The Realities of Burnout.

Working and Resting out of a place of overflow.

Written by Amy Liew

There is an uncomfortable stillness that rest can bring, but there is a gracious God who can help us live in it…

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Matt 11:28-30 (MSG)        

How long have you been running your race non-stop?

I think it can be almost too easy for those of us who work in ministry or in a job where caring for others is a top priority to burn out. Burnout more frequently affects those who work in a highly relational capacity but when we are designed to be relational people, and people are all around us, it can be hard to seperate where work begins and where it ends in our everyday lives. With no proper boundaries put in place, we can run ourselves empty and into a state of burnout without realising it. Friend, this is not a place you and I are designed to become familiar with.

Burnout is best described as “a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors characterised by overwhelming exhaustion, feelings of cynicism, detachment, a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.” What it can look like is a good night’s sleep leaving you feeling mentally or emotionally exhausted. You might experience physical symptoms like headaches or stomach issues, a lack of motivation or creativity, increased anxiety, an inability to cope or dissatisfaction with your job. Over a long period of time, this is not where anyone should want to be regardless of what impact we may appear to be having externally. How this affects us internally, and even those closest to us, is incredibly significant.

Now the last thing I’m wanting is for you to beat yourself up about all this if that’s where you’re at. Recovering from this state doesn’t begin by feeling bad about ourselves or feeling guilty. We should first understand that burnout really serves as a warning sign from our bodies that we are hitting a wall. Just like if we started to sprint and hit our threshold where we needed to physically stop, burnout is like our body hitting that emotional threshold telling us we really should stop.

When it comes to our every day lives, it is important we distinguish the difference between our work and our rest and intentionally seek rest. After all, we are called human ‘beings’, not human ‘doings’. Yes, we are called to work hard as human beings, but even from the beginning in Genesis, there was a time for God to work and a time for Him to rest. Our identity can often get mixed up with our work and if we aren’t careful, when we do rest, we can find ourselves wrestling with our sense of identity, feeling as though we should do more to become more.

You are already loved, not because of what you do, but because of who you are.

This is an important truth for all of us to grasp in the world we live in today, because from a societal point of view, we often have the perspective that we need to continue to work as hard as we can even if we are completely exhausted, we assume rest can wait until all the work is complete, or it may never even happen at all. God has called us to work not for a place of rest but from a place of rest.

I’ve had enough time to think a lot about the COVID-19 lockdowns where I live in New South Wales. So many people have struggled more than others because of the sudden pause on most work. For so many of us, there’s a temptation to place who we are and where we stand with our work and our identity, so forced rest, accompanied by stillness, has been incredibly confronting.

This force of rest is upon us and while many of us who have found comfort in busyness for so long have struggled with the sudden reality of having to stop. While it can be so easy to keep ourselves busy, I find myself having to come back to moments of stillness with God asking what he wants from me even in this season.

You were never designed to work from a place of lack but to work out of a place of overflow of time spent dwelling with God.

Even before Jesus had completed any works or miracles that God the father declared upon him: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” — Matthew 3:17.

God the Father declared His delight in His Son before sending him to complete the work ahead. You need to know that your identity, to God, will never be determined by what you do. What you do should be a result of who you are, and who you are is His daughter, who He loves and who He wants to know deeply.

So just like God delighted in Jesus, you too, are loved and delighted in by your Creator and you will never be loved any more or any less if you choose to stop, pause, rest and then go again.