Have you noticed how exhausted people are? Everybody wants more energy. Everybody wants the stamina to enjoy life and accomplish some things, but it seems to elude us.
So what’s to blame? Certainly our food is no longer pure,what with all the genetic engineering and toxic ingredients we’ve added to it.
But is that the only reason we’re tired? Is it all about what we are eating (or not eating)?
Sometimes addressing those issues can help — but there’s another causative factor at work which has less to do with our nutrition and more to do with our lifestyles in general.
Here’s my theory: we are tired because we were not wired to live at the pace our modern life demands.
When I was a kid, the TV changed to a test pattern in the night hours. Nothing was on. Now we have shows airing twenty-four hours a day.
Actually, my family didn’t even own a television until I was ten years old. I guess I just played or something. Weird.
When I was a kid, Sundays felt different than other days, too. Stores were closed. People spent time in each others’ homes after church.
Nowadays folks run errands and take care of business on Sundays, just like any other day. Everything is open.
We’ve become a twenty-four-seven society. We never stop anymore.
Our hours and days have blurred into an endless whirlwind of activity with no break in sight. Is it any wonder we’re exhausted?
Our family lived in Las Vegas for a while, back in the nineties. Other cities have clocks here and there, those lit-up ones like at banks and such.
Not in Vegas. Not a clock in sight.
If you go into the casinos, you lose track of time entirely, enveloped in an artificial twilight glow no matter what hour of day or night.
I figure the casino owners hope to keep their numbed prey inside the doors as long as possible, mindlessly inserting coins and hoping in vain for the big jackpot that would change their life.
There are other ways to be mindlessly busy. Social media. On line shopping.
I used to be more restful in the evenings. Now I think, Hey, I should order that thing on Amazon real quick.
And I can. At 10 p.m. Only it’s not always “real quick,” because of all the other distractions while I’m at it. I’ll just check Facebook … I wonder if I got that email…
We dink around, allowing our energy to be squandered on little tasks and trivial desires, tantalized by the brain candy of clicks and rapid information.
And we’re tired. Not only tired, but scattered. We’ve become shallow thinkers. Attention-deficit. Agitated.
Small wonder that God includes Sabbath-keeping in the ten commandments — that some of his most stringent warnings as well as his biggest promises have to do with keeping this law.
When we stop to rest, we acknowledge our limitations. We submit to the one who wired us. We are saying, “There’s only one Creator, and I am not him.”
“If you watch your step on the Sabbath and don’t use my holy day for personal advantage, if you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy, God’s holy day as a celebration, if you honor it by refusing ‘business as usual,’ making money, running here and there— then you’ll be free to enjoy God! Oh, I’ll make you ride high and soar above it all.” –Isaiah 58:13-14
Let’s stop the craziness. Let’s create fresh boundaries instead of ceaselessly working and consuming and watching drivel on bright screens.
I’m ready to soar above it all. You?
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