Women's Devo | March 2021
Weary in Well Doing OR Just Weary from Doing?
Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. - Galatians 6:8-10 NIV
Ladies, are you tired? Are you tired of being tired? Do you feel overwhelmed by the worries that plague your mind? Are you keeping yourself busy so you won’t have to focus on the thoughts running through your head? Well…I’ve been there, done that, and still working to pull the rest of my leg out of the sinking sand of weariness.
But why are we so tired? It is proven that busyness does not mean productiveness and it is also a fact that worry solves nothing. So, why do we run ourselves so ragged? Why do we continue to try to hold the things in our lives together when God never intended for us to bear the burdens we do? Why are we exhausting ourselves trying to accomplish everything on our own when our Heavenly Father sits, waiting for us to seek Him? And not ONLY seek Him, but to trust Him with the issues, the people, and the concerns we lay before him.
Well, here is a part of the problem. We are busy fighting spiritual battles with physical weapons.
Galatians tells us in 6:9 not to get weary in well doing. That doesn’t cover just ‘doing’. When we take control of circumstances we are basically telling God, “I’ve got it.” That is not defined as ‘well doing’. We are acting and responding to the physical in the physical. Yes, we should care for those around us. Further up in Galatians chapter 6 it says to “carry each other’s burdens”, but that doesn’t mean that we are to do everything for everyone. Only when it is Spirit led. We have an obligation to minister to spiritual conditions before we overextend ourselves trying to assist with the physical needs of others and even ourselves.
(Side note: Let’s acknowledge, like the Word says in Galatians 6:8, that some of us and/or the people that are in our lives are in the position they are in because they are reaping what they have sown. FYI, it’s not our job to fix, unless we are the one doing the reaping. So, let’s work on removing that burden from ourselves and get out of God’s way.)
We often approach our circumstances or those people in our lives that we are concerned about, in our emotions. We lend money, run errands, and do favors. We share our anger and concerns with them, express our frustrations, we bargain and plead, and we even try to reason in hopes that we are heard and it will make a difference. (Believing somehow that it will spark change) But, it doesn’t. And we find ourselves in this cycle of dealing with the same issue(s) over and over again. It’s because we are either fighting or enabling that person/circumstance. We are completely missing the spiritual battle happening inside of them, or even inside of ourselves.
Ephesians 6:12 NIV says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
We so often deal with the fruit and forget it took a seed to produce that fruit. There is a root that runs deeper than you can see right there in front of you. If you want real change to take place, put on your spiritual glasses and start praying on a spiritual level. Do some self-reflecting and pray for those seeds in your life, in your heart, and in your mind that have produced attitudes and attributes that don’t line up with the Word.
Stop asking Him to change the people in your life. You know the prayer, “Lord, please show them the error of their ways.” Start lifting them up in prayer and ask God to help them discover the root of their anger, bitterness or sadness and depression. Pray they will be loosened from the grips of the enemy and that they come to know God intimately and be delivered by Him. That way they can be healed and set free.
It doesn’t make sense to bring a knife to a gun fight, you know the saying. That produces very little impact, if any, on the desired victory. So let’s stop waging spiritual warfare in our emotions and our intellect. Let’s stop fighting these things in our flesh and let’s begin waging outright spiritual warfare for the souls of those around us and even for ourselves.
As God was giving me this to share, I asked Him, “How do we mature from seeing things/or dealing with things in the physical realm into seeing things from a spiritual perspective?”
He said, “The Word.”
I said, “Ok… but the ‘Word’ and prayer are such typical responses though.” (You know like when we are complaining about a situation and we say we’ve been praying and reading ‘BUT….’)
So God responded, “Is that not enough?”
Well duh…..of course it’s enough. At least it should be. And that made me think. There are two things He calls us to do during our time in His presence. Those things are reading the Word to know Him more, and creating space and opportunity to hear Him speak. (Notice I said ‘hear Him speak’ because we often take control of our own prayer time and He never gets a word in edgewise.) And yet, we still want more.
Sometimes we just wait on a different answer, or watch for some miracle to transpire when we already have the answers. It has simply been there all along. We just don’t actively practice it. We are too busy ‘all up in our flesh’. So, we find ourselves weary and it’s because we have our hands all in it. It is because we are handling spiritual matters in the flesh. We are not living out the Word and trusting God to take care of it. This often puts us in the way of what God wants to accomplish in His infinite knowledge.
The Word says in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” That means we lay those things before Him, whatever they are, and trust Him to handle it. Be honest with God about your feelings, frustrations, and concerns. When you get up from prayer, leave them there. Don’t pick them back up, pack them away in your purse, and take them on your daily journey with you. When frustration and concern rise up again, and they will, pray with spiritual eyes. Pray for direction on what to do and when to get involved. Pray with expectation. Remember, God already sees the other side of this circumstance. Know that victory is yours, or that person’s, according to God’s will and perfect timing. You just have to engage in battle with the right arsenal (knowing who your enemy is), and make an intentional choice to rest in the Father. Only then will we experience the undesired weariness fade from our lives.
Ladies, are you tired? Are you tired of being tired? Do you feel overwhelmed by the worries that plague your mind? Are you keeping yourself busy so you won’t have to focus on the thoughts running through your head? Well…I’ve been there, done that, and still working to pull the rest of my leg out of the sinking sand of weariness.
