Don’t fool yourself, fatigue can be a danger to you and others …

Due to circumstances that were, quite honestly, beyond my control, I found myself so exhausted yesterday that I finally had difficulty putting words together.

That’s a dangerous position to find oneself in, and all of us should avoid it like the plague.

But we don’t.

We actually live in a society that sometimes brags about how tired we keep ourselves, or have become so accustomed to a permanent measure of fatigue that we don’t truly understand just how (dangerously) tired we are!

Barnett Gushin documented some very dangerous episodes of being too tired …

“In February 2008, a Go! Airlines flight from Honolulu overshot its destination of Hilo, Hawaii, and found itself 30 miles out over the Pacific Ocean before turning back. The pilots originally claimed radar failures, but later admitted they had fallen asleep.

Last October (2009) the pilots of Northwest Airlines Flight 188 blamed a “loss of situational awareness” when their plane shot past its destination, Minneapolis, and continued flying for another 150 miles. The flight, with 149 people aboard, sped along, unaccounted for, for 78 minutes before a concerned flight attendant contacted the pilots via intercom. Turning around over Wisconsin, the aircraft finally landed safely at its original destination. While the pilots claim they were simply distracted, most authorities believe they fell asleep at the controls.

As terrible as these near catastrophes seem, they dim in comparison to the horror of the Continental Airlines flight that crashed near Buffalo, New York, in February 2009, killing all 49 on board and one person on the ground. It is speculated that fatigue is the most probable cause for this fatal accident. One of the two pilots is believed to have been awake all night before the flight and the other was known to commonly take cat naps to catch up on sleep just prior to a flight.

Before you dismiss such stories as being extraordinary, understand that being too physically fatigued has become commonplace for the average person, and the dangers of fatigue exist for all of us who keep pushing too hard at life. One report notes the following …

Drowsiness isn’t just an annoyance, it’s a significant health and safety issue. In fact, in 1990 “Insufficient Sleep Syndrome” was added to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders. It is suggested that tens of thousands of people die each year, including thousands on our roadways, as a result of “drowsiness.”

Drowsiness produces a sort of inattentiveness that can bring great harm both to self and others. According to Harvard Medical School:

Insufficient sleep may not have led the news in reporting on serious accidents in recent decades. However, that doesn’t mean FATIGUE and inattention due to sleep loss didn’t play a role in [many] disasters. For example, investigators have ruled that sleep deprivation was a significant factor in the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, as well as the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl.

Investigations of the grounding of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker, as well as the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, have concluded that sleep deprivation also played a critical role in these accidents.

“Says Dr. Max Hirshkowitz, an internationally recognized sleep expert with 40 years of experience in sleep research and sleep disorders, ‘People can grow accustomed to being tired, but they don’t actually begin to need less sleep. We’re fooling ourselves. We’re running on half a battery, and we think we’re okay. We don’t even know what it’s like to be alert anymore.’”

So what do we do about our problem of fatigue?

Yes, friends, the answer to that question is as simple as it seems. If we’re living lives in a state of fatigue that is not healthy for us, we need to change our personal, daily schedules so that we get adequate rest. In other words, if our daily calendars are so full that we routinely live at unsafe and unhealthy measures of fatigue, then we need to re-evaluate everything on our calendars and change the priority of one or more items so that we can provide for more rest and less activity.

Yes, I know that’s sometimes easier said than done, but the greater reality is that we often over-prioritize some things which really can be moved to the back burner, assigned to someone else or even outsourced, re-scheduled, or dropped entirely.

Life lived with a good night’s sleep is like the beauty of a crisp morning after a rainstorm. Things are clearer, fresher, and more beautiful!

Before finishing, though, let me draw your attention to a different kind of fatigue that affects all of us throughout our lives. It’s that internal fatigue that comes with all that is involved in living life. Fighting the good fight of faith, sorting truth from fiction, practicing discernment, pushing against temptation, all tend to make us weary spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and finally, even physically. For this kind of weariness, Jesus Himself is the answer …

“Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light,'” Matthew 11:28-30.

“Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint,” Isaiah 40:28-31.

“For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength,” Philippians 4:13.

Much earlier in my life and closer to the start of my “formal” ministry, I found myself exhausted from life’s challenges. I shared that in a letter with a wise pastor I greatly respected and I still remember part of his response was encouraging me that I was “just tired, not defeated.” I could do something about my fatigue — both the spiritual kind and the physical kind — I could find refreshing in the Lord and with some added rest, rise once again to take on the challenges of life.

I did.

You can, too.

Are you getting the physical rest you need? What changes do you need to make in your life so you’re not living life in a permanent state of fatigue? Are you going to Christ as your source of strength, for refreshing and renewal?

Scotty