Isaiah 40:28-31      How to Have Energy for Living          August 7, 2005

     In the 1940s, Frank Hiller was the top pitcher in Lafayette College baseball history, pitching 22 wins and only 2 lost games.  After college, Hiller was a hot prospect in the Yankee system and started pitching major league ball in 1946.  All looked like gold in his future.  Then an accident hurt his arm and his abilities declined drastically.  After his surgery, he became the forgotten man in the New York bullpen. He was sold to the Chicago Cubs in 1950 with what seemed like little prospects.  But that summer of 1950, as temperatures climbed over 100 degrees in Chicago, most of the pitchers struggled to keep going.  Hiller became know as a pitcher who could keep going under the most intense pressure.  That summer he pitched a 12 win, 5 losses season for the Cubs.  When asked how he kept going under pressure and with his painful arm, he responded that on the mound, he kept repeating in his mind—“They who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength…they shall run and not be weary.”

       Today we live in a high speed world.  Talking with a friend this week, he could not believe my e-mail and internet were still on a dial up modem and not on Charter’s High Speed cable.  “How can you stand to be so slow?” he asked.  We want everything right now, in fact, five minutes ago.  And we are worn out.  Vast numbers of Americans report exhaustion and depression.  What can we do?  How can we have the energy we need for living in the 21^st century?  Well, baseball pitcher Frank Hiller knew the secret to keep going under pressure and hard times.  The secret was all in his mind.  In his thoughts.  Proverb 23:7 says, “As a person thinks, so it will be for him.”  Frank Hiller’s mind was filled with one thought only—“those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength.” That was the thought he filled his mind with.  With what are you filling your mind?  Is your mind weighed down by negative thoughts of sickness, depression, exhaustion?  Or is your mind in touch with the positive powerful energy of the God of the universe?  The choice is yours.  This morning I want to talk about how to have energy for living.

      Where does energy for living come from?  Ultimately, it must come from God.  Now you would expect me to say that as I am a Methodist minister.  But let me prove that to you.  The fact is that God is the source of all power and energy.  God said, “Let there be light.”  And the entire universe is that light energy.  God is not far off somewhere in heaven.  God is right here, right now.  As small children, we imagined God as an old man sitting somewhere in the clouds on a great throne.  But as mature believers, we must know that God is spirit.  God is everywhere.  Paul says in Acts 17:28, “In God, we live and move and have our being.”  God is the force, the energy, the power, the dynamic, the spirit of the entire universe.  And we need contact with this God.

      Contact with God establishes in us a flow of the same energy that created the world and which re-creates and renews the world everyday.  The power that keeps the planets in motion, the source that brings forth new life each spring, the energy that burns in the sun, this force is ours if we connect with the God who is over all.  Isaiah 40:29 says that “God gives power to the faint.”   I should never whine or complain that I have no energy to live.  I have at my fingertips all the energy I could ever need.

       Now perhaps you think—“But I have so much to do.”  Let me share a secret with you.  We do not grow weary and exhausted due to a busy life.  Busy and heavy work can make us physically tired, but that is a pleasant feeling and our strength is renewed as this physical tiredness creates in us a peaceful sleep.  What makes us so exhausted is not a busy life, but life lived in the wrong way.  What do I mean?

     Too may Americans are involved in the wrong things, in the wrong priorities.  The more we are in connection with God, the more we understand the will, the plan, of God for our lives.  And my fullest life, a life full of energy and joy, is found in doing the purpose of God.  When my priorities are out of order, then my life is out of order.  Others of us are tired because we have no fire in us for anything.  We lack interest.  Nothing moves us.  All we care about is our own worries, problems, desires, and hatreds.  We stew about worries that amount to nothing, and frankly, we are bored with life.  We are not so much exhausted by life as we are half asleep at the wheel.  Wake up.  Pour out your life in a great project of God and you will come to life.  Discover what God wants you to do and you will really live.

      How can I know the will of God for my life?  This is a training.  Not merely a learning but a training.  The mistake many Christians make is thinking that knowing God’s Word and doing God’s Word are the same.  They are not.  Listen to a very important point for this morning.  Many Christians think of church as a school where one goes to gain knowledge.  Church is more like a gym where one goes to train.  To build oneself into something new.  Many of us have the head knowledge but we have not trained in living.  Imagine walking into a gym, asking a bodybuilder if you could see his muscles, and he showed you the weights and machines in the gym.  American churches are great at showing visitors all our great programs and activities, but where are the changed lives?   The spiritual life of God is not merely about learning knowledge about God, the Bible, the Church.  True spirituality is a training for living life.  The right kind of life.  We are not so much tired because of busy lives as we are tired from living the wrong kind of life.  Deep within us, our spirit is tired of chasing things that just do not matter.  Our souls long to do something great and grand and wonderful for God and for the world. 

      Energy for living comes from God.  When I am connected to God, have my life trained in God’s Will, then I will know what it is I am to do.  And there, I will find right living and the energy for living. 

      This autumn, on Sunday evenings I plan to begin training with those of you who will come.  Not simply a Bible study, but a training session.  More akin to lifting weights or daily running than to studying for a test in school.  I hope you will begin to pray on how you may be involved. 

      This morning, we come to Christ’s table.  He meets us here to feed our lives at the deepest level.  Today as you kneel here, take a few deep breaths.  God is all around you so imagine breathing God into yourself.  Fill your body with His goodness.  Allow Christ’s body and blood to enter deep within you.  Then pray that God will renew your strength, lift you like the wings of eagles, enable you to run without falling down.  Ask God to show you what you are to do in our life.  Maybe you are very young, just starting life, or maybe you feel that you are older with not as much life left ahead of you.  If you have this day left to you, then you can do the will of God today.  Oh, God is so looking for some people who will just do His will today.  That is all.  Just today.  And oh, the great changes we would see.