Tired All The Time

[00:00:19] Good morning and welcome to Become A Competent Biblical Counselor.

[00:00:24] I'm Dr. Dave Jones and today's episode is entitled, Tired All The Time.

[00:00:31] Yeah, have you felt that? Have you said that?

[00:00:34] So, good morning and you say, good morning.

[00:00:37] So, what's so good about it?

[00:00:39] Here it is, not even 10 o'clock this morning and I'm already tired.

[00:00:43] I'm tired all the time.

[00:00:44] I don't know what's wrong with me.

[00:00:47] I get up in the morning, I'm tired.

[00:00:49] I go to bed at night, I'm tired.

[00:00:52] Halfway in between the day, I can hardly get along.

[00:00:55] I think I'm not going to make it.

[00:00:57] I'm tired, tired all the time.

[00:01:00] And yet, I don't do anything to make myself tired.

[00:01:03] I try to pace myself.

[00:01:05] I try to take it easy.

[00:01:06] I even take naps and yet I'm tired.

[00:01:09] Tired, tired, tired, tired.

[00:01:11] I'll tell you, I'm tired of being tired.

[00:01:13] What can I do about it?

[00:01:15] Well, that's a complaint I hear from time to time and I'm sure that you do too.

[00:01:22] So, it's a complaint that a physician hears down at his office all the time too.

[00:01:27] There are a lot of tired people around.

[00:01:30] Maybe you're one of them.

[00:01:32] You say, okay, I'm going to settle back in the chair and listen to this one because that sure is my problem.

[00:01:39] I'm tired of being tired.

[00:01:43] Now, so what is your problem?

[00:01:45] Well, of course it's impossible to say with such meager data as I have about you.

[00:01:52] In fact, I don't know anything about you except what the Bible has to say about you.

[00:01:56] So, I'm not really sure about you particularly.

[00:02:00] 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.

[00:02:13] And so, I suggest to anybody who's tired all the time, first to go and have it checked out with a good physician.

[00:02:22] Get a good medical checkup to be sure that you've eliminated any and all organic causes of that tiredness.

[00:02:30] But as a couple of my good friends who are physicians tell me, almost every person who comes in who's chronically tired has no organic problem.

[00:02:40] He really has a problem that stems from the way that he's been living.

[00:02:44] The kind of attitudes and the kind of behavior that he's been engaging in day by day.

[00:02:50] And so, let's assume now eliminating these people who might have medical, organic, physical problems that need medical treatment.

[00:02:59] Let's assume you've been to that checkup and the physician says to you, you're okay physically.

[00:03:07] It's not going to take more vitamins.

[00:03:09] It's not going to take more iron.

[00:03:12] It's not going to take more minerals or more chemicals to make you better.

[00:03:16] It's going to take a different kind of lifestyle to make you feel better.

[00:03:21] Well, let's think about it.

[00:03:23] The first and most obvious thing which we often miss if we're tired all the time is, are you getting enough sleep?

[00:03:32] You know, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

[00:03:36] The Holy Spirit dwells within every believer.

[00:03:39] If you have not the Spirit of Christ, says Paul in Romans 8, you don't belong to Him.

[00:03:45] You're not His.

[00:03:47] And over in 1 Corinthians 6, 19, he says,

[00:03:50] Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

[00:03:59] You have been bought with a price.

[00:04:01] Therefore, glorify God in your body.

[00:04:06] Now, this body of yours requires sleep.

[00:04:09] The Bible talks about sleep.

[00:04:11] It talks about taking care of the body, and one of the ways to take care of that body is to get adequate sleep.

[00:04:19] There are many Christian workers who are very faithful people to God who want to do God's work, but who push their body beyond its limits.

[00:04:28] God has built in a certain reserve for the body, but day after day and week after week, that reserve is depleted.

[00:04:35] And Christians live on the thin edge, sometimes of being, of the body being completely broken down by the failure to rest it and give it its required restoration period of time each night.

