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When asked “How are you doing?” the most com­mon answer I hear is “Fine” or “Pretty good.” Can you guess what is the second-most com­mon answer is? Peo­ple say, “Tired.” Part of the rea­son I think is that there is a bit of virtue in being tired: “I’ve been work­ing hard” or even “I’m really busy and, there­fore, a pro­duc­tive person.”

In response to peo­ple say­ing “Tired,” I’ve been ask­ing recently: Is that a “good tired” or a “bad tired”? After a bit of a pause, the other usu­ally responds, “What’s the difference?”

I think there is a big dif­fer­ence. C.J. Mahaney writes a lit­tle about the difference:

There is a dif­fer­ence between being tired and weary. If I am tired, then sleep will bring appro­pri­ate refresh­ment and restore my strength. But if I am weary, sleep will be insufficient.

Mahaney is talk­ing about pas­tors and min­istry, but I’d sug­gest this is applic­a­ble for any believer. “Good tired” comes with a sense of accom­plish­ment and being a part of some­thing larger we think is ulti­mately worth­while. “Bad tired” comes from a lack of direc­tion or pur­pose and cyn­i­cism toward ulti­mate ends. “Bad tired” leads to a circling-of-the-wagons atti­tude: pro­tect my time and energy at all costs against any­thing or any­one that would sap it while I do the bare min­i­mum to get my job done.

To dis­cern between between being tired (i.e. “good tired”) and weary (i.e. “bad tired”), Mahaney says (regard­ing pastors):

So if I was inter­act­ing with a pas­tor, I would want to draw him out about the present state of his soul, the pres­ence or absence of affec­tions and pas­sion for the Sav­ior. And I would want to talk to him about whether min­istry is a joy for him at present, or a bur­den. Is his soul glad, or is his soul weighed down and weary?

For lay per­sons, I think it is sim­i­lar. It is about the joy of work and the joy of min­istry and cul­ti­vat­ing a pas­sion for God’s glory in the midst of it. (To bring work and min­istry together, we’ll have to await a more detailed dis­cus­sion about voca­tion, work and call­ing.) In the mean­time, I’m a big fan of what Bill Hamel wrote in EFCA Today, Sum 2005 (.pdf):

…I con­stantly meet believ­ers whose lives are dull, flat and with­out much spir­i­tual influ­ence. This tells me they have not yet found the joy and intense sat­is­fac­tion of mean­ing­ful min­istry. One of the great­est gifts, then, that church lead­ers can give mem­bers of their con­gre­ga­tion is help­ing them dis­cover, test drive and grow in their area of gift­ing. In fact, the job of pas­tors is to give min­istry away to faith­ful, gifted peo­ple. …In the end, it is about releas­ing God’s gifts.