Dear friend,
I want to speak to the tired part of you this Wednesday.
Not the part of you that is angry. Not the part of you that still gets fired up when you see what is happening on the news. Not even the part of you that is worried about President Trump, the courts, the country, your children, your grandchildren, or what kind of America they are going to inherit.
I mean the deeper tiredness.
The kind that sits quietly in the chest. The kind that makes you sigh before you even finish reading the headline. The kind that makes a person wonder how much longer good people are supposed to keep standing while everything around them seems to get darker, louder, and more confused.
Many of you have written to me about this, even when you did not use the word tired. You told me you are tired of being called hateful for loving your country. Tired of being treated like your faith is strange. Tired of watching the man you voted for get attacked from every direction. Tired of seeing pastors stay quiet. Tired of feeling like the world you helped build is being pulled apart while the people in charge tell you not to notice.
I understand that feeling. And I want to tell you something today that I believe matters very much.
The devil does not always need to make you evil. Sometimes he only needs to make you tired.
Before I go further, I want to place something in your hands. Many of you have asked me why the attacks on President Trump feel so relentless, and why so much of what we are watching feels larger than normal politics.
That is why I wrote They Tried To Stop Him: What The Bible Says About Donald Trump. It is meant to give you a Biblical pattern, so you can look at what is happening with steadier eyes.
Now let me tell you about Elijah.
Elijah was not a weak man. He was not a coward. He was not confused about God. He was a prophet who stood almost alone in a corrupt nation and spoke the truth when many others had bowed their heads.
In First Kings chapter 18, Elijah stood on Mount Carmel before the prophets of Baal. The nation had wandered. The people were confused. The leaders were wicked. False worship had taken hold. And Elijah stood there and called upon the name of the Lord.
God answered by fire.
It was one of the greatest victories in all of Scripture. The people saw with their own eyes that the Lord was God. The false prophets were exposed. The truth was made plain.
And then, right after that great victory, Elijah ran into the wilderness, sat under a tree, and asked God to let him die.
I want you to notice that carefully.
Elijah was not tired because he had failed. He was tired after victory. He had stood. He had spoken. He had obeyed. He had seen God move. And still, he was worn down to the point where he wanted to quit.
That tells us something important about the spiritual life. Sometimes the deepest exhaustion does not come because you are doing the wrong thing. Sometimes it comes because you have been doing the right thing for a long time.
You can love God and still get tired. You can love your country and still feel worn out. You can pray every day and still have moments when you wonder whether anything is changing. You can believe the truth and still feel lonely carrying it.
God did not shame Elijah for being tired. He did not rebuke him. He did not say, “How dare you feel weak after everything I have done?”
God let him sleep. Then He fed him. Then He let him sleep again.
That part of the story matters. God knows the frame of man. He knows we are dust. He knows that even faithful people get weary. There is no shame in needing rest. There is no shame in turning off the noise for a while. There is no shame in admitting that your heart has been carrying too much.
But here is the part people forget.
God let Elijah rest, but He did not let him quit.
After the rest came the assignment. God still had work for Elijah to do. There were still people to anoint. There were still things to set in order. There was still a future God was preparing, even when Elijah could not see it.
And then God told Elijah something else.
He was not alone.
Elijah thought he was the only one left. He thought everyone else had bowed down. He thought the faithful had disappeared. But God told him there were still seven thousand in Israel who had not bowed to Baal.
Seven thousand.
Elijah could not see them, but they were there.
I believe many of you need to hear that this morning. You may feel alone, but you are not alone. You may feel like no one else sees what you see, but there are more faithful people than you know. There are more praying grandmothers than the news will ever show. There are more fathers worried about their children than anyone admits. There are more ordinary Americans who still love God, love their country, and know something is deeply wrong.
The silence around you is not the same thing as absence. Sometimes people are quiet because they are afraid. Sometimes they are quiet because they are tired. Sometimes they are waiting for someone else to speak first.
But they are there.
The devil wants you tired because tired people stop doing the small faithful things that hold a life together. They stop praying by name. They stop calling their children. They stop opening Scripture in the morning. They stop encouraging their friends. They stop going to church with hope. They stop believing that their small acts matter.
But small acts do matter.
The prayer at the kitchen table matters. The Bible beside the bed matters. The flag on the porch matters. The phone call to a lonely friend matters. The grandmother praying for a grandchild who no longer believes matters. The man who still bows his head before dinner matters. The quiet refusal to be ashamed of your faith matters.
Most of the Kingdom of God is built through small faithful acts repeated by tired people who refuse to quit.
That is why the enemy works so hard to wear people down. He knows that if he can make you believe nothing matters, he can make you stop doing the things that matter most.
He does not need you to deny God out loud. He only needs you to stop speaking to Him.
He does not need you to stop loving America. He only needs you to believe America is already gone.
He does not need you to hate your family. He only needs you to grow too discouraged to keep reaching for them.
He does not need to destroy your faith in one day. He can try to drain it slowly through worry, news, anger, disappointment, and fear.
That is why you must guard your strength.
Not selfishly. Not because the world is easy. But because God still has work for you to do.
In Isaiah chapter 40, Scripture says that God gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. It says even young men grow tired and weary, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
Not those who hope in the news. Not those who hope in courts. Not those who hope in polls. Not even those who hope in presidents.
Those who hope in the Lord.
That does not mean we stop caring about the country. Of course not. You care because you love what God placed in your hands. You care because you remember a better America. You care because you want your children and grandchildren to live in a nation that still knows right from wrong.
And yes, many of you care about what happens to President Trump because you see something bigger than politics in the way he keeps standing. You see a man who has been opposed again and again, and still the story is not over.
But your soul cannot live on politics alone.
Your soul was made for God.
So today, I do not want you to panic. I do not want you to spend the whole evening letting the news bruise your spirit. I do not want you to confuse being informed with being consumed.
I want you to do what Elijah did.
Rest. Eat. Pray. Listen. Then get back up.
Not because everything is fine. It is not.
Not because the country is safe. It is not.
Not because there is nothing to worry about. There is plenty to bring before God.
But because God is still God. And He has not asked His people to live in fear. He has asked them to be faithful.
The devil wants you tired.
God wants you steady.
There is a difference.
This week, I want you to do five simple things.
One. Read First Kings chapter 19. Read it slowly. Pay attention to how gently God deals with Elijah when he is tired. Then notice that God still gives him work to do.
Two. Turn off the news for one full evening. Not forever. Just one evening. Let your soul remember what quiet feels like.
Three. Pray one specific prayer for President Trump, for this country, and for your family. Do not pray in vague fear. Name the thing that is weighing on you and bring it directly to God.
Four. Call one person who may be tired too. Do not argue. Do not lecture. Just encourage them. Tell them they are not alone.
Five. Before you sleep tonight, say this out loud: Lord, renew my strength. I am tired, but I am still Yours.
And before you go, if you have been trying to understand why this moment feels so heavy — why President Trump keeps being opposed, why the attacks keep coming, and why so many powerful people seem unable to rest while he is still standing — I want you to read They Tried To Stop Him.
It will not add to your fear. It will give shape to what you already sense. It will help you see the Biblical pattern underneath the headlines.
God bless you, friend.
Rest if you need to. But do not quit.
You are not alone. God is not finished. And tired people can still be used by Heaven.
With you in prayer,
— Father Thomas