[00:04:49] Maybe it's just your patterns of living, which are so irregular, so that you don't even know how much sleep you get.

[00:04:57] Recently, some studies were made that showed that people who thought they could get along with less than eight hours of sleep really weren't as effective as they thought they were.

[00:05:09] If you want your body to be as keen as it can be for Jesus Christ, give it adequate sleep regularly.

[00:05:17] There are a lot of people who say, oh, I can get along with four hours sleep a night, or six hours sleep a night, or six and a half, or seven.

[00:05:26] But they go week after week, and year after year that way.

[00:05:30] And suddenly, they are always tired.

[00:05:33] And the reason for this is simply because they are not getting enough sleep.

[00:05:38] I want to warn you, if you are irregular in your sleep habits, or if you're not getting adequate sleep regularly as a pattern of sleep habits, you need to change.

[00:05:49] A lot of people tell me, oh, I'm a night person.

[00:05:52] I have to stay up.

[00:05:53] That's just the way I am.

[00:05:55] I can't change.

[00:05:57] Come on, get off of it.

[00:05:58] Listen, your body can change very, very quickly.

[00:06:02] It can change its whole sleeping, eating, every kind of pattern in about two or three days, perfectly.

[00:06:09] You say, I don't believe it.

[00:06:11] Well, then you just get yourself on a jet and fly to Europe.

[00:06:15] It just takes two or three days after a five-hour change, and all of your patterns of living, your eating, your sleeping, everything else,

[00:06:22] it just takes about two or three days, and your whole body adjusts.

[00:06:27] And everybody who has flown the Atlantic knows exactly what I'm talking about.

[00:06:32] So, you see, you can't tell me that you can't change.

[00:06:35] You can't tell me your sleep habits can't be different, because God says you can take care of your body, and you must take care of that body.

[00:06:44] And the facts are that the body does adapt very rapidly.

[00:06:50] Indeed, if you start giving your body adequate sleep for a long enough period of time for it to make its changes,

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

[00:07:00] But now, suppose you're getting adequate sleep.

[00:07:03] Suppose you're getting eight hours a night, and you still are tired all of the time.

[00:07:09] Even wake up tired.

[00:07:11] Maybe your problem is tension.

[00:07:13] Maybe that's your difficulty.

[00:07:15] You say, tension.

[00:07:16] Yes, tension.

[00:07:18] Nerves?

[00:07:19] Yeah.

[00:07:20] Nerves, too.

[00:07:21] Although that isn't exactly the precise way of looking at it.

[00:07:24] Well, you say, I live in a tense world.

[00:07:27] I live in a tense situation.

[00:07:29] My home is a tense place.

[00:07:31] My office is a tense place.

[00:07:33] No, you're wrong.

[00:07:35] You don't.

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

[00:07:38] The home is not tense.

[00:07:40] The office is not tense.

[00:07:42] The tension is not in places.

[00:07:44] It's in people.

[00:07:46] It's not between people, even.

[00:07:47] You know, we talk about, well, there's a lot of tension between Joe and Mary.

[00:07:52] No, there's no tension between them.

[00:07:55] There is only tension in people because tension is in muscles.

[00:07:59] And muscles are in people.

[00:08:01] It's muscles that become tense.

[00:08:04] And what makes muscles tense?

[00:08:06] Well, the failure to put one's faith fully and completely in God, in the difficult situations

[00:08:13] of life, and the failure to follow his word, and thereby to leave everything in his hands

[00:08:19] once you have done what he has told you to do by the power of his spirit.

[00:08:24] There are a lot of people who say, well, I haven't done anything to make myself tired.

[00:08:28] I haven't gone out and worked hard all day.

[00:08:31] They don't realize they've been working harder than if they went out and dug a ditch all

[00:08:36] day long for eight hours.

[00:08:37] You work very hard when day and night you keep your muscles tense all the time.

[00:08:44] Your muscles should relax.

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

[00:08:51] You can see them frowning.

[00:08:53] You can see deep rivets in there.

