Depleted

Depleted. That was the conclusion made by my doctor recently. There was not an underlying disease or infection, which was cause for rejoicing. But there was also not an all-clear signal. I was—somewhat unsurprisingly, given a rather chaotic couple of years—simply and clearly depleted. I was out of gas.

Can you relate? Have you ever been—or are you now—totally depleted? Do you know what it means to come to the end of yourself and yet look around at how much more is required of you? It can be an overwhelming feeling, wouldn’t you agree?

The apostle Paul found himself in this situation as he wrote to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 1. This is the familiar passage where Paul encourages his fellow believers to comfort each other as they share in the sufferings of Christ. But listen to how Paul describes his condition and that of his “brother,” Timothy: “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death” (2 Cor. 1:8-9).

Great pressure.

Far beyond our ability to endure.

We despaired of life itself.

We felt we had received the sentence of death.

My friends, this is not some minor spiritual lull. This is not a great man of faith expressing an emotional bump in the proverbial road.

No, Paul and Timothy are gassed! They are out of physical energy to carry on in their own strength. In as much as it depends on them, the jig is up. They are, in a word, depleted.

But of course Paul and Timothy knew it never did depend on them. They knew it wasn’t game over and it wasn’t hopeless, and it was neither of those things because fulfilling the mission had nothing to do with their own physical strength. Listen to Paul’s straightforward response to these dire physical realities in the very next breath: “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”

The very reason for the physical calamity was to ensure dependence on God.

Paul and Timothy felt as though they were under the sentence of death, and perhaps you do as well. If that is you today, God’s Word is very clear on two things: 1) Your Creator can restore you physically and He invites you to ask Him for that healing (Ex. 15:26; Jam. 5:14-15), and 2) Your physical weakness is an invitation to lean on the raise-the-dead-level power of God!

My natural inclination is to just stubbornly push on. It’s a default rooted in pride, truthfully. I want to believe that just a little bit more of my effort will make the difference, and that if I push through, I will prevail.

My prevailing was never the point, though, and neither is yours.

Your mission is that the power of your God would be made real in your day. That mission requires more strength than you have on your own. Heeding to the reality you are depleted does the opposite of abort the mission. Rather, your heeding allows the success of the mission to be carried fully by the awesome and all-sustaining power of your great God.

You may feel depleted and left for dead today. Take heart! Your God has the power to bring life from death!

“I am the Lord, who heals you” (Ex. 15:26).

The following article originally appeared in Thann’s “The Equipped” Weekly Newsletter. For more information on Thann’s weekly email, click here.