But why are we so tired? It is proven that busyness does not mean productiveness and it is also a fact that worry solves nothing. So, why do we run ourselves so ragged? Why do we continue to try to hold the things in our lives together when God never intended for us to bear the burdens we do? Why are we exhausting ourselves trying to accomplish everything on our own when our Heavenly Father sits, waiting for us to seek Him? And not ONLY seek Him, but to trust Him with the issues, the people, and the concerns we lay before him.
Well, here is a part of the problem. We are busy fighting spiritual battles with physical weapons.
Galatians tells us in 6:9 not to get weary in well doing. That doesn’t cover just ‘doing’. When we take control of circumstances we are basically telling God, “I’ve got it.” That is not defined as ‘well doing’. We are acting and responding to the physical in the physical. Yes, we should care for those around us. Further up in Galatians chapter 6 it says to “carry each other’s burdens”, but that doesn’t mean that we are to do everything for everyone. Only when it is Spirit led. We have an obligation to minister to spiritual conditions before we overextend ourselves trying to assist with the physical needs of others and even ourselves.
(Side note: Let’s acknowledge, like the Word says in Galatians 6:8, that some of us and/or the people that are in our lives are in the position they are in because they are reaping what they have sown. FYI, it’s not our job to fix, unless we are the one doing the reaping. So, let’s work on removing that burden from ourselves and get out of God’s way.)
We often approach our circumstances or those people in our lives that we are concerned about, in our emotions. We lend money, run errands, and do favors. We share our anger and concerns with them, express our frustrations, we bargain and plead, and we even try to reason in hopes that we are heard and it will make a difference. (Believing somehow that it will spark change) But, it doesn’t. And we find ourselves in this cycle of dealing with the same issue(s) over and over again. It’s because we are either fighting or enabling that person/circumstance. We are completely missing the spiritual battle happening inside of them, or even inside of ourselves.
Ephesians 6:12 NIV says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
We so often deal with the fruit and forget it took a seed to produce that fruit. There is a root that runs deeper than you can see right there in front of you. If you want real change to take place, put on your spiritual glasses and start praying on a spiritual level. Do some self-reflecting and pray for those seeds in your life, in your heart, and in your mind that have produced attitudes and attributes that don’t line up with the Word.
Stop asking Him to change the people in your life. You know the prayer, “Lord, please show them the error of their ways.” Start lifting them up in prayer and ask God to help them discover the root of their anger, bitterness or sadness and depression. Pray they will be loosened from the grips of the enemy and that they come to know God intimately and be delivered by Him. That way they can be healed and set free.
It doesn’t make sense to bring a knife to a gun fight, you know the saying. That produces very little impact, if any, on the desired victory. So let’s stop waging spiritual warfare in our emotions and our intellect. Let’s stop fighting these things in our flesh and let’s begin waging outright spiritual warfare for the souls of those around us and even for ourselves.
As God was giving me this to share, I asked Him, “How do we mature from seeing things/or dealing with things in the physical realm into seeing things from a spiritual perspective?”
He said, “The Word.”
I said, “Ok… but the ‘Word’ and prayer are such typical responses though.” (You know like when we are complaining about a situation and we say we’ve been praying and reading ‘BUT….’)
So God responded, “Is that not enough?”
Well duh…..of course it’s enough. At least it should be. And that made me think. There are two things He calls us to do during our time in His presence. Those things are reading the Word to know Him more, and creating space and opportunity to hear Him speak. (Notice I said ‘hear Him speak’ because we often take control of our own prayer time and He never gets a word in edgewise.) And yet, we still want more.
Sometimes we just wait on a different answer, or watch for some miracle to transpire when we already have the answers. It has simply been there all along. We just don’t actively practice it. We are too busy ‘all up in our flesh’. So, we find ourselves weary and it’s because we have our hands all in it. It is because we are handling spiritual matters in the flesh. We are not living out the Word and trusting God to take care of it. This often puts us in the way of what God wants to accomplish in His infinite knowledge.
The Word says in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” That means we lay those things before Him, whatever they are, and trust Him to handle it. Be honest with God about your feelings, frustrations, and concerns. When you get up from prayer, leave them there. Don’t pick them back up, pack them away in your purse, and take them on your daily journey with you. When frustration and concern rise up again, and they will, pray with spiritual eyes. Pray for direction on what to do and when to get involved. Pray with expectation. Remember, God already sees the other side of this circumstance. Know that victory is yours, or that person’s, according to God’s will and perfect timing. You just have to engage in battle with the right arsenal (knowing who your enemy is), and make an intentional choice to rest in the Father. Only then will we experience the undesired weariness fade from our lives.
Tyree Mikell currently lives in Savannah, Georgia. She serves along with her husband, Xavier Mikell, as lead pastors of Lifeway Church of God in Statesboro, Georgia. Tyree also serves as the praise team leader. The Mikell’s have raised 3 beautiful children, one out of college, one in college, and the other a freshman in high school. They recently celebrated their 8-year anniversary at Lifeway and are excited about all that God is doing right now, even in the midst of a pandemic.
No Comments