There is a kind of tiredness that does not announce itself.

We are usually alert to the obvious dangers. But something quieter can happen to those of us who have been serving for a while, and it rarely arrives as a crisis.

You still believe in God. You still believe Jesus is Lord. You still believe He called you. You still turn up, still serve, still lead, still give. Nothing on the outside has changed at all.

But somewhere, because of disappointment, or waiting, or plain tiredness, the expectation you once carried has grown a little thinner. The prayer you once prayed with tears has become something you simply say.

Scripture has a word for this, and it is more serious than we tend to think.

A generation that had everything except this

Think about the people who came out of Egypt.

They made many mistakes in that wilderness. They complained, they rebelled, they tested God again and again. But when the writer of Hebrews looks back at that entire generation and explains why they never entered, he brings it down to one thing:

“They were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.” — Hebrews 3:19

And that is the warning for people like us. Not that we would deny the faith, but that we would keep the vocabulary of faith long after the expectation behind it has quietly gone.

But Caleb also walked the same wilderness as everyone else. He waited through the same forty years. He was surrounded by the same discouraged, complaining, frightened people. Nothing about his circumstances was easier.

God testifies: “But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land.” — Numbers 14:24

A different spirit.

And then we meet him again, decades later, an old man of eighty-five. By any reasonable measure he has earned a quiet portion of land somewhere flat and safe. Instead he says:

“I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out… Now give me this hill country.” — Joshua 14:11–12

Forty-five years of waiting, and he is still asking for a mountain.

Not a rest. Not a reward. A mountain with fortified cities on it and giants living in them. The hardest ground in the region, and he asks for it by name.

That is what a different spirit looks like. It is not merely surviving the wilderness with your doctrine intact. It is coming out the other side still hungry for territory you do not yet have.

This month I would like to encourage you that there is always more land and if you have the heart to believe you will receive because He who promised is faithful

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” — Hebrews 10:23

If your heart has grown tired, you do not need to pretend otherwise. There is a father in Mark’s Gospel who brings his son to Jesus and says, honestly, that he believes and needs help with his unbelief — and Jesus still moves. You can bring the mixture exactly as it is.

But do not let the tiredness make the decision for you.

It’s time to ask Him again. Ask Him for more. There is still very much land to be possessed. He trusts you!

“The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:24

Let us Pray:
Dear God, Help me to believe in You for more. More than what I have seen you do until now. Give me a heart like Caleb, to pursue and keep pursuing until the race is complete. Help me never to allow unbelief to enter my heart. Like the father in gospel of mark, I say, “Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief” and do miracles to help me grow in my call.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.