Did you know that you can be too tired to worry or be stressed about something? … It happened to me on the weekend.

When you are tired, you lose some important cognitive abilities … like when I’ve fallen asleep on the couch watching TV and Lily says, “Come on Paul, it’s time for bed.” It makes perfect sense to get up and go to bed – after all, I am sleeping and our bed would be much more comfortable. 

But brain connectors get short-circuited when you are tired. You don’t see things the same way. You don’t think rationally at all. 

When Lily tells me to get off the couch, my brain tells me that the show is not over. Truthfully, I’m not watching the show – I’m asleep! My brain tells me that I’ll miss something, but actually I’ve already missed a lot of things. 

Your brain doesn’t reason well when you are tired; you accept things the way they are.

So sometimes I’ve stayed on the couch, sleeping in some weird position that I pay for in the morning … all because my brain makes me think that this is better than getting up and going immediately to bed.

I’ve been told – though I can’t verify it to be true – that you study better when you’re tired because your brain will more readily and easily accept the information you put into it. When you are alert, you question the information or challenge it. … Just make sure the information you are studying is correct or you will do brutally on your exam!

That brings me to this weekend …

Normally, when I get a phone call late in the evening, I’m immediately concerned even before I answer the call. But on Saturday night I had already nodded off when my cell phone started ringing. 

I just instinctively reached for it.

It was my guest speaker for our church service the next day. Very quickly he told me that his plane had been grounded and he would not be able to make it to speak at our church in the morning. 

Now, normally that would send me into a little bit of a panic. What will I do? What should I speak on? How can I possibly prepare something in time? 

But I was tired and I just accepted the information, jumped into bed and went to sleep. 

No panic, no stress, no worry. I was so tired that my brain didn’t challenge the information. It just accepted it. 

In the morning, I remembered I had spoken at a men’s breakfast a few weeks earlier. I pulled out that talk, spent about forty-five minutes editing it, and was ready to preach. 

No stress, no worry. … Man I’m glad I was tired when I got that phone call!

Here’s the thing: There was one more thing I did do that night as my head hit the pillow. I prayed and asked God to somehow give me a sermon or something to preach. And very quickly in the morning the idea of preaching that men’s message popped into my head. It seemed like God was saying, “Here you go”. It would have made more sense to be stressed and start to work on something right away. But really we should rely more on God to supply our need … and maybe be more tired, so we don’t stress or worry about how He’s going to come through.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you stressed about right now that you should ask God for? Leave your questions and comments below.