Week 1. Day 1. Mark 6:31

Oh, the inexhaustible mercy of our God! The LORD never fails to dispatch timely and unmerited helps even unto this most stubborn, slow, and foolish mule! It is true that a particular passage of Holy Scripture hath, time and again, provided sweet, profound ministration to my sinking spirit. Yet, even in the stillness of my private devotions this very morning, that same passage did speak once more, gently revealing a simple, vital truth that my poor heart doth seem perpetually prone to forget:

He said to them, “Come with me privately to an isolated place and rest a while” (for many were coming and going, and there was no time to eat).
Mark 6:31

The following is part of my lecture notes taken from a recorded seminar of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.

"Putting in long stressful hours in the Lord's work doesn't grant one immunity from the laws of health. The minister must eat nutritionally, sleep sufficiently and live relaxingly. I had to learn the lesson of relaxation the hard way.

Remember that the Israelites didn't keep the Sabbath year. And the punishment was that they would have the Sabbath year spent in exile. So they missed 70 Sabbath years. They were going to spend 70 years in exile. I think that does work out in a lot of lives as well. If we don't keep Sabbath, if we don't respect the way that God has ordered our bodies and their need for rest, because we're trying to pack so much into our lives, eventually we'll be forced to Sabbath one way or another by death, by illness, by burnout.

While physical skills and abilities are not essential for the work of the ministry, a body capable of withstanding the rigours of the work most certainly is. Sleepless nights, long hard days, emotionally tense and draining sessions all soon take their toll. To sustain such a vigorous and exhaustive pace as the ministry requires, one must develop both the concern and ability to care for his physical welfare and a body that's been disciplined and trained to meet the demands.

In short, since a man is a whole man, the minister must not neglect the body, but rather will recognize that it's in the flesh and through the body that's been called to carry out the work of ministry. Worn, unalert bodies hinder ministers in their preaching and ministerial duties.

W.A. Criswell was an admirer of Spurgeon. He had every book Spurgeon ever published. He studied Spurgeon's life and ministry extensively. This man says, I asked Dr. Criswell one day what Spurgeon died from. He answered he ate himself to death. Spurgeon became obese and died at 57 years of age. Criswell's answer may have been an overstatement, but the truth is still there. He was huge. He was a huge man. So dear brother, no matter how successful you are, says Bryant & Brunson, keep your weight under control."