“If I have to hear one more sad story I’m gonna pull my hair out!” 

“I just don’t care!” 

“This is never gonna end!” 

Have you ever had these thoughts run through your head? Have you ever said them out loud? I have and it was no fun. I felt so ashamed that I’d even think it. After all, these people had next to nothing and in their eyes I had everything and all the answers. It was all quite overwhelming. The needs, the number of people, the obstacles, it was just all too much. It was safe to say that I was burning out, fizzling and crumbling up on the inside about to become vapor. Ok, so that may be a bit melodramatic, but seriously, sometimes what we do is just plain hard and exhausting. It is ok to admit that. It is ok to feel tired. It is ok to feel overwhelmed.  

There’s an older movie from 2003 entitled The Core. In it a team of scientists headed by Aaron Eckhart and Hillary Swank are commissioned to head to the Earth’s core in order to “restart” the rotation of the Earth and thus save all of mankind. Of course, there are all sorts of intense challenges and obstacles and unfortunately, some of the crew die. To paraphrase some of the dialogue at one of the lowest points of mission, the captain throws his hands up and just exclaims, “This is impossible! We can’t save the whole world!” The older and wiser colleague replies, “That is your problem. You are trying to save the whole world. We can’t save the whole world.” Confused, the captain asks, “What?! Isn’t that what we are doing?” He is answered back with, “No, I’m not saving the whole world. I’m saving two,” and shows a picture of his wife and son. The task had become so overwhelming that perspective was becoming lost until it was honed in on two individuals that meant the world to him. 

Do we perhaps feel like the overwhelmed captain? As we go about our mission, we get engulfed by the insurmountable numbers of people and needs. But there is hope! If we focus on two or even if just one, the giant task becomes smaller. Save the two, not the whole world. And we have one more advantage that the crew in The Core did not have. We have a promise that “because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end. They are new every morning;” Every morning we can have a new batch of His mercies and confidence that no matter what we face, His faithful love will pull us through it. 

It’s ok to feel overwhelmed. It is ok to feel tired. But let’s not stay there. After all, we aren’t commissioned to save the whole world. Let’s just focus on the one or two in front of us and stay confident that the Lord’s faithful love will carry us through those hard and exhausting times.