There is a weariness of heart that goes so deep, it puts us in danger of losing our souls. There is an exhaustion of the soul that goes so far inside us that, if someone does not do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, we wiII be lost in despair. There is a weariness of heart, an exhaustion of the soul.
All of us have heard of people who refuse to pray until they get so desperate that prayer is the only thing left. All of us have seen that some folks treat God as if He were the answer of last resort; folks who wait until their last dollar is gone and they are about to be evicted before they think to ask the Lord for any help. Folks who fight and squabble and let things come to a boil before they invite Christ to reconcile. You’ve known them and so have I.
But I want today to suggest that there is another and a deeper issue. There is another spiritual disease that is even more deadly. There is a weariness of heart that goes so deep, it puts us in danger of losing our souls, because our very weariness makes prayer seem useless. There is an exhaustion of the soul that goes so far inside us that, if someone does not do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, we will be lost in despair. We will be too weary to get out. To put it in a nutshell, it’s possible to be "too pooped to pray." Too pooped to pray.
I
Two men and a boy made their way to the city’s edge one day. The two men were very different. One of them was quite young, only twenty years old, but with an awesome responsibility. His personality drove to be an achiever. But it also drove him to frustration. He was the kind of person who had to do everything himself, he had to be in charge. And it was killing him. It was destroying him spiritually and emotionally. He was on the verge of exhaustion, too pooped to pray.
The other man was more mature. He’d been around for a while, he’d seen a few things. Holding his small son’s hand, he walked alongside the younger man and tried to encourage him. He tried to speak about the long look. Don’t worry about today’s problems, he said. They are going to go away. Bad as it may look, just stay the course, wait. Don’t do anything rash, don’t make any foolish moves, just wait.
The year was 735 before Christ. The younger man was Ahaz, King of Judah. He had come to the throne in Jerusalem at a very awkward time. His grandfather, Uzziah, had reigned for forty years, and so great was Uzziah’s statesmanship, so formidable his reputation, that all the rival powers just left him alone. But when Uzziah died, other nations began to buzz like bees in a bonnet, and trouble appeared on the horizon. Uzziah’s son Jotham had held them off for a while, but death cut his reign short. So Jotham’s twenty-year old son, Ahaz, came to power just as, far to the north, the Assyrian Empire was asserting itself. Nearer at hand, the kingdoms of Syria and Israel were forming an alliance to resist Assyria. These small kingdoms, Syria and Israel, wanted Judah to join them against the imperial power. King Jotham, and King Uzziah before him, had worried about Egypt to the south, and they realized that any such alliance might leave them open to attack from that direction. So they had pursued a policy of neutrality. They had stayed out of the fight.
One of the main reasons they had stayed out of the fight was the other man standing on the city’s edge that day. The prophet Isaiah had preached for a long time that Judah should stay out of entangling alliances. Isaiah had argued forcefully that God would intervene, God would protect the descendants of David, God was their hope. Isaiah’s preaching had kept Judah from a destructive alliance. So far, so good.
But now, these two men had gone together to the water supply to check it out, because the armies of Israel and Syria were right outside the city walls, and young Ahaz was not so sure about Isaiah’s preaching. King Ahaz could stand on the heights and look out over the valley and see those armies camped out there. That looked a whole lot more real to him than Isaiah’s word that
therefore thus says the Lord GOD: It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass.
Ahaz wasn’t that sure. Ahaz was afraid. Ahaz was frustrated, Ahaz was tired, Ahaz was on the point of exhaustion. So Isaiah offered one more opportunity.
Before it is too late, Ahaz, before you do something foolish, try this:
Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.
Ask a sign. Go ahead. Pray. Ask for whatever you want. Make it tough, but just ask. God wants to show you that he hears you. Pray, Ahaz.
Do you know what the king said? Can you understand why he said it?
But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.
I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. Why? Why did Ahaz refuse to pray, when he was in desperate circumstances? I suggest again that there is a weariness of heart that goes so deep, it puts us in danger of losing our souls. And there is an exhaustion of the soul that goes so far inside us that, if someone does not do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, we will be lost in despair. A weariness of heart, an exhaustion of the soul. In a word, Ahaz was now too pooped to pray!
