Ready to drop

by John Stallings


We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it.

Do you recognize the words above? They are the words of none other than the great apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1:8—NLT.

It sounds like Paul was ready to drop doesn’t it? Have you ever been there? I don’t know who said these words, “Doing the work of God is good but doing the will of God is much better,” but I love them.

I heard about a man who ordered flowers for his deceased father & when the beautiful spray of flowers arrived at the funeral home the card attached read “Enjoy your trip.” It was obviously a mix-up at the florist so the man called to chew the people out who were responsible for the fluke.

The florist shop worker, trying to defuse the situation told the man, “Sir, this isn’t so bad, somewhere in town at another funeral home is a spray of flowers with an attached card that reads, “Congratulations on your new location.” It sounds like fatigue & burn-out can happen even to people who work with flowers for a living.

Listen to these words In Philippians 2:25-30; --Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother & companion in labor, & fellow soldier & messenger, & he that ministered to my wants. For he longed after you & was full of heaviness because that ye had heard that he had been sick.

For indeed he was sick, nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; & not on him only but on me also lest I should have sorrow on sorrow. I sent him therefore in the Lord with all gladness; hold such in reputation.

Because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life to supply your lack of service toward me.

Though there aren’t a lot of details here it seems that Paul was in Rome & the church in Philippi decided to send Epaphroditus as their messenger to provide financial support & also practical help to Paul.

So now Paul has a problem. Epaphroditus’ health is broken, he’s ready to drop, & he desperately needs R&R. Word has reached Paul that the church in Philippi is aware of Epaphroditus’s illness & is worried about him. It would seem that Epaphroditus is homesick but feels guilt that he is causing so much worry at home. He also fears the home church that sent him will think he’s let Paul down. Paul realizes that if he keeps Epaphroditus with him with his health failing him, it may have fatal results.

Can anybody say conundrum? Murphy’s Law springs to mind here. Through nobodies fault, the best intentions of the Philippian Christians have ended up in a mess & Epaphroditus is plagued with the thought, “What must they think of me- would it have been better if I had never come? When my church asked me to do this should I have said no?” Here we have Paul, the Philippian church & loyal worker Epaphroditus, all on the horns of a dilemma. I’ve been there, done that, & have the t-shirt. What about you?

Isn’t it interesting if not comforting to read these words telling us that even in the life of those early Christians, through no fault of their own, & with the very best of intentions, things end up in a mess? Through some random event, an illness, a conflict or some other lack, maybe even of resources, life slashes through our path with a vengeance & we find ourselves saying like Paul did, “Its time to stop & reassess where we’re going & what we’re doing, because we can’t go on like this.”

Even in God’s work, we haven’t been called to “burn-out for Jesus.” We pray for wisdom when sometimes all we need is a little common sense. Sometimes when we are ready to drop it is necessary to step back from the overload & rest to regain our health & energy. We aren’t doing God or anyone else a favor when we break down under the load.

In the mid-sixties I preached a lot in Michigan. We loved the people of this great state. Once while conducting a meeting in Pontiac, a 24 year old man came up to me in the lobby of the church were we were ministering & said, “Preacher, I’m one of those guys whom God blessed with a heart attack.” At the time I was rather young myself & in many ways naive’. I stood & listened as this fine young fellow explained to me how he awoke one night feeling like an elephant was standing on his chest. He received medical attention & to God be the glory, his life was spared. He then pulled several bottles of medication from both his front pant-pockets & told me he’d probably be on these meds the rest of his life.

Then he hit me with the “big-kicker.” He knew in retrospect why God had “given” him the heart attack & that was because he’d been able to win a man to Christ while he was hospitalized. As we stood & talked, another older man came up smiling & said to the young man, “Tell the preacher the truth now.” I was non-plussed as I was under the impression that he was telling me the truth. The bottom line was a few months back, the young man had been offered by General Motors, the company he worked for, unlimited hours for the next few months because the new car models were coming out. He could work as many hours as he wished for a while & he chose to work almost non-stop for several months. That meant huge money but very little sleep & almost no leisure time.

When he awoke with the “elephant” on his chest, he’d had almost no sleep for months. I walked away from that conversation a little wiser, knowing that some people will act in an unwise manner then when the roof caves in, they will try to elevate their actions by ascribing it all to “God.”

Just think, he was put in the hospital by God “so he could win a man to Christ.” If someone tried to tell me a story like that now I’d be quick to point out--- if they’d gone in the hospital in good health, they could have visited every room in the hospital & won numbers of people to the Lord.

Perhaps we should say that if Epaphroditus drove himself to exhaustion & ignored his other options to maintain his health & well being, in the belief that this was the kind of sacrifice that was called for, he got it wrong. And if we follow the same destructive path we will also get it wrong.

Paul could have been proud & stubborn & drove himself to extremes but in his dealings with Epaphroditus when he truly understood the situation he was supportive loving & deeply caring. Maybe we all can see when another person is driving themselves too far, but we don’t recognize the crisis staring us in the face. I realize that Clint Eastwood wasn’t a prophet or the son of a prophet but I once heard him say something very wise; “a man’s got to know his limitations.”

Maybe in our quest to know our God as a supernatural God, we fail to see that He will also tell us at times, if we’ll listen;

“Stop! If you stop for awhile you haven’t failed. Don’t continue till you drop. Don’t be worried about what others may think of you. You can’t do anything else for the present but pull away, rest & recover your wholeness once again.”
John