Too Tired to Keep Going (But Too Busy to Stop)|09.07.25|Beating Burnout pt.1
Earlier this year, my family and I went to the Wisconsin Dells for the first time, and got to experience the Great Wolf Lodge. We had a great time there, but let me tell you, my social media and my email hasn’t been the same.
Because, of course, there are ads now trying to entice me to book another stay.
But I noticed something strange, because it’s not like the only ads I saw were for a single water park. There are a lot of ads that seem to all be selling different things.
But you can notice the same trend when you flip through any popular magazine. You’ll notice all sorts of ads: a couple drinking coffee and reading the newspaper in a luxurious bed, a young guy playing guitar on a comfy couch, a group of friends enjoying a picnic on the beach.
And even though it seems like they are different ads for different products, they are actually all selling the same thing. What are they selling? Sabbath.
The Hebrew word, shabbat, literally means “to stop, cease, or be done.” And God created the Sabbath as a regular day of rest and renewal where you aren’t striving or stressing.
And marketing departments all over the world know that we LONG for this type of life, but we don’t have it. So they are willing to sell it to you!
Just book this cruise. Just buy this product. Then you’ll have the same feeling of bliss that the actors and models in the ads seem to have.
We ache for this type of life because we were made for it. We were created to be able to experience the rest and renewal that God built into the Sabbath. But instead, we chase that sort of feeling through performing more, consuming more, and keeping ourselves so busy that we don’t even know how to unplug anymore.
And just so you know, I’m speaking to you as someone who really struggles with this! Megan will tell you, when we take a vacation, or have a getaway, I bring a stack of books with me because I think that a good use of time-off is catching up on some theology books I’ve been wanting to read.
As if I need to be “productive” in some way to make the vacation “worth it.”
Or maybe you’re the person that spends the first 2-3 days of vacation with too much energy to relax, because you don’t know what to do with yourself. Unable to rest, you’re just rest-less.
And even though it’s difficult sometimes, we still see these images of joyful rest and connection, and we long for it.
[Matthew 11:28-30]
And believe it or not, this goes all the way back to the time of Jesus. One of his most famous invitations is this:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
[Message Translation]
I love how Eugene Peterson paraphrases it in his Message translation:
“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.”
In today’s reality, ‘Are you tired’ isn’t even a question anymore. Of course you are! Just ask any person the default greeting, “Hi, how are you?” and they’ll either answer with the non-answer “fine”, or they’ll say “Tired.” “Busy.”
“*sigh* Keeping it together.”
No matter what line of work people have, it seems that low-grade exhaustion is the new normal.
Part of this is physical. Up until fairly recently in human history, the average person slept 10-11 hours a night. Because if you don’t have electricity to fight back the dark, you tend to follow the sun’s leadership for when it’s time to wind down for the night.
But now, the average person in America sleeps just over 6 hours a night. And just like running a piece of machinery for too long without regular maintenance breaks, our bodies break down and don’t function as well either when we are chronically under-rested.
And yes, there are seasons of life when a lack of sleep is unavoidable. But when we make that our norm, we are diminished in our entire personhood because we are just so tired.
But if it was just physical tiredness, then taking some extra naps, or changing our sleep routine would fix it. But we know that getting extra sleep isn’t the only thing our exhausted selves need.
Because we aren’t just physically tired. We’re exhausted in our SOULS.
Even if you do have a chance to go away on vacation and catch up on some sleep, all the other forces of our modern world that weigh on us don’t go away. We’re still experiencing the pile-up of:
The hurry, busyness, and frenetic pace of modern life
The always-on culture of work and life where we carry our phones with us
The stress of the rising cost of living
The endless nature of this digital age, where the phone is always buzzing, the email notifications never end, the 24/7 news cycle that is full of outrage and fear
The polarization of politics
The increase of loneliness in our modern society
It’s just too much to carry. And it’s no wonder we’re all so tired.
But the part of this that should alarm us the most is that this is more than a physical or even emotional toll. At its core, this is a spiritual problem.
Why? Because for those of us who follow Jesus, we know that our lives are meant to be submitted to his way of life now. And Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment in all of Scripture is to love God with all of our hearts, soul, mind, and strength. And the second greatest commandment is to love others as we love ourselves.
