There has been a major change over the last two years. My level of tiredness has decreased to a level of zero. I actually sleep and get rest at night. When I wake up, I am renewed in my strength and ready to go. I used to have dark circles under my eyes and I was just exhausted. What was the difference? I believe Isaiah holds the key to why many of us are so tired all the time.
Isaiah 57:3-10 is a description of spiritual adulatory. When we willingly and intently decide to turn away from God and do our own thing. Isaiah describes spiritual adulatory as:
Children of Transgressions and the offspring of falsehoods: they would point out the sins of others but ignore their own. They would ridicule the righteous.
Idolatry: to have a love for idols over God. A passionate and chronic attraction like the lust of an adulterer. To pursue false gods like a lover runs after the focus of their love. To yield yourself, uncovered to them, but refusing to be uncovered to God.
Evil Sacrificing: a refusal to sacrifice self to the Lord and instead sacrificing for your idolatry. There was a pagan god named Molech. The people would heat a metal statue up and then put an infant child in the statue. They would beat drums to drown out the infants cries. When we are in spiritual adulatory, we sacrifice our own for our own greed. Idolatry is greed. The chronic desire for wheat we want and in turn sacrifice those around us to get it.
Squandering Provisions: God is the source of all we have. We should be offering Him our sacrifices, but instead we squander it on pursuing our idols.
No Remembrance: It was tradition for Israelites to carve the name of God into the doorpost of their home (See Deuteronomy 6:4-9). They perverted this and carved the names of their idols instead. Instead of the Lord God almighty ruling over them, they allowed false gods into their homes to rule.
Wearied: They were exhausted all the time chasing their lusts, and chronic love for their idols. Instead of realizing it was a vain pursuit, they just kept doing it.
The Hebrew word used for wearied is yāḡaʿ. It means to toil, labour, grow weary, be weary, to become exhausted.
Sin, chronic idolatry, makes us tired. When we turn away from God in our own wicked pursuit of evil desires, we are exhausted. The kind of tired where their seems to be no relief.
BUT…..
God is so Good! In this same chapter, God gives us a way to peace and restoration! Isaiah 57:15-21
Reflection: To be right with God, we need to understand His majesty! The Lord introduces Himself with titles reflecting His great majesty and expects us to respond to Him with worship and glorifying.
Humility: God lives in the high and holy place, but also dwells with us. He dwells with those who have a contrite and humble spirit. We are expected by God to have a humble spirit. The Hebrew word for contrite is dakā’. It laterally means dust. It gives the idea of being crushed. God does not want us crushed by defeat, but crushed through wisdom. To acknowledge our spiritual adulatory to the point we become crushed and pliable. He is the life water that makes us into clay, and He becomes the artist that molds our lives.
The Greatest Love: We need to understand that God is the God of mercy and He promises to relent and not be angry forever. God has every right to be angry with us over our spiritual adulatory. He created us to worship Him. He is to be our forever first love. God will discipline us, but also promises to heal us, lead us, and restore comfort to us. It takes a great love to discipline us, but an even greater love to have compassion and restore us.
Peace: Each of us can receive God’s shalom. It is more than just an absence of hostility. It is a precious gift of wellbeing by God Himself. God invites us to draw near to Him and He promises peace.
The path to peace and restoration is acknowledging God is God. He is the majesty and author of everything. With humility and a crushed spirit, we need to return to Him with repentance. To return to Him with a hear of repentance and He will not only look upon us with compassion, but He will restore our lives with peace!
At the end of this chapter, there is one final warning:
20 But the wicked are like the storm-tossed sea,
Isaiah 57:20-21
for it cannot be still,
and its water churns up mire and muck.
21 There is no peace for the wicked,”
says my God.
In contrast to those who return to God, they are like the troubled sea and cannot rest. They are without peace. God’s great mercy is held out to man, but it must be received. A man who who has no peace is being perpetually hurried and tormented with their own lusts and passions. With the horror of their guilt, Divine vengeance is due to them, so they are constantly running.
I had no peace with God. I had no fear of Him or His promises to the wicked. My heart was in love with my idols and I was pursing my own desires and not Him. Even though I was exhausted physically, emotionally and spiritually, I just kept going.
I am not saying all “tiredness” is the result of sin. I still get tired after working double shifts, but for me, it is not the same kind of tired I was experiencing before. The dark circles under my eyes are gone, and I praise my Heavenly Father that each day His mercy restore my energy and strength to stride with Him, rather than the constant misery of running.
It Starts Small 
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