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Century Christian
Church 1301 Tamarack Road, Owensboro, KY 42301, (270) 684-0286, Pastor: Rev. Jim Westmoreland |
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You Can Begin Again . . . After Burnout Exodus 3:1-7, 10-15b; 4:1-5 by Jim Westmoreland You can begin again . . . after burnout. That’s our topic for today. I’m going to read to you a well-known passage of scripture from Exodus 3 and 4. “One day, while Moses was tending his flocks, he took them deep into the wilderness to Mt. Sinai. God appeared to him as a burning bush that did not burn up. ‘This is strange,’ Moses thought, ‘I will go closer to it to investigate.’ When God saw that Moses was curious, He called out to him, and Moses answered, ‘Yes, I am here.’ And God said, ‘Don’t come any closer. You are standing on HOLY GROUND. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ ‘Moses covered his face and wouldn’t look at God. And God spoke to him, ‘I have seen how my children suffer in Egypt, and I have heard their cry for freedom. I am sending you to rescue them.’ But, Moses objected. He said, ‘I am nobody. How can I go to the Pharoah of Egypt and deliver anyone?’ He said, ‘People won’t follow me, and they won’t even listen?’ And God replied, ‘But this time, I will be with you. And, you will lead the people to this mountain where they will worship me.’ ‘And Moses said, ‘But I don’t even know your name. Whom shall I say has sent me?’ And God said, ‘Tell them I AM has sent you, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ Moses replied, ‘But what if they don’t believe me?’ And God said, ‘What is that in your hand, Moses?’ And he said, ‘A walking stick.’ ‘Lay it on the ground,’ God said, and, when he did, it became a snake, and then, God said, ‘Pick it up!’ And, he bent over and picked up the snake, and it became a stick again. ‘Do this to prove that I have sent you,’ God said to him. How to begin again after burnout. Burnout, the epidemic of the 21st century. There was a story not long ago that, in this time of unprecedented prosperity, we also have unprecedented breakdowns. People unable to cope with the pace of life. More young people have ulcers today in middle school than adults had ulcers 20 years ago. We are all in this frenetic pace, and we flame out. One writer said, “we worship our work, we play at our worship, and we work at our play.” Have you ever burned out? Or nearly burned out? You needed to stop the merry-go-round. You needed to get off and step back. You needed to sort through what was truly important. Several years ago, at a ministers’ leadership training meeting, one workshop leader gave us a way for evaluating all that we felt that we had to do. He said to make our To Do list. Then, he gave us values for numbers one through four. Number one was for things that were Urgent and Important. Number two was for things that were Important, but Not Urgent. Number three was for things that were Urgent, but Not Important. And Number four was for things that were Neither Urgent nor Important. Most of us are most stressed by Number 3 and 4 things that are either Urgent but Not Important or neither Urgent nor Important. We should eliminate these things from our To Do lists. I started wondering, where in the Bible did somebody burn out and what did they do. Is there a Biblical model? And Moses is the classic example of beginning again after burnout. It helped me a great deal. Maybe, it will work for you, too. Moses had quite a story. He was put in a basket and set adrift because the king of Egypt was killing babies. He was let go by his mom and was rescued by the princess, grew up in Pharoah’s court, nurtured by his own mother. When he was a young man, he saw the suffering of the Israelite people. He saw a slave driver kill an Israelite one day. In anger he tried to incite a rebellion, killed the Egyptian, buried him, tried to rally the Israelites and nobody would follow him, and he fled to the desert where he stayed for 40 years. And it was there in the desert, having burned out in his attempt to succeed, that God brought Moses back to a new life. And I think there is great symbolism in the story that I read to you a moment ago. Moses discovered three things that can help us when we deal with burnout in our own lives. First, he discovered the power of solitude. Moses had never been alone. He had never cultivated a private life of silence. We can fall into that pattern too, having to always be going or doing or having people around us. Some people can never relax. We make work out of our hobbies or find ways to make what we do competitive, either against others or ourselves. We can do the same thing with our spirituality. The things are not bad in them selves, but when they keep us from getting to know ourselves, they become obstacles and barriers from growth and self-awareness. Sometimes, what