The Good News For Tired People

Sometimes, we are just tired. Not even the kind of tired that can be fixed with a good night’s sleep. The kind of tired that actually pulls away at your ability to sleep. It can slip into your bloodstream through the constant bad-news cycles we are subjected to seeing. It can slip in through that problem or person at work that just won’t give you a break for months. The constant and chronic pecking of a chronic illness, depression, or anxiety eventually breaks through the skin.

Why do I still have to deal with __? Sometimes we may feel strong enough to carry some burdens forever. Sometimes the smallest thing gets to us and we don’t want to handle it another second.

Sometimes the straw does break the camel’s back. Sometimes the dam does break with that tiny drop of water, and we realize that we are well past exhausted.

When we are that sort of tired, it can be difficult to find words to pray. It may be even harder to find the mind to say them. It may be most difficult to believe that the words are heard and answered.

Thankfully our God repeatedly tells us in His Word that He hears His people, He knows their sorrows, and He cares about them. There’s too many Psalms to list here that say these exact truths.

However, over all these verses, there is normally one piece of good news that most powerfully resets me to get the rest I need.

Jesus Is Emmanuel

Jesus is Emmanuel. This is the good news for the tired, strung-out, restless soul.

Emmanuel means “God with us.” And that title is a miracle. And that miracle is who Jesus is. Jesus put on flesh and came to dwell. He didn’t just dwell among us in some otherworldly form, He dwelt among us in worldly form, which is far more marvelous than simply coming near without being near. Jesus Christ came near and became near in the incarnation.

This is the beautiful meaning of Emmanuel. Jesus has walked this Earth, the one we walk. He has bruised His toe, just as we have. He has had to learn to read and to work. He has had joyful mornings and sleepless nights. He has had the beauty of a full family meal and the lonely sorrow of losing loved ones—seeing their empty seats around that same table. 

He has suffered because of other people’s sins. He has been spoken ill against. Jesus has fought against worry and the temptations of the enemy to despair, doubt, and lose ourselves in fear. He knows what it means to have concerns gnaw at the back of your mind—He probably knows what it means to have far more concerns and far more important concerns to be there. He actually came and lived among us as one of us for 30 and some years. 

Amazingly, He did it perfectly. Zero sin. He did it perfectly because you and I can’t.

Though He had (and has) every ounce of eternal power available to Him, He came to suffer in the truest sense. He doesn’t know pain, sorrow, suffering, work, struggle, despair, or fear as someone who always escapes in the moment right before it gets tough. He doesn’t know what it means to be worn thin because He read about it in a book. He knows these things because He has gone all the way through it—and even more than we can imagine, no matter how deep our sufferings might be.

He bore the eternal, infinite, immense, immeasurable weight of sin and sorrow on Himself—on His real body—during His real life on this Earth and death on that cross. 

And so, when we are despairing, He knows. 

When we are tired. He knows.

We all know the encouragement that comes when a good friend is simply near us in our trials—just in the same room. They don’t have to say a word. Just their presence means something.

So for us, when we are tired, may we remember that Jesus is with us. He has walked the path before us and walks it along with us. Tired Christian, Jesus is with you.

His compassion is infinite, immediate, and immeasurable. His presence with God’s children is so beautiful that we can be said to be “hidden in Christ,” and “Christ in us!”

So, bring your tiredness to Jesus. He knows. And He has promised rest.

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