A Post Burnout Reflection

Throughout this month, our church has been working through a series titled, When the Enemy Attacks, addressing some of the “the schemes of the devil” (Eph,. 6:11), and how to defend ourselves against them.

This past week, in preparation for the series conclusion, I was studying the topic of Delay; a scheme that Satan uses to trick us and keep us from taking action. There are times in a pastor’s life when the study reveals deeper personal reflections than simply preparing a sermon.

This topic has caused me to reflect on the past few months, leading up to and into my burnout, and ongoing recovery.

My Moment of Delay:

“You have time-off booked next month; just keep pushing through!”

That doesn’t sound like a bad message. Definitely not an evil one! (Or does it?) That internal messaging kept me headed down a road to where eventually my mind and body forced me to listen to what the Holy Spirit had been saying for weeks previous:

“This isn’t sustainable Jeremy! You can’t keep this up!”

I remember those words clearly; the Spirit whispered to my heart early one Sunday morning. Our office manager had just arrived at the church. The sound of the front door above me stirred me awake. I say above me because I was sleeping in the nursery located directly under the foyer.

Yup, I had been sleeping in a chair, in the nursery. I had been up all night checking on and waiting for our church-online video to upload after multiple attempts and crashes throughout the night. (Turns out our internet provider doesn’t pay pastors overtime during outages.)

The video eventually uploaded at around 10:30 AM, just before our 11AM online gathering.

Calling, Conviction, and Crashing

I believe that our local church is called to reach Whitehorse with the Gospel. I have a deep conviction that church building gatherings may never be the same, and the conviction that we should produce the best online gatherings we can with the limited resources we have.

I did not, however, take into account the limitations of my own personal, internal resources. And so I crashed.

Even after the early morning nursery-napping event, the subsequent emotional breakdowns, and coming clean to our leadership about what was happening; I was still pushing for my scheduled break in a month’s time. I was in bondage to my calendar and planning, and Satan knew it. He used it to tempt me away from letting go of what I could no longer control or manage.

I fell into the enemy’s scheme of Delay.

Delay uses our fear of the unknown and forgetfulness of what is known. Fear told me that everything would fall apart if I didn’t wait another month. Forgetfulness caused me to ignore God’s sovereignty and steadfast care for the local church.

The action that Satan was tempting me away from was stopping. (You might need to read that again.) If that’s not a scheme of the devil, I don’t know what is! Sometimes Jesus is calling us to stop, rest, recover, and abide in Him. (Jn. 15:4-7) Especially after a heavy, heavy season of ministry!

I realize now that as an overachieving extravert, and this will be an area that the enemy will continue to use to break me down. Will I delay rest? Will I delay recovery? Will I delay abiding in Christ?

Looking back, I am thankful that our leadership had the wisdom to place me on a leave of absence right away. I didn’t like it, or maybe didn’t understand it at the time, but now I see that they loved me enough to help me stop, rest, recover, and abide in Jesus.

Have you felt the enemy’s scheme of Delay?

Are you tired? Are you anxious? Are you burnt out? Is the list of to-do items pressing past your capacity? Don’t be tricked into thinking that you’ll get to the end of them. Believe me; you’ll end up sacrificing your physical, mental, emotional, and even your spiritual well-being to continue achieving, but with no real success.

If you fear walking away and if you have forgotten God’s faithfulness, then you may have fallen for the enemy’s scheme to Delay. It never ends unless we listen to the Spirit’s call to stop.

Don’t delay stopping, because sometimes stopping is actually the Lord’s way of moving us forward.