Look with me for a few moments at what weariness does. Let’s examine what goes on with spiritual exhaustion, what happens when we are too pooped to pray.
II
a
First, notice that weary people, people who are too pooped to pray, have not come to terms with their control issues. People who are too pooped to pray get that way because deep down they believe that they are the only ones who can make a difference, and they just can’t let go and let God do what God does. They are control freaks.
Did you notice how God directed the prophet Isaiah? God told Isaiah that he would need to go out and find the young king in a peculiar place. Not in the palace, planning strategy; not among the troops, lifting morale; certainly not at the Temple, offering prayer. No, God said to Isaiah:
Go out to meet Ahaz ... at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, and say to him, Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint.
Anything about that strike you as peculiar? Anything odd here? The king is out doing what? Inspecting the plumbing! The head of state is worrying about the water supply. No doubt he had a public works department, but he had to be out there himself. Micro-managing. Staying busy. Looking like he was on top of things. Controlling.
Ahaz is on a destructive course. He thinks he has to do everything. He thinks that God helps only those who help themselves. Ahaz has to be in charge, Ahaz has to manage it all, even the plumbing. He cannot trust others to do their jobs, nor can he trust God to be God. When you are too pooped to pray, it is because you have a need to be doing something, anything. We exhaust our spiritual and emotional resources in our need to stay on top of things that are too slippery to hold on to and too big to hold back. But we keep on trying. Isaiah, say to us too, "Be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint."!
Oh, I know what I am talking about. My name might just as well be Ahaz. If there is something that needs doing, I think I ought to do it. If somebody points out something that’s not quite up to par about our church, I start beating my breast and confessing that I just haven’t worked hard enough yet. Like Ahaz, I live with the illusion that if I just had twenty-six hours a day and eight days in every week and didn’t need any sleep, everything would be all right. Folks, that is a formula for exhaustion, that is a prescription for weariness. That is one step removed from being too pooped to pray.
Watch out for those control issues. If you need to be in charge, you are on your way to being too pooped to pray. You’re on your way to spiritual exhaustion. Sometimes God says, "Don’t do something. Just stand there." Or else you will be too pooped to pray.
b
Second, notice that weary people, people who are too pooped to pray compromise good sense and moral principle in order to save themselves. People who are too pooped to pray, who get spiritually reamed out and emotionally frazzled, are apt to do something rash. They are likely to do something wrong in order to express their frustrations.
Did you notice the mention of children in this passage of Scripture? Isaiah takes his own child with him. God says to the prophet, when you go to see the king, take the boy with you. And then the prophet’s promise, that God will give a sign and the sign will be a new-born infant. Children figure in to God’s word for this world-weary man. Why?
Because, when we read about Ahaz over in the Second Book of Kings, we learn that he had tried child sacrifice! In his desperation, trying to drive back the enemy forces, Ahaz had given up good sense and moral commitment and had fallen for the bloodthirsty practices of pagan religion. He had sacrificed his own child in a desperate, futile gesture. Ahaz was so world-weary, so spiritually exhausted that he was desperate. But instead of turning in faith to the God of truth, the Lord of mercy; instead of listening to God’s prophet and hearing God’s word, Ahaz threw all caution to the winds and tried something destructive and cruel. That’s where you go when you are too pooped to pray. When you are too pooped to pray you will take leave of good sense and moral principle.
