How to overcome burnout.

Will a human being ever swim across the ocean? Run a one-minute mile? Go six months without sleeping? Of course not because there are just certain things that we’re not designed to do. Yes, because of the rapidly changing condition of modern living—largely due to progress always giving us more and more of everything faster and faster—we are always trying to exceed our limits in areas at all the same time. The pain from this attempt can easily be seen. People everywhere are collapsing in exhaustion, wondering what happened?

What hit them was overload. This can be defined as the point at which our limits are exceeded. “Load” is not the problem. “Over” is the problem. We have all heard about the straw that broke the camel’s back. When a camel is loaded to the max, just a little straw can break him. The problem is not the load, camels love to carry loads. The problem is the straw, or the overload.

Stress is such an accepted part of our modern culture that most of us accept it as normal. In reality, distress distorts our physical, mental, and emotional health, and affects our attitudes, marriages, work, and even ministry. We can overload ourselves to the point that we burn out and are no longer effective in God‘s work.

Maximizing everything of course has become the way of the world. We push the limits as far as possible. We spend more than we have, whether it be money, time, or energy. Jesus, however, never seemed to be in a hurry. there’s no indication that he worked 24 hour days. He went to sleep every night without curing every disease in Israel. He followed god’s agenda, and so He was perfectly effective.

Jesus understood what it means to be human, and what it means to have limits. Jesus knew what it meant to prioritize and balance in light of these limits and how to focus on the important things. Our Lord knew that busyness does not have to mean Godliness. He’s more concerned with the quality of our lives. He calls us to be fruitful, but he also insists that our fruit should “remain,” not burn out.

God has created a great big, beautiful world for us to live in until He calls us to his to live an eternity, so we need to make the most out of what we have here. We can’t enjoy life, and be an example of Christ to others, if we’re running around stressed out about being overloaded all the time. Take your load to Jesus in prayer and ask him to lighten it. Take some of the weight off of those shoulders, and you’ll learn to enjoy life a lot more.

Some verses for peaceful living.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Matthew 11:28-30 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Romans 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

Luke 6:48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.

Psalm 119:71It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.

John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”