“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9) As humans, we are creatures of habit. However, with the monotony of repetitive activity our attention can wander off like a child chasing a fire fly. We easily become weary. Our imagination and dreams are filled with hopes of new things, new places, and new adventures.
Advertisements are built around our need for new adventures. Commercials constantly plant into our minds suggestions that we are missing out on the joy of life if we do not participate in whatever they are advertising. We are all like rats that are being led to a piece of cheese by the constant smell of perceived fulfillment.
The Lord warns us of becoming weary in doing “good things.” We look around at our generation and can easily see the weariness in people’s lives. The pull of new adventures has taken many adults by storm, living off of a constant need of vacations and beach trips, but failing to run to God for the weariness they feel deep down in their soul. Only Jesus can give rest to a weary soul. Do we need vacations and times of relaxation? YES! However, we must realize that without Jesus, vacations will only add more pressure on our lives and we’ll have to come back home to get rest!
Imagine a little boy using a bucket to fetch water from the pond in order to water his mother’s flowers. Imagine that his bucket has holes in it. As he reaches the flower bed, he has very little water to pour onto the flowers. This causes him more fatigue by having to go back and forth to the pond in order to keep his mother’s flowers alive. He doesn’t realize where the water is going, he just keeps working harder.
We all have leaky buckets. The demands of life pull on us constantly from various directions. We are sleep deprived, friendship deprived, joy deprived, but work exhausted. The harder we go to ‘water our flowers’ the more we leak. This cycle is aging us beyond our years, destroying our joy and making us weary. We may sing “It is well with my soul,” and smile like a mule eating saw briars. But we look like we have been slapped in the face with a dead rabbit.
Let us be thankful and enjoy our vacations. Most of us only get one per year. However, our buckets leak faster than that. Through faith and wisdom, let us cultivate our spiritual life by spending time with the Lord and in fellowship with other believers. We all need refreshing. We all need encouragement. We all need re-filling. Weariness will pull our soul down into the pit of depression and isolation. Through grace, we can avoid weariness and stay fresh in our walk with Christ. But we must first realize that we all have… Leaky Buckets!
