Stress, Anxiety, Weariness – Psalm 62

today I read an article that was talking
about the principle of caution fatigue
so in the midst of the pandemic were all
in a kind of a cautionary mode and have
been for months and that creates
emotional and spiritual fatigue you can
even create physical fatigue where we’re
worried about contracting the virus or
passing the virus on or protecting those
whom we love or caring for those who are
particularly vulnerable or leaving
organizations churches businesses those
kinds of things so months in caution
fatigue begins to happen where the idea
of the article was that fear no longer
as a motivator or begins to diminish in
its power and so we don’t take as many
precautions maybe we don’t wash our
hands as much or wear a mask as much and
don’t worry as much about social social
distancing or things like that and so
this fatigue is real certainly and it
can create you know sense of not
worrying too much anymore but to be
vigilant I think was the idea of the
article and knew regardless of how you
feel about that or maybe it’s a spectrum
of how worried people are but I think
the fatigue is real and I heard from a
friend the analogy of if you have an
empty glass and that’s your kind of
emotional capacity or stress capacity
maybe for the day and normally you have
mostly an empty glass maybe a little bit
at the bottom depending on your season
of life or what’s going on and so you
would just slowly fill it up for the day
do different things come at you and
you’re dealing with it but you don’t
necessarily get up to the top or
overflow and so you don’t have these big
outbursts emotionally of anger or fear
or depression or annoyance or
exasperation whatever but the idea is
that in a pandemic that my friend shared
is just that you’re already
three-quarters or maybe all the way full
in your emotional capacity and stress
capacity glass because of what’s already
going on it feels like it’s in the
background but it’s still there in
affecting us whether we recognize it or
not and so you have a pandemic but on
top of that we have the unrest in our
city in our nation due to the killing of
George Floyd and it just highlights all
of the other unjust killings that have
happened and in the injustice is
systemically that are going on in the
protests associated with it so
these things just add up on top of each
other and so we start every day maybe
with a full glass in that emotional
capacity and so then a personal thing
happens or just little things throughout
the day can just make these outbursts in
our lives and so I think those are just
reality is the fatigue emotionally
spiritually even physically from the
current circumstances and and the
weariness and the caution fatigue that
can happen as we are months into a
pandemic and just experiencing a lot of
the challenges and for me when I was
starting the year in 2020 I wanted to
have kind of a reactionary move in my
devotional life so normally I might read
the Bible in a year and try to pray
everyday or do other spiritual
disciplines I like schedules and
rigorous processes and I like to push
myself in that time but I’ve also found
that I can tend to be legalistic I’m a
3:00 on the Enneagram I don’t nobody
anybody else but kind of like you know a
little bit driven maybe too much at
times and that can detract from the
purpose of a daily time with God which
is to meet with him to listen to him to
be relational to hear his word and
respond in prayer and experience him and
not just get things done or push through
a plan so I wanted to be a little
reactionary towards that this year and
try something different and so I decided
to read the Psalms in the in the Bible
for the whole year and that was it and
if I only get through 150 of them or
just all of them one a day or one every
two days fine one Psalm every day read
pray go slow
sometimes I’ve spent seven or eight days
on one Psalm because that’s just what I
feel like I needed to do it’s been so
good but I didn’t have any idea how
refreshing and helpful it would be in
when the pandemic head and all just the
challenges we’ve experienced God has
been so comforting to me through the
Psalms and particularly the language in
the Psalms that is of like lament or
crying out to God and desperation or
being thirsty and hungry for him or just
being weak and needy never really
connected with me before I always saw
like the promises of God and the bigness
of God in the Psalms as just the things
connected with more and prayed about but
in this season I’ve been clinging to
those cries for desperation and for God
to move and to act and relying on him
for his strength and his power because I
just feel tired and weak and and weary
very often and so that’s been really
special for me
in this time I didn’t realize how
Provident God would be that to provide
the Psalms because the Psalms themselves
are God’s prayer book for his people
that he’s provided over or thousands of
years for helping us to experience and
know him certainly but it expresses the
whole range of human emotion that we can
imagine any emotion that we’re
experiencing we can find a phrase or an
experience that one of the psalmist is
going through and is expressing in
prayer to God so it’s not just some
author but it’s actually the words of
God preserved for God’s people to relate
to him and to pray with him and
experience him and that’s been so good
for me and so I wanted to read just a
few verses from Psalm 62 that
illustrates some of this that’s been
really helpful for me so Psalm 62 verse
5 it says for God alone all my soul wait
in silence for my hope is in him he only
is my rock and my salvation my fortress
I shall not be shaken on God rests my
salvation and my glory my mighty rock my
refuge is God verse 8 trust in him at
all times
o people pour out your heart before him
God is a refuge for us that’s just been
so comforting to me that kind of idea
that God is a rock as a fortress as a
refuge and I could run to him and pour
out my heart before him and rely on him
and in any circumstance I can come to
him and trust him so that’s my
encouragement for you just as much as
for myself run to God’s Word even the
songs especially and pour out your heart
you will find a language there to
articulate your emotions and to know and
experience him may that be your
experience today I pray that for you
thanks very much