little we know about ourselves, we don’t like. And so, we stay busy not facing who we are and dealing with self-knowledge in positive, constructive ways. Jesus, seemed to regard His time alone more than anything else. He guarded his solitude more than His time with friends, his detractors, and his work. Jesus left everything to be by Himself. When His best friend, Lazarus, was dying, they sent word, “Come quickly and save Lazarus,” And they said that Jesus went away and stayed by Himself. He guarded his solitude. You need times to be quiet and to know yourself. If you don’t have a regular regimen of solitude, I don’t know how to overcome burnout. We may discover that we don’t like ourselves. But the more we visit with God and listen, the more that we will see that we have some good qualities along with all the bad things. We often start going over all of the things that are wrong with us. Do you ever criticize yourself. We can use some pretty harsh language sometimes as we talk to ourselves. But, the more that we are by ourselves with God and listen, the more that we will discover that we are not all bad. So, how do you begin again after burnout? Discover the power of solitude. The second thing that Moses discovered was the power of savoring. Do you know what savoring is? Savoring is to find something and enjoy it, and to prolong it and prolong it and prolong it. Do you take the time to savor anything? It says that when Moses saw the burning bush, he turned aside. And God only spoke to Moses after he turned aside. If you are ever in the desert of Sinai in August, you will discover that burning bushes are not that rare. Burning bushes happen at Sinai in August because it is so hot. So, seeing a burning bush was not an unusual thing. It was the fact that the bush didn’t burn up. It wasn’t consumed. And it says that, when God saw that Moses was still curious, he still had a sense of wonder, the ability to look at something and savor it, He then spoke to him. I don’t think God ever speaks to us unless we take time to savor. Burnout is an inability to enjoy and to concentrate on what we have. We discovered the power of solitude and the power of savoring. We also have discovered the power of surrender. When Moses says to God, “I can’t do this! I can’t speak. I tried it and it didn’t work. God says, “Moses, what’s that you have in your hand?” And he says, “A walking stick.” He says, “Put in on the ground and it will turn into a snake. And he tells Moses to pick it up. And, Moses probably said something like, “Ugh!” And he picked it up and it became a walking stick. So what God was trying to tell Moses was, “in the beginning, you had a righteous cause and you wanted to set your people free, but you had the wrong motive.” T. S. Eliott says in Murder in the Cathedral, the last temptation is the highest treason to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. And that was Moses story. He had a righteous cause, but his motive was anger and vengeance. He wanted to strike back and hurt and maim. And so, he burned out, and that is what happens to all of us crusaders who have a righteous cause. We’ve got the wrong motive. When we feel competitive toward other Christians in what we do for Christ, when we compare our church to some other church trying to beat them our outdo them in some category, we have the wrong motive. We have to give the results to God. It is tempting to figure out what we want God to do. We try to program what everyone is supposed to do. We really have trouble leaving the results to God. Someone has said that the easiest way to make God laugh is to tell Him your plans. How do you begin again when you’ve burned out? Burnout is nothing more than an overestimation of the amount of the world that you can change. That’s what burnout is. To discover the power of solitude, and the power of surrender, is to me the greatest liberation of our lives. So, when you are racing to beat the world, surrender the results to God. What would happen in here if everyone one of us, from these young people to the oldest one here, would say, ‘God I’m going to leave the results to you.’ There is a power there, the power of solitude, the power of savoring and the power of surrender. Can we pray a prayer of surrender, a prayer giving our lives and the results to God? Father, we surrender all that we know about ourselves to all that we know about you. We pray that you would give us the peace, the serenity that comes, just listening in solitude, just savoring the good things that you give to us. And that you would help us to tie in to the power of surrendering the results of our lives to you. Give us that kind of faith and trust. In Christ name, Amen. Century Christian Church, November 4, 2007 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland _________________ |
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