One evening I
caught part of a motivational talk given by Jimmy Johnson on the NFL Network.
He was sharing a football philosophy he learned from another coach about how
football rewards great conditioning. When we think of a great football player,
with think of a tough guy with great strength, speed and natural ability, but
it means nothing without conditioning. Regardless of your ability, fatigue will
cause you to lose focus and make mistakes; you will lose the will to fight and
you will lose the will to win. Nearing the end of a game, a player should be
smiling. The player who is hunched over and sucking-wind in the 4th quarter becomes a coward. Even if your opponent is more talented, you can still
win by exhausting your rival.
When I was
younger I played some soccer. Now my eleven year old son plays on the local
travel team. At the end of the last spring season we had a “kids vs. the
parents” game just for fun. I do some jogging to try and keep fit, but it is
nothing like the conditioning needed for the frequent, fast sprints required in
soccer.
Although the
Dads were bigger, stronger and in some cases more talented than the boys, by
the end of the game fatigue made a coward out of me. I lost the will to play
and I lost the will to win. I started to make mistakes. I began to hope the ball would not
come my way in fear of being embarrassed by some speedy kid. I knew what to do, but I could not do
it; my body could not react to my will because of fatigue. It was like Romans
7:19 was coming to life right there on the field, “For I do not do the good I want,
but I do the evil I do not want”. The Dads did win in the end, but no thanks to
me.
After seeing
coach Johnson’s talk the night before, I happened across a reflection from St.
John of the Cross the very next morning which spoke of fatigue. We may be
familiar with the analogies that compare spiritual conditioning to physical
conditioning. An athlete prepares for an event through training and practice;
it’s a lot of hard work and discipline. It may even be described as suffering
and sacrifice. The same is true in the spiritual life if we want to defeat our
adversary. But St. John touches on something a little different; something that
is dangerous even for those who are
spiritually well disciplined. It’s what happens when we are fatigued by divided desires.
He says:
“Weakness and
tepidity are another kind of harm the appetites produce in a man. For the
appetites sap the strength needed for perseverance in the practice of a
virtue…. A man whose will is divided among trifles is like water which, because
of some leakage, will not rise higher and consequently becomes useless.”
 |
| St. John of the Cross |
If we pour
out too much of our time, talent and treasure like a libation to the gods of
power, possessions and pleasure, we leave ourselves open to spiritual attack, even if we have routine spiritual practices.
Too much work, too many hobbies/activities, too much on the social calendar; the
devil loves worldly busyness and helps to keep us pulled in many directions in
order to exhaust us. This can happen even with ministry work and other “good
deeds”. Once fatigued, his temptations have greater effect. He knows we will
lose focus in our spiritual life
and make mistakes, we will lose the will to fight and we will lose the will to
win.
If not
careful, we too will become useless, living life as described in Romans 7:19
because fatigue makes cowards of us all.
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