[00:08:55] They're tired from frowning year after year.

[00:08:59] There are a lot of people whose muscles are tense in their hands.

[00:09:02] Just watch them.

[00:09:04] They've got their fists clenched.

[00:09:06] Look at their jaws tensing up.

[00:09:08] Stiff, hard jaws.

[00:09:10] Their legs are not relaxed, but they're rigidly out in front of them.

[00:09:14] They're sitting at a tension in a chair all day long at work.

[00:09:18] The neck muscles begin to ache.

[00:09:20] These people are working, really working hard, wasting a lot of energy, but working hard at

[00:09:27] doing nothing.

[00:09:29] Accept unproductive, non-productive things that injure and harm the body and make it tired

[00:09:35] all the time.

[00:09:35] Because so much energy is being burned up.

[00:09:38] Use of those muscles to worry or to fear or to be angry or to be resentful toward others.

[00:09:45] It's these kinds of attitudes.

[00:09:47] It's this kind of lifestyle that leads so often to this tired, all-the-time feeling.

[00:09:53] Now, I don't care what kind of product you take, whether it's got iron or whether it's

[00:09:58] got aluminum in it.

[00:09:59] It isn't going to make you different when that is your problem.

[00:10:03] Your problem, my friend, is to trust in the Lord, to trust and obey.

[00:10:08] And when you have done His will according to His word by His Spirit, leave it in His hands.

[00:10:14] Learn to relax in the Lord.

[00:10:17] And finally, one last thing that I want to mention.

[00:10:21] If you are living your life tired all the time, then you are living a feeling-oriented life.

[00:10:28] And the best way for you to change your feelings is to change your actions.

[00:10:35] You need to go out and take a walk.

[00:10:37] You need to go out and get some exercise.

[00:10:39] I'm not talking about going to the gym, even though sometimes that is helpful to walk on

[00:10:44] the treadmill if you want to.

[00:10:45] But you don't have to exercise to the extent of working up a sweat.

[00:10:49] You just need to do something.

[00:10:52] Take a walk around the block.

[00:10:54] You don't have to be swinging your arms like crazy.

[00:10:57] If you want to, you can.

[00:10:59] You can swing your arms a little bit and then you can stroll a little bit.

[00:11:02] But the point is, get some action in your life.

[00:11:07] If your house needs to be cleaned, clean it.

[00:11:10] Do your laundry.

[00:11:12] Wash your dishes.

[00:11:13] Vacuum your house.

[00:11:15] Get involved.

[00:11:16] Do some action.

[00:11:18] Again, you do not have to do laborious things in order to feel good and feel different.

[00:11:25] Just do something.

[00:11:27] You could be watching TV.

[00:11:29] And every time a commercial came on, you could stand up.

[00:11:32] You could start walking in place, swinging your arms.

[00:11:36] Not fanatically so, but just as long as the commercial runs.

[00:11:40] And as soon as the commercial is over, sit down.

[00:11:43] But you do that a number of times throughout the day.

[00:11:45] It is no big deal.

[00:11:47] You'll feel totally different and a lot better.

[00:11:53] Oh, Lord, we pray that you'll make Christians who are listening and who are tired all the time to find this kind of obedient living of trust to stop that anger and resentment and worry and fear by putting trust in you.

[00:12:07] And by doing your will, make us to be keen and sharp and alive and vibrant in our living.

[00:12:13] In Christ's name we pray.

[00:12:15] Amen.

[00:12:15] Amen.

[00:12:16] So, are you tired?

[00:12:17] Take a look at your life.

[00:12:19] What habits do you have that you can change?

[00:12:22] Habits are things and attitudes and behaviors that you are involved in over and over and over without really realizing it.

[00:12:32] So, take an honest inventory and inspection of the habits that you have built into your life that may or may not be contributing to the problem of your being tired all the time.

[00:12:45] So, wake up.

[00:12:46] Be blessed.

[00:12:47] Have a great day.