Worn

Four years ago last month, I sat and heard a diagnosis that was hard for me to comprehend. Burnout. My mind struggled to grasp what my body had been screaming for months. I was tired. Weary. Just plain worn out. I didn’t have any gas left in the tank, not even fumes. I had burned those off months before and had been coasting, rolling ever more slowly until I came to a complete stop. My body was shutting down. My mind was a mess, and my emotional state. . .let’s just say it was a complete wreck. I had hit bottom. As I sat and listened, trying to acknowledge what I had been trying ever so hard to deny, I was faced with two important truths. First, I could recover. With rest and the appropriate care I could bounce back. It wouldn’t be fast and I would not be the same, but I could bounce back. That was good news. The second was more difficult. If I didn’t figure out what got me where I was, I would likely find myself here again. So began a quest, a quest to figure out how I had burned out.

My quest started on a beat-up couch in the home office of a gentle counselor. For months we worked together, exploring what was going on inside me, putting the pieces back together. As my work with this loving man came to an end, I started the next leg of my journey with a spiritual director, basically a spiritual companion or friend for the journey of faith, someone who could listen to me with one ear and to God with the other. Together, she and I kept going inside my heart, poking around trying to spy what God was up to in the depths. After some time and some searching the answer of what went awry became apparent. I had an enemy and the enemy was me. Actually, the enemy was me seeking a new me.

There is a lot about me that I never really have liked, a great deal that I would rather be different. I struggle with my weight. I am insecure and shy around people. I have a penchant for seeing a hundred ways something can go wrong. Oh, and I am not six foot six and built like a tank. Over the years, in both my upbringing and in ministry, I learned that there was a lot about me that other people didn’t really like either. I don’t preach like that guy on television. I am not as witty as that lady who wrote that book. I am too much a free thinker and too bound to tradition. I haven’t ever figured that one out. In fact, in ministry, I had come to the conclusion that there wasn’t a whole lot about me that anyone liked. I felt like just putting a sign over my office door that said, “I am not________,” so that people could just fill in the blank as it suited them. By my mid-thirties, I had discovered what takes others a lifetime to figure out. I had discovered that I needed to change. I wasn’t anything I needed to be. I needed to change.

I don’t know when I started trying to change. Maybe I had been trying all my life to one degree or another. What I do know is that change for me was pretty simple. I just had to work to change. Put on a few extra pounds? I just had to work it off. Not preaching in a way that made people happy? I just had to make myself a better speaker. Not ___________? I just had to do it. If at first I couldn’t, then I just had to do it again and again until I could.

I lived this way, trying and trying to be what I was not until finally there was nothing left, until I almost was not. As I reflect back on where I was, I can see how I got there and how easy it would be to go back. I also see congregations filled with people just like me. Maybe they haven’t gone as far. I do strive to be an over-achiever. Yet, I see congregations full of people who are tired, weary, and worn out trying to be what they are not. Trying. Trying. Trying. Trying to be what they are not.

The hard reality is that there is some truth behind our trying. The truth is that we are not. We could each put a sign above our door that simply says, “I am not ________.” We know we are not and we so want to be otherwise. We would like to be different. We would like to change. The trouble is that it seems that the harder we try to be what we are not, the further we get from that which we desire. It seems that we can’t really change. Well. . .at least not on our own.

There is one who seems to understand our condition, one who grasps that we are not. He seems to grasp that we are not and that we would like to change. He knows that our attempts to change are wearing us out, so he offers us an invitation. He invites us to try a new way, a way that involves him teaching us how to live. By allowing him to teach us how to live, change happens. We change, not because we try harder but because we stop trying altogether. Our efforts cease to find their focus in ourselves and begin to find their focus in him and then something marvelous happens. Slowly and surely we stop having to worry about what we are not for we find that he is. And, as he is, we begin to become. We change.

A fellow traveler,

Blake

What’s my next step?

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of handing off faith in your family.

Bless your children: Words spoken in blessing over our family have a way of shaping their lives at the most fundamental level. They build a foundation upon which our children’s framework for understanding and interacting with the world rests. This week, we invite you to consider blessing your children each night before they go to bed or at a time that best suits your family’s rhythms. You might consider using a paraphrase of Matthew 11.28-30 as your blessing. Such a paraphrase might be as follows: “May you know that Jesus will take you when you are tired and weary. May you find in him one who wishes to teach you how to live. May you discover the joy of the experience of the rest which only he can give.”

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.

Memorize and meditate on Jesus’ invitation:  Jesus knows that we are not ________. He offers a way to change, a way that is found in his invitation to become his apprentice. This week, we invite you to memorize and meditate on Jesus’ invitation found in Matthew 11.28-30. You might memorize these verses and use an item that spurs you to run these verses through your mind. This item could be a picture on a wall in your office, a building you pass frequently, or something similar. Every time you see your item, repeat Jesus’ invitation to yourself and ponder it briefly, allowing Jesus to speak to you individually.