Tired All The Time

[00:00:19] Welcome to Become A Competent Biblical Counselor. I'm Dr. Dave Jones and today's episode is entitled, Tired All The Time.

[00:00:30] Yeah, have you felt that? Have you said that? So, good morning and you say, good morning. So, what's so good about it?

[00:00:38] Here it is, not even 10 o'clock this morning and I'm already tired. I'm tired all the time. I don't know what's wrong with me.

[00:00:45] I get up in the morning. I'm tired. I go to bed at night. I'm tired. Halfway in between the day, I can hardly get along.

[00:00:54] I think I'm not going to make it. I'm tired, tired all the time and yet I don't do anything to make myself tired.

[00:01:02] I try to pace myself. I try to take it easy. I even take naps and yet I'm tired, tired, tired, tired, tired.

[00:01:10] I'll tell you, I'm tired of being tired. What can I do about it?

[00:01:14] Well, that's a complaint I hear from time to time and I'm sure that you do too.

[00:01:21] So, it's a complaint that a physician hears down at his office all the time too.

[00:01:26] There are a lot of tired people around. Maybe you're one of them.

[00:01:30] You say, okay, I'm going to settle back in the chair and listen to this one because that sure is my problem.

[00:01:38] I'm tired of being tired.

[00:01:42] Now, so what is your problem?

[00:01:44] Well, of course it's impossible to say with such meager data as I have about you.

[00:01:50] In fact, I don't know anything about you except what the Bible has to say about you.

[00:01:55] So, I'm not really sure about you particularly and I may not be speaking to your particular problem.

[00:02:02] It is possible that you have some kind of physical or organic ailment that will require the services of a physician.

[00:02:12] And so, I suggest to anybody who's tired all the time, first to go and have it checked out with a good physician.

[00:02:20] Get a good medical checkup to be sure that you've eliminated any and all organic causes of that tiredness.

[00:02:29] But as a couple of my good friends who are physicians tell me,

[00:02:32] almost every person who comes in who's chronically tired has no organic problem.

[00:02:39] He really has a problem that stems from the way that he's been living,

[00:02:43] the kind of attitudes and the kind of behavior that he's been engaging in day by day.

[00:02:49] And so, let's assume now, eliminating these people who might have medical, organic, physical problems that need medical treatment.

[00:02:58] Let's assume you've been to that checkup and the physician says to you,

[00:03:03] you're okay physically.

[00:03:06] It's not going to take more vitamins.

[00:03:08] It's not going to take more iron.

[00:03:11] It's not going to take more minerals or more chemicals to make you better.

[00:03:14] It's going to take a different kind of lifestyle to make you feel better.

[00:03:20] Well, let's think about it.

[00:03:22] The first and most obvious thing which we often miss if we're tired all the time is,

[00:03:28] are you getting enough sleep?

[00:03:31] You know, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

[00:03:34] The Holy Spirit dwells within every believer.

[00:03:38] If you have not the Spirit of Christ, says Paul in Romans 8,

[00:03:42] you don't belong to Him.

[00:03:43] You're not His.

[00:03:45] And over in 1 Corinthians 6.19, he says,

[00:03:48] Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,

[00:03:54] whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

[00:03:58] You have been bought with a price.

[00:04:00] Therefore, glorify God in your body.

[00:04:05] Now, this body of yours requires sleep.

[00:04:08] The Bible talks about sleep.

[00:04:10] It talks about taking care of the body,

[00:04:12] and one of the ways to take care of that body is to get adequate sleep.

[00:04:18] There are many Christian workers who are very faithful people to God

[00:04:22] who want to do God's work, but who push their body beyond its limits.

[00:04:27] God has built in a certain reserve for the body,

[00:04:29] but day after day and week after week, that reserve is depleted,

[00:04:34] and Christians live on the thin edge sometimes of being,

[00:04:38] of the body being completely broken down by the failure to rest it

[00:04:43] and give it its required restoration period of time each night.

[00:04:48] Maybe it's just your patterns of living, which are so irregular,

[00:04:52] so that you don't even know how much sleep you get.

[00:04:56] Recently, some studies were made that showed that people who thought

[00:05:00] they could get along with less than eight hours of sleep

[00:05:03] really weren't as effective as they thought they were.

[00:05:07] If you want your body to be as keen as it can be for Jesus Christ,

[00:05:12] give it adequate sleep regularly.

[00:05:16] There are a lot of people who say,

[00:05:17] oh, I can get along with four hours sleep a night,

[00:05:20] or six hours sleep a night,

[00:05:23] or six and a half or seven,

[00:05:24] but they go week after week and year after year that way,

[00:05:29] and suddenly they are always tired.

[00:05:32] And the reason for this is simply because they are not getting enough sleep.

[00:05:37] I want to warn you,

[00:05:38] if you are irregular in your sleep habits,

[00:05:41] or if you're not getting adequate sleep regularly as a pattern of sleep habits,

[00:05:45] you need to change.

[00:05:48] A lot of people tell me,

[00:05:49] oh, I'm a night person.

[00:05:51] I have to stay up.

[00:05:52] That's just the way I am.

[00:05:53] I can't change.

[00:05:56] Come on, get off of it.

[00:05:57] Listen, your body can change very, very quickly.

[00:06:01] It can change its whole sleeping, eating,

[00:06:04] every kind of pattern in about two or three days perfectly.

[00:06:07] You say, I don't believe it.

