ANACONDA CHRISTIANITY

Yesterday morning during my personal prayer time, I felt specifically led to pray for people who were weary, and faint-hearted. The picture that I got was of believers who were experiencing a spiritual (more accurately a soulish) fatigue that was cumulative. In other words, this was not a fatigue that came from just one bad day, or even a difficult week. This fatigue was deep-seated, and it developed over an extended period of exertion and depletion of resources.

As I continued to pray, I felt led to refresh myself in a few ideas from the Word. I am not going to go into all of that today, but if you want to do what I did, you can look up the verses (in this case I mostly looked up New Testament verses) that contain the words, weary, faint, fainthearted, rest, and refreshing.

In the New Testament, the word “weary” actually refers to a beating that brings physical exhaustion and disability. When we get tired, we sometimes say, “I’m beat.” This word is used to describe the aftermath of hard labor or toil that produces nothing. It is filled with anxiety and hopelessness that results in collapse. The end result is that instead of being joyful, strong, and full of vision, the believer can lose courage, lose heart, and give up.

Jesus of course addresses this very thing in Matthew 11:28-30. He invites us to come to Him when we are weary, heavy-laden, and overburdened, and He promises that as we take His yoke (enter into His work alongside Him instead of charting our own course) and learn of Him (let Him retrain us in thought, attitude, and action) He will give us rest.

Interestingly, the word “rest” does not mean to cease from work. A lot of Christians hold to a theology that says, “if something isn’t going well, I need to just lay it down, get out of the way, and let God do all the work.” Vine’s dictionary says “rest” does not mean to rest from labor, but to rest in labor. In other words, rest is found in a place of faith that co-labors with God and always gives Him the lead. We should not stop pressing forward, or wrestling in prayer, or resisting the devil, or working hard to repair a relationship, or working hard at the job that God has given us. But we should do all of that “yoked together” with Jesus. In other words, listen carefully to His instructions, walk close to Him, put more dependence on, and effort into, knowing Him than into doing.

There is a lot that we could say about this, but I want to wrap it up with just one more thought. Jesus says that we need to “learn of Him.” That does not mean to learn about Him, but to allow Him to train us in very personal and practical terms. We need to position ourselves DAILY at His side and press in to know Him more.

As I was praying through that, the Lord reminded me that we Christians are in what the Bible describes as an endurance race. One thing endurance racers have to do is eat well and eat regularly. It is essential that they maintain both their energy level and their hydration level. If they don’t, even the very top athletes will literally collapse on the racecourse. The Lord gave me a picture, and I will share it with you. He showed me a big snake, like an anaconda, that had just finished a huge meal. You have all seen the videos. A snake like that will eat something huge, like a goat, then not eat again for weeks.

Unfortunately, a lot of believers today do the same thing. Once a month or so, whenever it doesn’t interfere with the “important” things in their lives, they gorge themselves on God for a day or two. They come to church, dust off the Bible, maybe hang with some Christian friends. Then they don’t eat again for a month or six weeks. God has not called us to be anaconda Christians. We are to feed on Him daily, or several times a day, many times in small but very nutritious meals.

Any pastor can tell you that the anaconda Christians find themselves in continuous crisis, feeling weary, feeling left out, and disconnected. I have actually had someone come to me in state of depression because after being out of church for 10 weeks she felt “disconnected from the body.” I explained in my compassionate way that the reason she felt that way was because SHE WAS disconnected from the body! I love to help.

If we accept Jesus’ invitation; come to Him, be yoked to Him, learn of Him, feed consistently on Him, He WILL give us rest and new strength. No rest? Then in that area, we can be sure that we are not yoked to Him and feeding on Him. It is an easy remedy, and we can start today.