Nicolas Nedialko Nojarof

In Brazil, everyone seems to be tired. Tired of corruption. Tired of roads full of holes. Tired of crime and violence. Tired of high taxes and low wages. They’re just plain tired. On the inside.

I’m not talking about only the poor people in Brazil who often live in outright misery. The worn-out people I know are middle and upper-class professionals. One self-employed lawyer I know, an honest guy who is good husband and father, has won numerous cases for his clients but he hasn’t been paid for months because of bureaucratic logjams. The situation has become so bad that he might have to sell his house, all because an anonymous public employee won’t sign a document. Last week my friend said, “Glenn, I’m tired.”

There are days when I feel tired, too. This is a confession, because I don’t have any real reasons to feel tired. I have a great wife and marriage. My sons are thriving. We squeak by financially every month, but we’re far from being broke. My work is not overly stressful. With the exception of bad knees and ringing in my ears, I am in good health. Still, there are days when I feel tired. And I feel guilty about that.

Most people in the US, even in the middle of a major economic downturn, enjoy unprecedented wealth and a quality of life that the rest of the world envies. But the statistics show that a lot of people are also tired in their souls. Richard Winter, a former staff member with L’Abri in England, says in his book The Roots of Sorrow that one out every seven people will at some time experience depression.

That doesn’t count the number of people who aren’t actually depressed but feel burned out.

This problem, it seems, is as old as the history of humankind. Old King Saul, depressed and forlorn, wanted David to play music for him so he would feel better. Adam was no doubt the first guy to experience fatigue, a latent sense of futility that came with his choice to pursue self-sufficiency and autonomy from God. The Psalms are full of sorrows. If you’re not careful to read it in the broader context of the Bible, the whole book of Ecclesiastes will make you sad.

Some of the great old writers in Christian history seemed to have a better perspective about tiredness than us modern folk. Perhaps it’s because we feel more entitled to happiness. Whatever the case, this week I was reading a poem by the seventeenth-century metaphysical poet George Herbert (1593-1633). In his very short life he seems to have done a lot of thinking about tiredness. In his poem The Pulley, Herbert describes, from God’s perspective, the meaning of tiredness. Reading it strengthened my soul.

In the poem, God holds a glass full of blessings. He pours it out on humankind, his treasure. In the cup was strength, beauty, wisdom, honor, pleasure. Then, “When almost all was out, God made a stay, perceiving that alone of all his treasure, rest in the bottom lay.” God, says Herbert, decides not to give us the fullness of rest. Why not, we wonder?

“For if I should,” said he,

“Bestow this jewel also on my creature,

He would adore my gifts instead of me,

And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:

So both should losers be.

“Yet let him keep the rest (the other blessings),

But keep them with repining restlessness;

Let him be rich and weary, that at least,

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness

May toss him to my breast.”

This great writer, who lived in harsher times than ours, reminded me that the dryness in our souls has a magnificent purpose. It is proof that we were made for something more, something beyond work and wealth. The tiredness we feel is the beckoning of God.

“Let him be rich and weary,” writes Herbert, that weariness may toss us to God’s breast.

Glenn McMahan is InsideWork’s man in Brazil. Glenn is the author, with David Russ and Jim Petersen, of More Than Me: The 4 Essentials of Relational Wholeness.