Daily Devotions -Thursday - January 7

​Once there were two men who were in a competition to see who could chop more trees in one day. Both experienced, but one was much older than the other. The younger man felt confident that he could take on the older one and as the day went on, his confidence continued to grow.  He noticed that the man took breaks throughout the day and that just built up his confidence further as he was working steadily with simply quick water breaks. As the competition came to a close, and the counts were tallied, the young man was stunned as the older man was named the victor. Astonished, the young man asked his competitor about this. “I don’t understand this. How did you win? You took a break at least every hour and I worked non-stop, yet you completed 40 trees while I only got 25 done.” The older man responded that he took breaks to rest and also sharpen his blade. While his counterpart was grunting and struggling, he was resting and preparing for the next round.  Let us remember that we must give ourselves breaks to replenish and also let us remember that we should use the tools given to us so that we can efficiently do what it is we need to do. Spiritually, this application can be looked at from a framework of prayer and rest. Don’t push yourself so hard that you forget those things.