The whole point of our life is to become people of love. The direction that God is leading us is towards the kind of just and truthful love that He is.
But when you’re exhausted, it’s a lot harder to love God. When you’re pulled in all the wrong directions by the world, our faith doesn’t produce the fruit of the Spirit in us.
[Mark 4:19]
Jesus told us this in his parable about the type of heart that DOESN’T respond to God’s word well. He said, “but the cares of the age and the lure of wealth and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing.”
The worries of this life…choke the word of God out of our hearts.
And we instinctively know this: Tired people are less loving. When you’re exhausted, or stressed out, or running on fumes, you’re less likely to engage with God with reading Scripture or prayer.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve set an alarm at night to wake up early so I can have time with God, but then when the morning comes, I ignore that alarm.
But also, when we’re tired, it’s hard to love other people, too.
Most of my worst moments as a husband, father, or a friend happened when I was exhausted or stressed or in a hurry.
And that’s not how Jesus designed us to live.
Jesus’ will for us is not for to be forever-exhausted, sleep-deprived, unhappy and living without any margin. That’s how the enemy wants us to live! Because our enemy knows that when we live this way, we’re less able to join Jesus in his work and his way of life that we were designed for.
And why is the enemy anti-sabbath? Because he knows that Sabbath is God’s weekly gift to free us from exhaustion and fill us with life.
[John 10:10]
Jesus said it best: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
Abundant life. Full life. The type of life that is given to us by the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
And in order for us to experience that full life, we can’t get there by working our way there. Rest is an essential part of the way God designed life so that we can become a person marked by love. So that we can be apprentices of Jesus who are transformed to become more and more like Jesus in every area of our lives.
[Scripture Ref]
And God cared so much about this that he designed it right into creation. I know we’ve jumped around the Bible a bit already, but open with me right near the beginning, Genesis ch2 (p1).
In it, we read that God created everything there is: he made light and darkness (day and night), and the sky, and land and seas. They were good. Then he filled the day with the sun and the night with the stars; he filled the sky with birds and clouds; and he filled the land and seas with animals of every kind. They were good.
Then he made humanity to steward creation, to take care of everything God had made as his representatives on the earth. And they were very good.
[Genesis 2:2-3]
And then, when he had FINISHED all his work. He had completed everything he set out to do. He had accomplished his task… then he RESTED. The word here is actually shabbat. God sabbathed on the seventh day.
The word literally means to cease, to rest. To cease from our labor. To give rest from our work. To sabbath means to STOP.
And all of the hard workers who are listening to me right now. All the driven people. All the high performers need to hear this: God sabbathed. The Creator of the Universe STOPPED.
Yeah, but I’m a type-A, high capacity person…God sabbathed.
Yeah, but I’m more of a do-er and I’m just in a busy season of life right now…God sabbathed.
Yeah, but I’ve got little kids at home and I’m trying to start this new business…God sabbathed.
And then he BLESSED that day and “hallowed” it. He made it holy, which means to be set apart, consecrated for a special purpose.
From the very beginning, God built the rhythm of work and rest into creation itself. Day gives way to night. Summer gives way to fall and then to winter.
The ocean rises and falls with the tides. Our chests rise and fall with each breath.
God has built this pendulum of work and rest into every aspect of Creation. We work for six days, and we rest for one.
And when we break that rhythm is when we experience problems. That’s when we experience burnout, stress, health collapse — because we are fighting against the way that God created the very nature of existence.
[blank]
I learned about the last time a serious attempt was made to rebel against God’s design and rhythm. It was in 1793, during the French Revolution, when they tried to change to a ten-day work week to increase productivity.
But instead, productivity crashed and even worse than that, the number of suicides and mental illness soared.
And we’re actually reliving that today, not because the government is trying to elongate the week, but because we’re becoming more and more controlled by these little electronic devices in our lives that try to convince us to stay connected and plugged in at all times.
Our smartphones, electric lighting, alarm clocks, cars that don’t need us to push or exert energy with our muscles…all of them are conspiring together to live in a world where we go and go and go and we never STOP.
