The Weight Of Weariness

It is good for us to feel the weight of weariness. 

It is good for us to become weary of our many books and many voices. Even books and voices that speak of Christ. For not all who write and speak of Christ have the substance of Christ within. Many of us sit at the table of the Lord and pass around the wrappers. We pass the empty boxes and wrappers around the table. We share the outward package, but when we look inside for food, it is empty. But we just keep passing it around because it’s either the only thing we know to do, or it’s the closest thing we have to the food that’s supposed to be inside. We sit at the table of the Lord and starve because no one knows how to get food, they only know how to pass around empty wrappers and boxes. 

So, to teach us how to get food, and to keep us coming to Him alone for food, the Lord allows us to feel the crushing weight of weariness. He allows us to become weary of the packaging. He exacerbates our thirst and hunger so that we may, through our frustration, realize that packaging is not food. Secondhand relationships with Christ (knowing Christ through others’ relationships with Him), may edify and encourage, but they will not ultimately feed. Our Lord plainly told us, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst.” 

And I will share with you another wise thing of the Lord. Those who are not empty wrappers and boxes may minister for a time, but then the Lord will call them away. Those who do know how to get food, and those who do pass bread and not empty wrappers around the table, will be called to step back. The Lord will do this because, while His children are called to share Him amongst themselves, they should never become the source for each other. It is a spiritually treacherous thing for one who has food to become the source of food, rather than the Lord. This is a very delicate balance one must learn to tread— to minister true food to the Lord’s children, while at the same time, not becoming their source for food. Should we ever begin to become the source and not obey Him when He says to step back, He will make us an empty wrapper. 

Jesus, seeing the hungry masses, asked Philip, “Where are we to buy bread so that these may eat?” Scripture says that Jesus asked Philip this question to test him, because Jesus already knew what He was planning to do. Philip confessed that even if they bought two hundred days wages worth of bread, what they had to offer “is not sufficient for them.” We don’t possess the amount of bread needed, Lord. Then Andrew mentioned a boy who had a few loaves and fishes. It was all they had, and they placed it into the hands of the Lord, and then the Lord Himself “distributed to those who were seated…as much as they wanted.”

In this great feeding of the hungry masses, the only two things Jesus asked His disciples to do was, “Have the people sit down,” and “Gather up the leftover fragments so that nothing will be lost.” The people were hungry, but the disciples both realized and confessed that they could not feed them, that what they had was insufficient. But they gave what little they had to the Lord. They put it in His hands, so that the Lord Himself would be both source and distributor. 

“…and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barely loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.”