The Blessings of Fatigue

On the run from his brother, exhausted Jacob falls asleep under the stars and has a dream of the bless­ings he will receive. Eli­jah flees to the Moun­tain of God, emo­tion­ally and spir­i­tu­ally drained. There he recov­ers, hears God in a quiet voice, and receives his new com­mis­sion. Jesus, in a deep sleep from a truly frus­trat­ing day, is awak­ened to calm the storm that ter­ri­fied his disciples.

Jesus could have added another Beat­i­tude: Blessed are the spent, for they are open to new poten­tials. Fatigue brings hid­den bless­ings, but you are too tired to see them — at least at first. There is some­thing about being worn out that brings one to the thresh­old of great pos­si­bil­i­ties. At first you do not see them. You are only focused on get­ting some rest. The best dreams are when you sleep so deeply that your dreams become visions. You also dis­cover your phys­i­cal and emo­tional lim­i­ta­tions, but those set the hum­ble stage for God to act through you.

The human ego takes a lot of energy. When those ener­gies are spent, there is noth­ing left but crea­ture and Cre­ator. You have your­self out of the way. Now you can see the won­ders of cre­ation and your own fool­ish­ness. You crawl down from your pedestal and put your toes back in the dirt. You are grounded in real­ity again. The warm earth is far more com­fort­ing than the cold mar­ble of pride.

Fatigue makes you effi­cient. You no longer have the energy for triv­ial pur­suits, so you focus on what is truly impor­tant. In those moments, you promise your­self to get a bet­ter han­dle on life. Exhaus­tion is a great instruc­tor and the inspi­ra­tion of sim­plic­ity. That is when you are most able to toss things in the trash, give things away, and can­cel mean­ing­less appoint­ments. Congratulations! Paradoxically, you have got­ten to the heart of the mat­ter by being too tired to take the next step.