Here is a link to a story from James Dobson talking about a talking scale that he received as a gift from his staff: https://goo.gl/wqycY9
He says that one day the scale said that he had gained 80 pounds from the previous day. Knowing this was an error, he got off and tried it again. This time it said he had lost 50 pounds from the previous day. Dr. Dobson tried it one more time and the scale said “my batteries are low” to which he responded “I know buddy, mine are too”.
Today’s verse is from Mark 6:31 and follows this theme:
Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Jesus could have performed a miracle and given his disciples unlimited energy and strength in this moment but he told them to take a break and get some rest. He was giving them a model for how to respond to stress and fatigue. Can you imagine being on this team of disciples? Every day, all day, they were just trying to keep up so of course they needed rest from time to time.
We’re exactly the same way but few of us stop to recognize it. Or if we do recognize it, we ignore it. If you are like me, an evening with nothing planned is an opportunity to plan something. We constantly need to “get things done” or have new experiences. No time for rest. No time for ourselves.
What would you do if you were given a 100% guilt-free pass for an afternoon or even a day? Golf, fishing, see a movie, read a book, or maybe walk around in nature with no particular destination? In keeping with our lesson on intentionality from a couple of weeks ago, why not plan ahead a little and put something on the calendar?
Here are a few questions to further explore this topic:
- On a scale from 1-10, how well charged are your batteries?
- What are the main things that charge your batteries and the main things that drain them?
- What are some of the negative consequences of having low batteries?
- If you had a free afternoon or day as discussed above, what would you do to charge your batteries?
- How will our family and loved ones benefit from our batteries being more fully charged?
Men's Small Group Blog 