Time to Start Over?

October 5, 2023 · by Peter Lundell · in Entries

I edited a book for Dr. Ed West, who wrote, “A Christian who is exhausted by living life like everyone else should repent and start over.”

Think about that. (And I’m not talking about exhaustion from sickness or life’s heavy demands—of course we’ll be exhausted from that. And I’m not talking about exhaustion from working hard at something meaningful and purposeful—go at it!)
Here I’m focusing on exhaustion from living life with other people or contemporary society as the standard.
Do you ever get exhausted by living your life like everyone else?

Maybe it’s buying and paying for things the world says you need.
Maybe it’s being busy, busy, busy.
Maybe it’s striving for achievement or happiness.
Maybe it’s compromising with political correctness.
Living in these and other ways can indeed become exhausting.

The Lord speaks through the prophet Habakkuk something that is profoundly shocking when you think about it and let the meaning set in: “Has not the Lord Almighty determined that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire, that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing?” (2:13, NIV).
Living your life like everyone else can be an individual expression of “fuel for the fire” and “exhausting oneself for nothing.”
Repenting and starting over becomes a great option. Jesus calls, and by his Spirit enables, his followers to think and act differently—to be different. As the world gets crazier, being different is increasingly a wise and good option.

Habakkuk next prophesies that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (2:14). This could be metaphorically true now and definitely true in the Millennium.

For us here and now, whenever you or I find ourselves living like everyone else, I hope and pray that we feel deeply exhausted—a wake-up call. And may we live differently as followers of Jesus—that the knowledge of his glory would be like the waters that cover the sea.