When you get sick and tired of trying harder
Living with a fresh paradigm of the Christian Life
I’m sitting at my favorite Greek cafe this morning. I’m prepping to lead a retreat for friends of Potter’s Inn, October 19-22 in the Blue Ridge mountains near my home. Each day, I’ll give a short devotion we will read a poem each day; do a Lectio each morning and we will have time to talk, walk and enjoy the beauty of a fall weekend. We will rest. Nap and have life giving conversations. The retreat is full. But as I prep, I just wanted to work out some ideas with you here to see if you resonate.
My first talk is called “ The Burden of Belief.” Just read that title again, would you? Why has believing become such a burden?
What ever happened to the “easy yoke” offered us the One who claimed to be “the way?”
I’ll explore a few contributions to our burdensome religion. I’ll explain how a few thousand years of Torah living has made us burned out and exhausted. We’ve dragged a Torah living into the Gospel and swirled it in an evangelical blender. We are mixed up. We are watered down and we are spiritually anemic .
Over my nearly 50 years of work in helping others, I have encounter so much exhaustion among the followers of Jesus that leaves me empty. How has the easy yoke of Jesus been exchanged for the boulder that the Greek legend tells us about when, Sisyphus pushed and pushed the huge boulder uphill only to discover time after time, that the boulder inevitably rolled back down the hill.
Try. Try. Try.
The second verse goes like this:
Do. Do. Do.
The third verse goes like this:
Push. Push. Push.
That’s the unspoken mantra of modern Christianity. It is the doxology of many in the church. Go out. Try again. Come back to church. Go back to church more and try, try again.
It dawned on me in 1996 that exhaustion of the churches leaders is the # 1 reason churches are sick and tired and they are sick and tired of living this way and calling the abundant life.
The exhausted life is not the abundant life.
When our faith has become a burden, we need to discover the easy yoke.
The easy yoke— what is it and how to wear it is talk #2, along with my confessional poem,”I Want A Lighter Load” (on Substack)
I’ll have 11 hours to polish this talk on the long flight home tomorrow.
Oh Greece…you have brought me life, love and lots of Feta!
I’ll be recording these talks for future podcasts in case you’re interested. Stay tuned.
Thanks to you for reading my words. Thank you for those who can support my work. I’m most grateful. Ok, since you asked, one more image from our trip …
Steve
See you soon! Travel mercies, Jenness
Here’s my poem I will read at the retreat:
A Lighter Load
by Stephen W. Smith
I would like a lighter load, please!
I have carried a lot of burdens;
Bags of disappointment, heaps of hurts;
Old dogmas and doctrine, which are too hard to bear.
And now, it is just too much; too heavy.
I am sorting through the baggage.
This must go. You must go.
Do I sound cruel?
Am I now carrying the burden of judging also?
Then, judging needs to go.
You have not served me well; served us well.
Hatred is heavier than love. Acceptance brings peace.
To be alive and stay alive, and live alive;
The load needs to lighten up; brighten up.
Whatever happened to the easy yoke?
That sounds like freedom. That sounds like life.
Only a few things are needed.
To love and be loved; to see and be seen.
To behold and to beheld. To touch and be touched.
This is enough. And these all will fit inside my heart now.
I want a lighter load now.
The trail of plentitude awaits me ahead.
This greening inside is birthed now.
New life. New joy. New everything.