Recharging Your Batteries

Someone has said, “The thing about life is that it’s so daily.” There are times when we are just drained, when it’s hard to put one foot in front of the other, when we look down and wonder what’s making our shoes so heavy. Day to day, week to week, month to month, life has a way of wearing you down.

It can be worries about something that happened in the past, or something we should have done but didn’t, or maybe a worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow or next week.

For some of us, it’s people, somebody in our lives who’s wearing us out by what they do or what they won’t do. There are people that fill us up when we are around them, but there are others who drain every ounce of energy, tolerance, and compassion we have until we’re just finally bone dry. “You’re on my last nerve.”

For others of us, it’s the calendar and the to-do list. It just never ends. Every one of your teachers seems to think the only class you have is theirs and they keep piling on the homework and the projects. You don’t have any nights at home as it is and they want me to do one more thing. Not only do we get physically tired, but also mentally tired and emotionally tired.

I have a battery charger. I got tired of buying batteries for my digital camera which is really hard on batteries. We were in Washington, D. C. a couple of years ago and even though I had put in new batteries before we left that morning, right in the Smithsonian, probably taking a picture of Archie Bunker’s chair or Elvis’s guitar or something, my camera died. So that was that, and we were scurrying around the shops in Union Station looking for batteries, which, when we did find some, cost a fortune; I got the tourist rate! I thought, there’s got to be a better way.

So I got this battery charger which allows me to use the same batteries over and over and I always have a fresh set ready to go. Now if I can just figure out where my brain goes or my heart goes or my aching back goes, we’ll be just fine.

I think Paul has some things to say to those who need their batteries recharged. READ Ephesians 3.14-21.

1) When your batteries need recharging, recognize God’s unlimited resources.

Look at verse 16, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being…” When your get up and go has got up and went, when you are on your last legs, when you’re ready to fall in a heap, Paul directs us back to the source of your life.

I’ve been reading through the Book of Exodus in my devotions and just the other day I was reading about God calling Moses to go to Egypt and lead God’s people out of slavery. You may know the story and how Moses tries to get out of the assignment and tries to convince God that he’s got the wrong man, that the Egyptian Pharaoh won’t listen to little old him, that he’ll be laughed out of the Egyptian court, and that even the Israelites would just look at him and say, “Who do you think you are?”

In a way, Moses was right. Who was he after all to confront Pharaoh on his home court? Who are you and I? We don’t have all the smarts, all the talents, all the beauty, all the things, all the money, all the opportunities, all the right connections, or all the right friends. In the world’s eyes, in your own eyes, you might not be enough.

But God wasn’t just thinking about what Moses could do, but God was thinking about what he could do through Moses. It may be that you and I aren’t enough for a lot of things and in a lot of situations. But God doesn’t see it that way. From God’s point of view, you and God are always enough. Someone said, “Nothing is going to happen today that God and I can’t handle together.”

We look at a situation and say “I can’t.” “We could never do that. This is as good as it’s going to get.” “I’ve reached the limit. I can’t do anymore. I can’t go any further.”

But our God is not a small, tentative God tiptoeing around timidly, intimidated by the impossible. Our God is the God of the possible. Jesus said, “With men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” When we are tired and beaten down and drained is when we have to get our eyes off what we can do and dwell on what God can do.