Latest / Time with God with John North / How Pain Has Brought Me Closer To God Pt. 3

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How Pain Has Brought Me Closer To God Pt. 3 · Time with God with John North

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Good morning. We're talking all this week about 5 areas
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  Speaker 1: of my life where pain has pushed me towards God,
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  Speaker 1: and I believe for many of you, you will identify
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  Speaker 1: with these things. On Monday we talked about loneliness and
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: how God used the loneliness in my life to push
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: me towards Him and what a difference that made.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Yesterday we looked at financial difficulties and how financial crises
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  Speaker 1: in my life and in my ministry have pushed me
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: towards God, and God has always been faithful. Today I
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: want to talk about burnout.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever faced burnout, but it's
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  Speaker 1: something that doesn't come all at once. You don't suddenly
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  Speaker 1: hit the wall and it's all over. It's something that
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  Speaker 1: could be described as mounting feelings.
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  Speaker 1: A growing tension inside of you. You're at your max,
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  Speaker 1: you're at your limit, and sometimes even beyond your limit.
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  Speaker 1: And that sense that I'm in over my head, I'm
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  Speaker 1: doing too much, I can't handle all the things that
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  Speaker 1: are expected of me, and I'm not seeing how that's
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  Speaker 1: going to change, it produces a tension inside of you,
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  Speaker 1: and in my experience, that happened even while I was
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  Speaker 1: walking close to God.
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  Speaker 1: Depending on God, ministering in His power and seeing His
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  Speaker 1: blessing and Him working through me in amazing ways, it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't that I wasn't walking with God or not trusting Him.
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  Speaker 1: It was just the circumstances, the expectations, the pressures, the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: responsibilities from multiple angles brought this growing.
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  Speaker 1: Tension, exhaustion is not really the right word, but a
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: feeling that I can't change anything to avoid what is coming,
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  Speaker 1: and an awareness that I was heading to disaster, even
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  Speaker 1: though I wasn't doing anything wrong.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if you may feel like that today,
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  Speaker 1: or if you've been there at some point in your life.
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  Speaker 1: And you realise that as this mounts, you need to
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  Speaker 1: be doing more to stay ahead of things, and yet
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  Speaker 1: you become less and less able to operate effectively, and
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  Speaker 1: so you get even more overwhelmed, and you get to
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  Speaker 1: the point where even tiny things overwhelm you.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Just opening your email is so overwhelming. All of this
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  Speaker 1: is before burnout.
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  Speaker 1: It's all leading up to it. And I was moving
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  Speaker 1: towards this in my life, and I could see it coming.
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  Speaker 1: I was talking to my wife and letting her know
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  Speaker 1: what I could feel happening inside of me, and how
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  Speaker 1: I couldn't see what to do about it.
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  Speaker 1: And a friend of mine rescued me.
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  Speaker 1: He sent me to the Fairmont resort, beautiful resort in
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  Speaker 1: the Blue Mountains for a week. At the end of
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  Speaker 1: that week, I could feel it had done good for me,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: but I wasn't there yet, and my dear wife said,
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  Speaker 1: Well then let's just add on some more time. And
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  Speaker 1: I spent some more time there, time alone with God.
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  Speaker 1: Time to rebuild. Refreshing. I started to see the light
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  Speaker 1: at the end of the tunnel in my life again.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I started to laugh, even though I was by myself,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to laugh at things as I thought about them. I
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  Speaker 1: started to feel myself again.
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  Speaker 1: It was like
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  Speaker 1: I was a tree whose branches had become dry and scraggly,
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  Speaker 1: all the leaves dead on them, and my dry, scraggly
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: branches started growing some small leaves on them again. You know,
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  Speaker 1: we see Berman out in the Bible, of course in
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  Speaker 1: the life of Elijah, he came to the same point
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  Speaker 1: in his life of just despair and seeing things negatively,
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  Speaker 1: even though God had been using him.
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  Speaker 1: And what did God do? He sent him away to
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  Speaker 1: a deserted place. He provided him food. He helped him rebuild.
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  Speaker 1: And my experience of coming back from the brink of
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  Speaker 1: burnout brought me very close to God, and it helped
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  Speaker 1: me put rhythms in my life that preserve my inner life.
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  Speaker 1: My daily time with God is such a foundation in
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: my life. My annual personal retreat with God is so
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  Speaker 1: important to me.
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  Speaker 1: Being more careful and realistic in my schedule and what
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  Speaker 1: I say yes to and what I take on, all
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  Speaker 1: of these practical things are also spiritual things and things
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  Speaker 1: to do with my inner life. I'm so thankful to
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  Speaker 1: God that this approach to burnout caused me to focus
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  Speaker 1: much more on being still and being with Him in
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  Speaker 1: my life. I'm John North.
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  Speaker 2: To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.