Are you tired?  Maybe not everyday but somedays?  

I am. Sometimes I can’t even pinpoint exactly why or what’s making me tired. 

I just will sense a heaviness on my shoulders, in my heart, in my nation and world. 

It’s okay to admit that sometimes we get tired, physically, emotionally and even spiritually.  Having moments of exhaustion doesn’t mean we are weak or lack faith. 

In the times we live in, sometimes we just want to stay in bed with a bag of cookies and wait on the madness to pass.

We log on to social media or catch the evening news and be inundated with numbers, hate, pettiness, panic, disease and cruelty being flaunted in our faces almost with an air of pleasure. That would exhaust even the strongest Christian!

Apparently this is nothing new to God.  He knew heaviness would come to all of us and we would need an available antidote when it does. 

So He created a special concoction:  

“(the oil) of joy instead of mourning; (the garment) of praise instead of heaviness. For God has planted them like strong and graceful oaks for His own glory.” Is 61:3 

Here is where we have a choice to make. We can either hold on to our mourning and heaviness or swap them out for joy and praise. 

Joy and happiness are not the same.

Joy can thrive even in the worst of circumstances. Happiness requires the best of circumstances to function.   Joy is constant while happiness is conditional. 

While I don’t know what if anything maybe making you tired today I do know you can exchange it for joy and praise. 

You might be suffering physically in your body or emotionally from fear, grief, loss, worry, discouragement or depression.

Or perhaps you’re mourning the loss of the way things were before Covid or feel the heaviness as we watch evil run rampant in society. 

If so, would you be interesting in trading them in with God? 

Here is the deal. He heals your weary heart by pouring on the hydrating, soothing, oil of joy over you.

Then He removes the heaviness you’ve been carrying for months or even years and gives you a robe of praise.

One thing I know for sure is that praising God will always make you feel better, physically and emotionally.

Offering genuine compliments to your Creator for His faithfulness, forgiveness and daily renewed mercy invites Him into your space and you into His. 

The oil revives the spirit, the praise resets the mind and revitalizes the body.  So “instead of” mourning and heaviness we swap them both today for “joy” and “praise.”

I feel lighter already!  

Sandra Hubbard