“Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand. Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.” Mark 6:41-46
Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed or depleted, or just plain low (low on energy, low on motivation, low on patience or low on self-control), I feel less-than because Jesus probably didn’t feel this way. After all, He was God in the flesh. This is a sly lie the enemy tries to make us believe. Jesus felt tired and worn and frustrated, and surprised and any other human emotion that might course through us, because He was fully human. He lived the human life to empathize with us and fully deliver us, from ourselves as well as from the devil. Jesus modeled for us the tactical timeout.
When I was a teenager playing basketball, I would get frustrated when the coach would call that last timeout minutes before the game ended. I reckoned abstractly that it was a helpful tactic. Perhaps there was something we were missing on the court that the coach needed to make us aware of. Maybe we were so tired we needed to get refreshed for a minute. Maybe, the most frequent reason, we were too frazzled and needed to calm down.
I can recall times during high energy games when my coach would say, “# 5, you need to calm down.” Other times my step Dad would catch my eye and tell me to cool off. I didn’t like those corrections. However, these admonitions came when I was woefully close to fouling out of the game because I couldn’t slow myself down. I couldn’t take that tactical timeout. Something inside me felt like I had to hold on to the adrenaline or I wasn’t putting my whole effort into the game, and that wasn’t an option.
Many years later, I recognize the great importance of taking a tactical timeout. The need for taking a mental minute to recalibrate can vary. At times I might feel like all the plates I am spinning will come crashing down if I don’t find a calm way to set them down. At a different time, I might feel like I have all the pots on the proverbial stove simmering superbly, yet one spills over anyway and get the stove all messy.
While reading the gospels, we recognize that Jesus taking time away from the crowds and even His disciples at times was a tactical way to take a mental minute for Himself. He modeled for us that when we reach our limit it is okay, rather it is preferred, that we seek solitude and we seek time with the Father who can point out what we don’t see, refresh us when were weary, and calm us down when we are frazzled.
From the recollections I read of Jesus taking a moment for Himself, I don’t see Him apologizing to anyone or working extra to make up for stepping away temporarily. Society has us so twisted up, so falsely accountable, so exhausted that we think can’t follow Jesus’ perfect example. We think we have to justify, we have to explain, we have to make up for being human and reaching our limit. The beautiful thing is, we don’t. We don’t have to apologize for being human. We all reach our limits,
because we all have them. As long as we take the tactical moment tactfully, we don’t need to apologize.
I wish I could tell the younger version of myself that the timeout is important. The purpose of it is to recalibrate. It’s not a weakness or a failure moment to calm down, to refocus, to seek solitude. The Lord wants us to have peace. The enemy wants us to be worn out, frazzled, and blinded to what’s important and what’s happening. I’d tell my younger self, “Listen to the coach, really listen. And take the timeout seriously. It’s not a waste of time. It’s important.” I’m so thankful we have a model and a faithful spiritual coach to lead us.
“He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.” Luke 5:3
