Latest / Prayer Before Work / S01E38 - BURNOUT
Transcript
- Sean Graver: You've been running unempty for longer than you've told anyone. The tank isn't just low. It's it's been low for a while now, and you've been pretending it isn't, because there's no good time to stop. Well, this one's for you specifically today. Let's go to first Kings nineteen, verses four through five. Now Elijah had just experienced one of the greatest moments of his ministry, and then immediately collapsed under a tree in the wilderness. He was exhausted and defeated, and he prayed. That he might die. I have had enough, Lord, he said. And what does God do? He sends an angel, but not with a sermon, not with a plan, but with food and water. Get up and eat, the angel says, for the journey is too great for you. The journey is too great for you. God said that about his own prophet. Now he built in the acknowledgement that this is hard and You need to be cared for before you can keep going. So perhaps burnout isn't just a character flaw or something that happens to weak people or those with little faith. I mean it happened to Elijah right after one of his greatest victories. Now it can happen to the most capable, the most committed person in the room, and it often does because those are the people who keep going longest past the warning signs. Now the symptoms are pretty specific. ⁓ the work that you used to do, ⁓ or that used to energize you now, depletes you. ⁓ the compassion that came naturally, now you have to manufacture it. And the creativity inside of you, it's it's fading or it's gone. And everything takes more than it used to, and satisfaction for you is less and less. If that's where you are. The most faithful thing you can do right now is stop and eat. And I don't mean that metaphorically, I mean get some actual rest, actual care. Actually slow down enough to be restored before you re-engage. Now God didn't tell Elijah to push through. He fed him twice and then let him sleep. And that's the model. The journey is too great for you to keep running on nothing. So let's pray. Well, God, I've been saying I'm fine when I'm not. The truth is, there are times when I've been depleted more than I admitted to anyone, maybe even including myself. So I hear you in this passage that the journey is too great for me to run it the way I've been running it. So I'm asking you to do for me what you did for Elijah. Care for me, feed me, let me rest in your presence before you send me back out. Show me specifically what I need to do differently, where I need to stop, where I need to ask for help. And give me the courage to actually do those things instead of just pushing through again. I need you to care for me today and I'm I'm letting you I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And go make today count.