And we’ve already talked about the negative effects of living without sabbath, pushing against the rhythm that God has built into creation.
But if we KEEP the rhythm of work and rest that God created, that’s when we step into his WAY of life and experience the blessings of what an abundant life is really like. If we follow his rhythm of sabbath, we reap the reward.
I heard about a part of the Oregon Trail story that historians tell, where winter was approaching, and the group that was travelling the Oregon Trail split into two. Half of the group decided to just travel nonstop, pushing forward seven days a week so that they could get to Oregon “in time.”
The other half refused to break the sabbath, and only travelled six days a week. And as it turned out, the group that rested one day a week actually got to Oregon first!
Even more recently, a medical study was done on a large community of Christians who practice Sabbath. The study found out that not only are they much happier on average than the general population. But they also live eleven years longer than the average American.
One guy who was good with numbers pointed out that if you add up one day a week over the average lifespan, it equals roughly eleven years. He theorized that every day you sabbath, you literally add a day to your life!
The point is this: sabbath is built into creation like gravity is. Fight it and you suffer. Live in rhythm with it, and you will thrive.
[Exodus 20:8-11]
And that’s why it’s actually COMMANDED in Scripture later on. Turn with me to Exodus ch20 (p51). This chapter finds Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from God for how his people are to live in the kingdom of God, with God as their king.
Sabbath is one of the ten commandments, and by number of words, it’s the LONGEST commandment. List out all ten commandments, and sabbath makes up about 37% of the whole list.
In God’s kingdom, keeping the sabbath is just as important as not lying and not murdering. But the irony is that sabbath is the one commandment that most Christians brag about breaking.
I don’t know anyone who brags about how many lies they told this week. I don’t know anyone who brags about their gambling addiction.
But how many of us brag about how many hours we worked this week? How many of us brag about how many emails we knocked out over the weekend?
Because busyness is a sign of social status. The more busy you are, the more you are seen as a hard worker, successful. But this isn’t the way of God.
[Mark 2:27]
Sabbath is more than just a “good idea.” It’s literally a command from God for how to live. But it’s not a burden that we carry in order to earn God’s love, either. Jesus reframes it and says this in Mark 2: “The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath.”
Long before the command, Sabbath was a creation-gift, it’s grace because Jesus finished all work needed to connect us to God when he defeated death on the cross.
[Sabbath is God’s weekly]
That’s why I want you to know that Sabbath is God’s weekly GIFT to free you from exhaustion and fill you with life. It’s a gift because he’s a good father who knows what you need to live the life he created you for.
The command shows us our need, but Jesus supplies our rest. So Sabbath becomes a weekly way we receive what he’s already won for us.
But too many people I’ve talked to don’t practice a weekly sabbath because they are guilty about resting. They think that resting is lazy. Or they think that rest is a luxury they can’t afford. Or they think they haven’t EARNED the rest yet.
Those that think that resting is lazy are probably the ones who have tied their identity to their work. I used to do that. I've done that many times. I'm still recovering from tying my identity to my work.
But my identity comes from how God sees me, who God created me to be, how God created me to be, and how God calls me now. Sabbath is a gift that helps me learn that.
For those that think that they can't afford rest, it's because they're living in scarcity. They're living with a fear that if they slow down, they won't be able to make enough money, make enough progress, and earn enough influence.
And really it comes from fear: they don't trust that God is able to provide for them, so they think that they have to provide for themselves. And since they are providing for themselves, they can’t AFFORD to rest.
Sabbath is a gift to help us learn to trust that God is able to provide for us. That when we partner with his way of life, he’s able to work through us to do more in six days than we could on our own working nonstop.
And for those that think that they need to EARN rest, that's a combination of the two. They don’t think they DESERVE to be taken care of, and so they need to prove their worth by how hard they are working. But they’re also worried about what other people are going to say about them, or that they're going to fall behind other people that they compare themselves to.
I have done all three of these things. I have not taken my identity from our Heavenly Father. I have lived in fear that there won't be enough unless I put in the effort. And I have spent way too much time comparing myself to others and being worried about what they think of me or how they see me.
But Sabbath is God’s weekly gift to free us from exhaustion and fill us with life.