I’m sure that you have joined in the sadness this week as we heard the news about the three teenage girls in Kentucky, gunned down as they prayed in their high school’s hallway. There is a great deal we do not know about this. We only know that there was a young man, 14 years old, who had been taught the Christian faith, who had in fact professed his faith not long ago. But he exploded in an incredibly awful frenzy. We don’t know all the reasons for it. But is it possible that he, like Ahaz, felt the weight of the world all alone? Is it possible that he, like the king of Judah, had gotten so exhausted, so worn out, so spiritually depleted, that he did something completely destructive? I don’t know. Maybe we will never know. But this I must say: if you feel as though you are just about to explode; if you think that unless something happens, you just may do something drastic; if you sense tensions building in you that might take you to a dangerous place, please tell somebody. Please look around for an Isaiah, who can speak God’s word to you. Please look at your elbow for somebody who loves you and cares about you and can help you. Do not, oh, please do not, allow your weariness to build so much that it becomes intolerable. Do not, please, do not, become too pooped to pray. People who are too pooped to pray are apt to do something rash, something that can never be made right. Get some help before that happens, if you are too pooped to pray.
III
Now the glory of this story is that God does give us a sign of His presence, even when we do not ask for it. The good news in this story is that even though Ahaz was too pooped to pray, too exhausted to trust God, still God, out of sheer love, gave the gift of His presence. Hear this great news:
Then Isaiah said: "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
Immanuel. God with us. Even when we are at our wit’s end, too pooped to pray, God comes, the Word made flesh, and dwells among us, full of grace and truth.
Though we are too exhausted to ask for Him, still Jesus Christ comes into our dismal lives and brings hope. Though we are too drained even to dare to ask for anything, a star shines and hope is born. Though we have thrown away everything valuable and are on the verge of giving it all up, listen: The cry of an infant in a stable says, “Wait, wait". It’s not over ’til it’s over. Immanuel. God with us.
If you are among those who are too pooped to pray, hear the good news. That when it looks as though everything is impossible, God shows us a new possibility. That when success seems utterly improbable, God gives us a sign of His power. That when everything is out of order, God gives us the gift of a perfect new life. That when out of our weariness we are tempted to run off from God and leave Him in the shadows, He will not let us go and He gives us Immanuel, God with us.
Are you weary this morning, so very weary that you cannot even bring yourself to pray? Then hear God’s promise, meant for you:
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Good news! Immanuel. On Friday afternoon, I was driving back into Maryland from Tyson’s Corner, on my way to conduct a wedding rehearsal in Potomac. I was very proud of the way I had carefully planned my schedule and worked everybody else around to make things fit. I was on my way, fat and sassy, in charge of my Iife. But a loud noise out on the Beltway bridge changed all that. My right rear tire had blown out, and all I could do was limp to the side of the road and climb slowly up the ramp. I began to get anxious. I was going to be late. But I knew I could manage. I just knew I could.
I opened the trunk to get out my temporary tire, and the wingnut, never having been turned in the nine years I’ve had that car, would not budge. I could not get the tire out. I was now beginning to get more than anxious. I think I was now up to "upset".
I crossed River Road to a garden shop, with two goals in mind: to call the restaurant where I was supposed to be going in order to leave a message, and to borrow some kind of tool with which I could move that jammed wingnut. First I made the calf,--and got somebody with a thick accent, who did not seem to understand who I was or what my problem was, and who informed me that nobody from the wedding party was there, but he would deliver the message. I really didn’t trust him, because he didn’t sound all that clear; I really wanted to talk to the bride or the groom myself. But sometimes you just can’t micro-
manage, you see. I had to trust him. It did make me feel weary, however.
They gave me a hammer, and I went back across the road to work on my car. A few taps should free up that wingnut. Not! I hit it harder and harder, more and more, getting colder and more worried and more weary. Guess what I finally did?! I purposely broke off the bolt! I destroyed that bolt in an attempt to get the tire out! For, you see, when things get urgent, we are likely to do something destructive! We are likely to try to force things!
Eventually I did get the tire, I put it on the car, and, ignoring the instructions about driving slowly on that little doughnut, I raced to the wedding rehearsal, stumbled into the building, and said something about a place to wash my hands. Do you know what the groom said? "Oh, we got your message. We’ve done our own rehearsal. We’ll be just fine. All you need to do is say the prayer tomorrow."
The prayer? The prayer. In my anxiety and hurry, in my rush and my worry, I had become too pooped to pray.
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Come today to the table of nourishment, and draw strength. Come today to the font of refreshment, and be replenished.
"All ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing; 0 rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing."
