us to have.
That’s why we can relate to Simon Peter and the other disciples in our passage for today. Crowds of people have come to the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret to hear Jesus preach. On the edge of the lake are the fishing boats that have come in after a long night’s work.
Unfortunately, Simon Peter and his colleagues had an unsuccessful night. Jesus climbed into Simon’s boat and asked him to push out a little ways from shore, so people could see and hear him a bit better. After Jesus finished teaching, he told Simon Peter to sail into deeper water and let his nets down again.
Now put yourself in Peter’s sandals for a moment. He’s just finished working all night, he’s caught nothing. He’s tired, hungry and ready to go home and rest. He was tired and ready to quit. And now Jesus is telling him how to do his job. Simon growls back, Master, we’ve worked hard all night and we’ve caught nothing.” This is another spot where I think there was a long pause, as Jesus and Peter have a bit of a stare down. Finally, Peter relents – “But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
And right there, at that moment in the story, Jesus shows us how to revive a tired spirit – by doing meaningful work. A great way to stay energized and effective in your work and in your life is to seek to do something that you truly believe in.
Back in 2013, officials from the California Department of Social Services shut down an eldercare facility in San Francisco named Valley Springs Manor. They shut it down because the facility had failed several inspections. The Department of Social Services planned to relocate the 20 residents who were still living there to other, safer facilities.
Sadly, the owners of Valley Springs Manor didn’t wait for the Social Services workers to complete their relocation efforts. They ceased operations immediately and announced that they weren’t paying their employees any more. So most of the employees walked out, leaving behind 16 elderly, vulnerable residents and just two employees to care for them.
The two employees who refused to leave were the cook Maurice Rowland and the janitor Miguel Alvarez. These two men just couldn’t imagine abandoning the residents. So without any help or pay, Rowland and Alvarez worked around the clock for two straight days taking care of 16 people. They fed them, dispensed their medications and kept them safe. Each man would go home for one hour every 24 hours to take a shower, then would come back to the Manor.
Two days after Valley Spring’s owners and other employees left, workers from the Department of Social Services showed up to relocate the last residents. They were amazed to discover that the cook and the janitor had been working for 48 hours straight.
When asked why they stayed around, Miguel Alvarez said, “If we left, they wouldn’t have anybody. Maurice Rowland said, “ I just couldn’t see myself going home. Even though they weren’t family, they kinda’ felt like family for this short period of time.”(3)
Those men found meaning in stressful, exhaustive work by thinking of the residents as family. Doing meaningful work is one of the best ways to revive a tired spirit.
Another way is to catch God’s vision for your life. You’ve heard it said that God has a plan for your life. In no way is your life meaningless. You are here for a reason. To invigorate your life, pray that God will show you that reason. That’s catching God’s vision for your life.
I like how author Mike Slaughter puts it. He once noted that people have a tendency to view life through either a microscopic lens or a telescopic lens. If you view life through a microscopic lens, then you’re focusing on your current circumstances, current challenges, your current problems and stresses. You are focused on the details of the now. And that can get pretty overwhelming.
But people who view life with a telescopic lens see a bigger picture for their lives. They are not stressed out or trapped by their current circumstances. They look forward to what God is creating in the future. Whereas microscopic people focus on the problems of the now, telescopic people focus on the possibilities coming in the future.(4)
When Jesus told Simon to sail out to the deep water and cast his nets again, Simon said, “We’ve worked hard all night and we’ve caught nothing.” That’s a microscopic response. But then he relents and says, “But because you say so, I will let down my nets.” That’s the moment that Simon opens up to Jesus’ leading – he takes a telescopic look at the situation. And Simon and his colleagues catch so many fish that they have to load them into 2 boats.
Simon is so ashamed of his doubts that he gets down on his knees and says, “Go away from me, Lord – I am a sinful man.” But Jesus didn’t do this to shame Simon. He did it to share with Simon a new vision for his life. “Don’t be afraid – from now on you will fish for people.”