Sabbath isn’t just a day off. It’s a direct line of reconnection and restoration with God. Sabbath isn’t an escape or a retreat from life. It’s an integral part of the full life that Jesus offers.
And the reason that so many of us are tired all the time or feeling worn or uncertain if the rest we got from the weekend is going to carry us through the full week or the full season…
The reason so many of us are unfulfilled in our life and our work and our productivity… is because we were created to experience the rhythms of rest and work that God put into creation.
We were made to experience life the way God created it. It's built into us and God has given us the gift of the Sabbath for our good and for his glory. Sabbath is not a rule to keep. It is a gift for us to live.
And I believe that Sabbath is one of the FOUNDATIONAL spiritual habits for every follower of Jesus. And the seasons in my life when Megan and I have practiced sabbath are markedly different — better, sweeter — than all the other seasons in our life when we were stretched too thin without a plan for change.
[Pick your Sabbath window]
So we’re going to be exploring sabbath for a few weeks, and we’ll talk about best practices and tips on things to avoid, but for now, all I want you to do is to start.
As your pastor, I love you, and I want you to learn the unforced rhythms of grace that God offers to us.
So to start, pick your sabbath window. If a full day isn’t possible this month, start with a 3-4 hr block you can actually keep, because faithfulness beats idealism.
For many people, the best day is Sunday, because coming to church and worshiping with God’s family becomes a cornerstone of their sabbath.
For those of you already here or joining us online, you’ve already started! Just decide when your sabbath begins and ends, and choose to follow God’s lead and STOP.
Stop all work and I’d suggest to stop all screens, because of how easy it is to get sucked back into the stress and frenzy of the world.
As we said earlier, the rest we need isn't just physical rest. We don't just need a nap. We need soul rest. We need to rest our very personhood from the strain of the world, stresses, constant competing ideologies that attack us and pull at our attention, our desires, our love, beckoning us to prostrate ourselves in worship at their altars.
We don’t just need a nap. We need to reconnect with the source of life. And God has given us that opportunity every single week through Sabbath. So to enter that time of rest with intentionality, you can do a simple liturgy like lighting a candle, reading Psalm 23, and then praying something simple, like “Jesus, we receive your rest.”
And if you blow it by noon, just start again at 12:05 because Sabbath is a practice. It’s a habit we are building, not a work we perform.
[END]
But if we DON’T pause for a Sabbath, I fear that we will be continually on the brink of burnout and exhaustion. And whenever we are that tired or that worn-thin or that stressed out, we never make good decisions that align with the fruit of the spirit or contribute to OUR wholeness or someone else's goodness.
We often find ourselves escaping, numbing, coercing, or taking from the world around us and from people around us.
Living on the brink of exhaustion not only harms us, but it turns us into the type of people that harm others, whether it's on purpose or by accident.
But the more we practice Sabbath means the more that we are practicing learning God's rhythm, learning God's pace of life, learning God's providence.
It means that we're learning how to trust God more, to trust God for His plans taking priority over our plans, to trust God for His timing taking priority over our striving, to trust God for the fact that He will provide for us because He is a good Father.
Because Sabbath is God’s weekly gift to free you from exhaustion and fill you with life. So what will your sabbath window be? Choose a morning or an afternoon if you can’t do a full 24 hours. Shift workers, single parents, farmers in harvest—start with a realistic window this month. Put it on the calendar, protect it.
And if you live with others, commit as a whole household to practice a Sabbath during that window: no work, no screens. See what happens and what God brings to the surface for you.
And if you do this, if you practice Sabbath every week this month, you’re going to experience a heightened awareness…heightened senses where the air feels more crisp, the flowers smell more sweet, the voices of your loved ones connect to your heart deeper.
You’re going to feel more invigorated to leap into your work because you’re coming FROM a place of rest, not dragging yourself towards the finish line to collapse into the weekend.
And if we become a COMMUNITY who practices Sabbath, we are going to become a community who embodies and demonstrates how good God is because of how deeply we have learned to trust Him and enjoy Him.
And that will become a compelling invitation to the life Jesus offers for every single person who is watching us without any of the words we might use.
Isn’t that good news?