Has there ever been a time when the gauge on your spiritual gas tank was sitting on empty? Has the fire of joy and peace that once burned within your soul dwindled to just an ember? As the common expression puts it, “Has your get-up-and-go got-up-and-went?” If so, you are not alone. In fact, you are in some very good company. Some of the leading personalities in Bible and throughout history have experienced the same weariness and loss of zeal.
King David cried out in moments of serious inflection, “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation” (Psalm 51:11-12).
King Solomon said, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12).
Job lamented, “May the day perish on which I was born, and the night in which it was said, ‘A male child is conceived’” (Job 3:3).
Old Testament character Moses cried out to God when he was trying to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land, “I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. If you treat me like this, please kill me here and now” (Numbers 11:14-15). History’s greatest Christian missionary Paul explained to Christians in the city of Corinth, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure above strength, so that we despaired even of life (2 Corinthians 1:8).
What is the source of spiritual weariness? Often spiritual weariness robs our days of joy because we have unconfessed and unrepented sin in our lives. We also become weary when we become slack in our worship attendance, when we forget to spend regular time reading God’s Word and in prayer, or as someone once expressed it, “We are not prayed up to date.” Do you have unconfessed sin in your life weighing you down and robbing you of joy?
We grow spiritually weary when we lead hurried lives. We become so busy in our vocations and in multitudes of other activities that we have less and less time to spend in private devotions. Every Christian needs times of spiritual rejuvenation. It is easy to become like the bottom of a soft drink sucked dry through a straw. God through His Word tells us to, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Can any of us honestly say, “I simply do not have any time to rest in the arms of a loving God?”
Ultimately we learn that the reason for having an empty spiritual gas tank is that we have taken our eyes off our Savior and Lord. Like Simon Peter who wanted to walk out on the Sea of Galilee toward Jesus and began to sink when he took his eyes off Jesus, the same can happen to any Christian who takes his or her eyes off Jesus. When we focus on our problems rather than on the Problem Solver we lose sight of our available resources. Weariness sets in and blessings are turned into burdens.
Do you need to refocus your sights on the Savior again? Is your spiritual gas tank sitting dangerously close to empty? Would you like to once again return to prior days when your relationship with Christ filled every day with a sense of joy and achievement? Just as Olympic weight lifters need the right food and exercise to build strength, Christians grow by taking in the spiritual food of God’s Word, by spending time in prayer, and by setting aside consistent times for fellowship with the Lord.
If you are not as close to God as you once were, guess who moved.
The Paper Pulpit 
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