Jesus is talking to us as well as Simon Peter. Don’t be afraid, he says to us, from now on, you will fish for people. Whatever work you do, whatever hobbies you have, wherever you find yourself over the course of your day, God wants to work through you to bring people grace and peace. That’s the new vision God has for all of our lives.
That reminds me of an interesting story I read recently about our country’s space program. It seems that when engineers at NASA sent the Perseverance rover on an historic mission to Mars in 2020, they hid a coded message in the rover’s parachute. The parachute had an unusual red and white pattern… Alan Chen announced that this strange pattern hid a secret message. Then he challenged folks to find and decode the message on rover’s parachute. The message was, “Dare mighty things!”(5)
Dare mighty things. I love that. That’s what Jesus was saying to Simon Peter. You’re looking at your life through a microscopic lenses. You only see if you’ve caught enough fish to feed your family and turn a profit. But I want you to look through a telescopic lens and catch my vision for your life. And that’s exactly what those weary fishermen did. They changed lives and they changed the world. Catching God’s vision for your life can revive a tired spirit.
This passage also shows us that committing yourself to a wide angle view of life can also revive a tired spirit. How does the story end today? After Jesus offered Simon and his friends a new vision for their lives, we read, They pulled their boats up on the shore, left everything and followed him.” Notice what they didn’t do – they didn’t go home first and catch up on sleep. They didn’t even go out and sell their tremendous catch – at least the Bible doesn’t tell us they did. They just left everything to follow Jesus. They took a wide angle view of life.
I just mentioned that idea from Mike Slaughter about microscopic lenses and telescopic lenses as it refers to focusing on the now and looking towards the future. But I think you can do the same thing with a standard view versus a wide angle view. Think of a camera – even the camera you have on you right now – the one in your phone. Most of the time we take a picture with the standard view. But most of us have wide angle options that take in much more. Some even have panoramic mode where you can take a 360 degree picture. This allows you to see what lies all around you, all the possibilities that exist, all that lies beyond your standard view of life. That’s taking the wide angle view.
In the 1920’s, Lillian Dickson and her husband, Jim, moved to Taiwan to serve as missionaries. Once the Dickson’s children were grown, Lillian took a wide angle view of her life and wanted to begin a mission of her own. With Jim’s blessing, she set off to reach people in the most remote region of Taiwan. She worked with medical missionaries at first, then she founded a school. She spent more than 30 years working among the poorest and most remote groups of people in the country. She walked thousands of miles through thick forests and rushing rivers to bring medicine, food, education and love to people in desperate need.
After founding schools, orphanages, clinics and churches, Lillian went on to found Mustard Seed International, a mission organization that is still in operation today. Someone once asked Lillian Dickson how she could continue working so enthusiastically when she was surrounded by an ocean of suffering that could never be emptied. And Lillian replied, “I just scoop out my bucketful.”(6)
What a great answer. When you commit to a wide angle view of life, all Jesus asks is that you scoop out your bucketful – and others will be joining you. Jesus will work through you, and all the others just out of your picture, to accomplish God’s purposes.
So when you become tired, discouraged or filled with doubt about whether or not your efforts are making any difference, trust this – Jesus’ disciples faced harassment, rejection, imprisonment, beatings and even death because of their work. But they also convinced thousands of people that Jesus is Lord and Savior, the very Son of God. They planted churches all over the Roman Empire, Africa and Arabia. Today, over 1 billion people from every race and nation call themselves Christians. And you and I are here today because of the work of Peter, Paul and all the other apostles who committed their lives to further the message of Jesus.
So, find something meaningful to be involved with, don’t get caught up in the microscopic view of life and open yourself up to a wide angle view of how God is using you to bring about the Kingdom. Just scoop your own bucketful – God will take care of the results.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 1, p 27.
2. Ibid… p 27.
3. Ibid… p 28.
4. Ibid… p 28.
5. Ibid… p 29.
6. Ibid… p 29-30.