[00:06:10] Well, then you just get yourself on a jet and fly to Europe.

[00:06:13] It just takes two or three days after a five-hour change,

[00:06:17] and all of your patterns of living,

[00:06:19] you're eating, you're sleeping, everything else.

[00:06:21] It just takes about two or three days,

[00:06:23] and your whole body adjusts.

[00:06:26] And everybody who has flown the Atlantic,

[00:06:28] that's exactly what I'm talking about.

[00:06:30] So you see, you can't tell me that you can't change.

[00:06:34] You can't tell me your sleep habits can't be different,

[00:06:36] because God says you can take care of your body,

[00:06:40] and you must take care of that body.

[00:06:43] And the facts are that the body does adapt very rapidly.

[00:06:48] Indeed, if you start giving your body adequate sleep

[00:06:51] for a long enough period of time for it to make its changes,

[00:06:54] you're going to feel differently,

[00:06:56] and you're going to serve Christ differently, too.

[00:06:59] But now, suppose you're getting adequate sleep.

[00:07:02] Suppose you're getting eight hours a night,

[00:07:05] and you still are tired all of the time.

[00:07:08] Even wake up tired.

[00:07:09] Maybe your problem is tension.

[00:07:12] Maybe that's your difficulty.

[00:07:13] You say, tension.

[00:07:15] Yes, tension.

[00:07:17] Nerves?

[00:07:17] Yeah.

[00:07:18] Nerves, too.

[00:07:19] Although that isn't exactly the precise way of looking at it.

[00:07:23] Well, you say, I live in a tense world.

[00:07:25] I live in a tense situation.

[00:07:28] My home is a tense place.

[00:07:30] My office is a tense place.

[00:07:32] No, you're wrong.

[00:07:33] You don't.

[00:07:34] The world is not tense.

[00:07:36] The home is not tense.

[00:07:39] The office is not tense.

[00:07:41] The tension is not in places.

[00:07:43] It's in people.

[00:07:45] It's not between people.

[00:07:46] You know, we talk about, well, there's a lot of tension between Joe and Mary.

[00:07:51] No, there's no tension between them.

[00:07:54] There is only tension in people because tension is in muscles.

[00:07:58] And muscles are in people.

[00:07:59] It's muscles that become tense.

[00:08:03] And what makes muscles tense?

[00:08:05] Well, the failure to put one's faith fully and completely in God in the difficult situations

[00:08:12] of life and the failure to follow his word.

[00:08:15] There are a lot of people who say, well, I haven't done anything to make myself tired.

[00:08:27] I haven't gone out and worked hard.

[00:08:29] I haven't gone out and worked hard all day.

[00:08:30] They don't realize they've been working harder than if they went out and dug a ditch

[00:08:35] all day long for eight hours.

[00:08:36] You work very hard when day and night you keep your muscles tense all the time.

[00:08:43] Your muscles should relax.

[00:08:45] Your muscles should relax.

[00:08:46] But there are a lot of people whose facial muscles are tense all the time.

[00:08:50] You can see them frowning.

[00:08:52] You can see deep rivets in there.

[00:08:54] They're tired from frowning year after year.

[00:08:58] There are a lot of people whose muscles are tense in their hands.

[00:09:01] Just watch them.

[00:09:02] They've got their fists clenched.

[00:09:04] Look at their jaws tensing up.

[00:09:07] Stiff, hard jaws.

[00:09:08] Their legs are not relaxed.

[00:09:10] But they're rigidly out in front of them.

[00:09:13] They're sitting at a tension in a chair all day long at work.

[00:09:16] The neck muscles begin to ache.

[00:09:19] These people are working, really working hard, wasting a lot of energy, but working hard at

[00:09:26] doing nothing except unproductive, non-productive things that injure and harm the

[00:09:32] body and make it tired all the time because so much energy is being burned up.

[00:09:37] Use of those muscles to worry or to fear or to be angry or to be resentful toward others.

[00:09:44] It's these kinds of attitudes.

[00:09:46] It's this kind of lifestyle that leads so often to this tired all the time feeling.

[00:09:52] Now, I don't care what kind of product you take, whether it's got iron or whether it's

[00:09:57] got aluminum in it.

[00:09:58] It isn't going to make you different when that is your problem.

[00:10:02] Your problem, my friend, is to trust in the Lord, to trust and obey.

[00:10:06] And when you have done His will according to His word by His Spirit, leave it in His hands.

[00:10:13] Learn to relax in the Lord.

[00:10:16] O Lord, we pray that you'll make Christians who are listening and who are tired all the

[00:10:21] times.

[00:10:21] To find this kind of obedient living of trust to stop that anger and resentment and worry

[00:10:27] and fear by putting trust in you.

[00:10:30] And by doing your will, make us to be keen and sharp and alive and vibrant in our living.

[00:10:36] In Christ's name we pray.

[00:10:38] Amen.

[00:10:39] So, are you tired?

[00:10:40] Take a look at your life.

[00:10:41] What habits do you have that you can change?

[00:10:45] Habits are things and attitudes and behaviors that you are involved in over and over and over

[00:10:52] without really realizing it.

[00:10:55] So, take an honest inventory and inspection of the habits that you have built into your

[00:11:01] life that may or may not be contributing to the problem of your being tired all the time.

[00:11:07] So, wake up.

[00:11:08] Be blessed.

[00:11:10] Have a great day.