Avoid Premature Rest

Intimacy with God, as I hope you learn from this message, is the secret to the sustained strength required for total recovery of all that you’ve lost in life.

“David and the six hundred men with him came to the Besor Ravine, where some stayed behind, for two hundred men were too exhausted to cross the ravine. But David and four hundred men continued the pursuit.”
~
1 Samuel 30:9-10

As we see in the case of David, to recover all, you will need sustained pursuit and battle. You will need to go after your enemy in spite of your physical exhaustion.

Tiredness is a destiny-destroyer

One of the greatest enemies of progress in destiny is tiredness. Tiredness is a cankerworm that can steal all your years. In order to fulfill your destiny in good time, you must learn to function above tiredness.

If you are to recover all that satan has stolen from you, like David you will definitely need to fight from dusk until until the evening of the next day — and probably more.

“David fought them from dusk until the evening of the next day, and none of them got away, except four hundred young men who rode off on camels and fled. David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives.”
~1 Samuel 30:17-18

If you succumb to tiredness and rest prematurely, the enemy will escape with your stuff.

Tiredness is a function of your human strength

In terms of physical energy, the human being functions somewhat like a laptop battery. As long as the laptop is plugged to a power source, it will keep working because it’s not using it’s battery. But when it is unplugged from a power source, the battery begins to discharge and the laptop will eventually  shut down.

Like a laptop, you have your own internal batteries; your human strength. It is finite. It can be exhausted – and that’s what tiredness is all about: the exhaustion of your human strength. Tiredness means that you have reached the limits of your human strength. But, it also indicates that you’ve been running solely on that human strength; because, if not, it shouldn’t have been exhausted.

Just as the laptop battery discharges because it is unplugged from the power source, you get tired because you are unplugged from God. In other words, tiredness simply exposes the fact that you have been walking in the flesh. The spirit is eternal and doesn’t know tiredness.

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak”.
~Matthew 26:41

Had the laptop been connected to a power source, it would have been using that power rather than it’s own battery, thus leaving it’s battery fully charged regardless of the load. Whenever you are tired, it means that you’ve been operating solely in the realm of the flesh and senses.

Tiredness is not a call to rest. It is a call to seek the strength of the Lord.

Your human strength is finite, but like the laptop battery, it is also renewable. Tiredness is just a strength-level indicator. It doesn’t mean you should quit. Do you cancel the trip because your car has run out of fuel? Tiredness is a call to plug to a higher strength and renew your own strength.

“Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
~Isaiah 40:30-31

Your human strength may not be enough

“If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength!”
~Proverbs 24:10

Times of trouble may refer to several forms of difficulties, challenges that you will encounter as a normal feature of life. It may refer to unforeseen problems and obstacles that sneak up on you when you least expect them. Most significantly, however, times of trouble could refer to divine opportunities that come your way. Opportunities usually appear as difficult problems.

Times of trouble are tough. They can weary you and stop your momentum and progress. But their ability to weary you is not due to their intensity or ferocity, but rather due to your strength–due to you depending only on your finite and exhaustible human strength.

Like God, rest after – not before – you finish

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”
~Genesis 2:2

Don’t allow tiredness determine when you rest. You are much more than a mere human being. You have the life of God within you. You must learn to plug into this power continuously to take you beyond your own human strength. Your life’s assignment from God demands relentless pursuit. Rest is – but not always – good. If you have finished the task at hand, then rest; if not, plug into God for renewal.

Premature rest is when you rest before accomplishing your objectives. Rest must come to you as a gift from God, otherwise it is premature.

God gives sleep to those He loves; that is, those who are intimately connected to Him. When you are plugged into God, you are no longer functioning in your own strength. Like the laptop battery, you are at rest, while the power source does all the work.

Avoid premature rest in the following areas

“I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.”
~Isaiah 62:6-7

Praying.(Isaiah 62:6,7; Luke 18:1)

Giving. (Eccl 11:6; Galatians 6:9)

Working. (John 4:34; 5:17)