Barriers: A Weary Mind

Last updated on January 21, 2023

Hello again, and welcome back to our series on barriers to spiritual investment. You can find all the previous posts in the series here. In today’s article, we identify the weary mind, how it becomes weary, and what to do about it to move deeper into spiritual intimacy with God.

What is a weary mind?

A weary mind is a mind that’s tired of thinking, tired of trying to discern or figure out things. It’s a mind full of the task list of the day and the “have tos” left undone.

A weary mind is a mind that can’t imagine something truly better, even though it wishes for it.

A weary mind is uncertain, flooded with information, and untrusting. It has more news and opinion to sort through than it can take.

A weary mind has a fluid foundation, no firm ground on which to stand. It can’t figure out what to believe.

A weary mind is a mind that raises itself as the authority. The ultimate decider of good and right, should and shouldn’t. Some minds may be able to bear up under that burden longer, or subscribe to the idea of the hive mind to reach balanced conclusions, but all will fall eventually. The burden of trying is too much.

In Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, he contrasts human wisdom with Godly wisdom, explaining that human wisdom is faulty and misleading. The weary mind is one still trying to live off human, insufficient wisdom. A weary mind omits the mind of God.

The mind of Christ (which is God’s mind) is the one that can bear all information across all time and beyond and come to the right conclusions without faltering or breaking. His mind is never weary and always able and always good.

Yet in Christ, as believers in and followers of him, we are given the possibility of thinking with a renewed mind–the mind of God in Christ delivered by his Spirit. We no longer have to think with a weary mind, a human-wisdom mind. Our minds are being renewed into the same mind as Christ.

Seeking A Renewed Mind

How can we learn to adopt the mind of Christ? To take his yoke upon us and learn from him? What do we do if we find ourselves unwilling or unable to invest in greater intimacy with God because our minds are weary? We ask ourselves some questions.

What occupies your mind?

What is your mind filled with? What is it set on? Name those things. Take time to write down any that you notice in your mind or talk them out with a trusted friend. Make a really stinking long list if you need to. It’s okay. We’ve all got one. No one’s judging.

How’s that working out for you?

Next to your list, or to your trusted friend (maybe ask them for some feedback, even), name any emotions and behaviors you can identify that are part of your life as a result of what’s occupying your mind. Here’s a great list to get you started. It’s directly from the pages of Paul’s letter to the believers at Colossae back in the day. These are still the same issues that make us weary.

What about your body’s physical responses? Are you ill? Battling chronic headaches? Weight gain? Weight loss? Avoidance? Fatigue? Muscle and joint pain? While not every ache and pain in the body is a direct result of our weary minds, many of them can be. It’s helpful to examine what our bodies are telling us that our minds haven’t been willing to look at seriously yet. A lot of ailments are caused by or made worse by stress, and stress is definitely an occupier of the mind.

Take it all to God

Lay the lists, the emotions, behaviors, body responses, thoughts, and awareness all on the table before God in prayer. Perhaps find a quiet place or put your earbuds in with some lyric-free music that drowns out the noises around you. Talk to him like you would a friend sitting across the table from you. There’s no way to say the wrong thing. He knows your heart. Invite him to be with you. Ask him to teach you how to live with his mind and not with wearying human wisdom.

Be open to the guidance of his Holy Spirit to renew your mind, if you are a follower of Christ. If you are not, talk to God about that, too. He understands where you are. Write down any “a-ha!” moments you may have during your prayer time. Put a date on them. As you walk with God on your spiritual growth journey, it can be encouraging to look back and see the moments God has been with you.

Let that stuff go

Now read back through your lists slowly. Can you better see what has been eating away at your mind and making it weary? Where you’ve been leaning into human wisdom and your thoughts are muddled?

Set boundaries against what’s wearying your mind. Likely, there are some things you’ll need to completely shut out for a time. Give your mind time to reset, to focus its input on what enlivens your mind rather than zaps it of its stamina. To help give you a starting point, here’s a quick-reference tool to give you some direction no matter how little time you have for spiritual investment or how weary you’re feeling.

As you’re considering boundaries, some things are unwise or impossible to shut out, so look at setting limits in those areas, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance. One of the areas I frequently do this in my own life is with social media. I enjoy social media for the good that it can do and the connections I can make. However, social media can be full of advertisements, opinion pieces that are misinformed or striving to be contentious rather than loving. It can just be too much for my mind to take en masse. So I set limits on my phone so my social media apps lock me out after a certain amount of minutes on them. Do you need to do something similar with whatever input is overloading your weary mind?

Whatever limits you set, aim to keep your mind free of the human understandings that create weariness while leaving space for transformed thinking. Practice being aware of your thoughts. Take them captive, don’t let them run away with you and make you weary. Be mindful of what your mind is doing, what influences human wisdom has on you.

Find out what he’s already told us

We can also seek to know what God has already told us about himself and his mind; why he works, how he works. He’s revealed it in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. History speaks of his works. The Biblical canon details who he is, what he has done, what he is working toward and even what comes at the end. When we spend time reading, studying, and understanding what is already written for his people, we can become increasingly familiar with the mind of God.

Now take action to increase in your knowledge and understanding of God’s mind as revealed in the scriptures. Start reading the Bible. Here’s a great tool I use nearly every day to read and listen to my bible. Make notes of any questions you have as you read. When you find a discrepancy between your mind and God’s mind, talk through it with him. Be willing to let your own mind be renewed and your understanding transformed by aligning with the mind of God. The Spirit will make you able if you want to be able.

As we go, the Spirit will teach each of us, in his divinely power-filled way, who he is and what his mind is. The more we understand of God’s mind, the more we will grow to think with the mind of Christ. And when his Spirit speaks to our spirit, we can know nothing he tells us beyond those scriptures for our specific lives will ever contradict the scriptural revelation of God’s mind.

For when we know the God of the scriptures for ourselves, the Living God, we can know we are standing on solid ground, even when the tempests of the world’s wisdom come and go, trying to knock us off course and making it impossible to see for ourselves.

There will always be a gap

An important point to make here is that spiritual wisdom, God’s way of thinking, can only be spiritually discerned. Meaning, only those given the salvation of Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit can perceive the mind of Christ. The world’s human wisdom can’t understand it. Even though it is the truest truth, the world’s human wisdom will always see it as foolish.

This is a division that will remain until the end of days. One we must live with as we hope our friends and family and neighbors and enemies come to know Christ and receive his mind for themselves. In the meantime, believers trust the mind of the Creator of the world, not the mind of the created ones. His is the greater and the longer lasting wisdom. God’s way is the way. There are no other ways, just long, winding dead ends.

Encouragement for the weary mind

As we wrap up this post today, I want to leave us with a nugget of truth to carry with us as we go about the work of un-wearying our minds. It is a reminder that good understanding has been given to those who believe and follow Christ, the one with the only good and weary-free mind of all.

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true one. We are in the true one — that is, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

1 John 5:20-21

May our minds become increasingly like the mind of Christ,