BURNOUT: Reorienting our disorientation

“Burnout” is a term common to Western Civilization’s vernacular. An AI Overview indicates that Google Search displays 150-200 million general web results (News, blogs, and resources) for “burnout”. Google Scholar indexes over 1.9 million academic studies and scholarly publications on the subject, and Google News offers hundreds of continuously updated articles on burnout across a variety of workplaces and lifestyles.

Often associated with endeavors requiring daily discipline, diligence, redundancy, long hours, and measurable production, this pervasive buzzword and endemic condition seemingly expresses itself in every facet of society and has become the catalyst for all of life’s stress, exhaustion, and dissatisfaction. It has become so prevalent that even the World Health Organization (WHO, 2019) has seen the need to classify the term not as a medical condition but as an occupational phenomenon.

Not even the faith community is exempt. With the tendency of the Western church to “baptize” as her own the popular trends and maladies of the day, even clergy now utilize the term with great frequency.

In response, a question worthy of consideration is, “Have we been too hasty, as believers, to accept the cultural trend of victimhood, a philosophical determinism that reckons us a product of the favorable or unfavorable circumstances of life, or a perspective that views human existence through the secular prism of genetics (Nature), or the environment and experiences that fashioned our childhood (Nurture)?”

While worthy of conversation, these outlooks ignore the transcendent possibilities of faith, the redeeming transformation of conversion, a biblical worldview, a proper understanding of who and what we are as victors in Christ Jesus, and the implications of this supranatural relationship for all who would bear witness to the resurrected Christ and the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God?”

Burned out or cooled off?

I pray one does not read into this article an insensitivity to the subject matter or a simplicity in its offering. A lie commonly found in our churches is that because you deal with feelings of burnout, you are weak, and if you just had more faith, those negative emotions would disappear. Moving us beyond those misconceptions, but in a way that does not swing too far to the other side, is one of my primary goals today.

What I do offer, however, is firsthand, experiential knowledge of a 35-year-old pastor, disoriented, depressed, and overwhelmed by the thought of being in this role for the remainder of my days, and how the Lord guided my recovery, deliverance, and reorientation to a biblical understanding of God’s call and the scripturally prescribed role of pastor.

What would be my “Why,” unceasing motivation, and source of fulfillment has been embraced by athletes, coaches, businessmen, individuals from all walks of life with whom I have shared it, and I would pray the same for all who might entertain this article.

Instead of the word burnout, I lean more toward the language of having “cooled off” when describing this condition. We cool off and grow cold to work and tasks that are meaningless, or that we have deemed as such.

As ministers of the gospel, especially in the Western church, many find themselves vulnerable to this condition because so much of what consumes their time, energy, and resourcefulness has nothing to do with the biblically prescribed role to which they are called. Instead, time and energy are spent on religious busywork and the creation of slick, well-marketed programs that appease the insatiable consumeristic appetites of congregants, while making no contribution to the formation of disciples and extending the mission of the church.

My guess is that what I just described isn’t exclusive to clergy. Perhaps you, too, have felt trapped by jobs, roles, or activities that seem without meaning or purpose. If that’s the case, know that God has a better way forward than simply continuing on or giving up.

What does it mean to conquer?

Critical to overcoming this fragmented view of what is meaningful and what isn’t, what is worthy of my time and what isn’t, is a recapturing of our own completeness/fullness/wholeness in Christ (Colossians 2:10) and a reorientation toward the sacredness of all things. The Psalmist writes, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who live in it” (Psalm 24:1).

By this, all things become meaningful, divine appointments and intersections filled with purpose, and of eternal consequence as we do all things unto the Lord and not unto man (Colossians 3:23-24).

When all things, all people, all places, all circumstances are understood, collectively, as sacred, then ours becomes a missional presence; that by setting our minds on things above, not on things of the earth (Colossians 3:2), even our most menial of earthly tasks become a sacred vocation.

Another consideration that reset the trajectory of my understanding and work was the declarative statements of Scripture that I had previously overlooked or ignored. Consider the words of Paul, “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loves us” (Romans 8:37).

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).

John would add to this, “For whoever has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith” (1 John 5:4).

“Overwhelmingly conquer!” “Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” “Overcomes the world!”

Conquer what? Victory over what? Overcoming what?

At the bare minimum, shouldn’t it mean we have the capacity to persevere and endure the circumstances, trials, and hardships of this present world and, perhaps, the boredom, tedium, and monotony that Western affluence “imposes” upon us? Reading Romans 8:11, I suspect we have been designed and saved for more: “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

In his book Living With a Navy SEAL, author Jesse Itzler references the 40 percent rule, taught to him by a retired Navy SEAL. The foundational idea is that in your training, when you think you have exhausted yourself mentally and physically and have nothing left to give, you have achieved only 40 percent of your capacity and have another 60 percent in reserve, accessible only by pushing past the point of your present discomfort.

If this is a possibility of the flesh, are we not challenged even more in the life of the Spirit? This untapped capacity is why I consider “cooling off” to be the greater reality than “burning out.” It demands a perspective that stands in contrast to the unregenerate mind; an outlook and mindset that interprets the events and inevitable circumstances of life differently.

Thus, Paul offers this admonition, “So I say this, and affirm in the Lord, that you are to no longer walk just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their minds” (Ephesians 4:17).

“I have found a place of service”

When seeking counseling for burnout, there’s a great likelihood that one will be introduced to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT is a popular psychotherapeutic method that recognizes how thoughts, feelings, and behavior are inextricably bound together and seeks to help individuals better interpret and process negative responses to events as they occur.

Theology, however, long preceded psychology as an academic discipline and has its own form of CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Theology), and the intimate connection between how one thinks and how one acts and reacts. 

Nearly 3000 years ago, Solomon wrote, “For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). And of first importance, to guard the place where determinations are made: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

After listing a catalogue of virtues, Paul utilizes a word from which we get the mathematical term logarithm and demands of the believer a deliberate and prolonged contemplation, writing, “Let your minds dwell upon these things” (Philippians 4:8). To the church at Rome, he would write, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). And the highest pursuit of all, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).

Perhaps the most insightful words regarding the relationship between the mind, how we think, and our sense of completeness and well-being are to be found in Romans 8:5-6: “For those who are in accord with the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are in accord with the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.”

During a mid-30’s season of having gone cold to the idea of “church work” for the next three decades, along with the scriptural reorientation of my vocational understanding, I came across an account on the life of Dr. David Livingstone, a Scottish physician and, eventually, a missionary with the London Missionary Society. During a return trip to London to raise funds for his missionary endeavors in Africa, an audience member asked whether he was happy doing this type of work. Purportedly, his response was, “I would not use the word happy. I have found a place of service and that is sufficient for me.”

Whether fact or fiction, it’s a statement that would sustain and become foundational to my life, calling, and ministry for the next three decades. For those who need more—recognition, applause, and the favorable opinion of others—there is never any rest or fulfillment, only the ever-present cancer of insufficiency, and the haunting presence of inadequacy.

By being fixed in the identity that is yours in Christ Jesus, by being the missional presence of Christ wherever your feet are, and by doing all things for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31), there is the revitalizing realization that there is never a time or place where we are not providentially situated.

Ultimately, that understanding that the Lord had a purpose for my life was enough, even if the day-to-day living out of that purpose continued to have its ups and downs. However, absent that perspective, burnout is inevitable because the sense of calling we give ourselves can never fill the God-sized void wired into each of us. 

With what are you trying to fill that void today?