This year my son helped me hang Christmas lights on the outside of our house. We began by unraveling each of the strands of lights and laying them out in the driveway. We plugged in each strand, testing them and making sure they worked. As we were swapping out the burnt out bulbs I noticed some of them were not secured in the strand, so I would turn them a little tighter and they would come back on – shining brighter than the sun! My son says, “Wait! Mom, those are not good.” I said, “What?! Yes, they are; they’re on.” He said, “Yeah, but when they glow really bright like that, it means they’re getting ready to burn out.” I thought about how that’s just like you and me.
Think about the physics of why a light bulb gets so many times brighter before it burns out. It’s because as the filament inside the bulb weakens due to wear and tear, it starts to resist that electrical current even more. So, it causes the remaining filament to heat up significantly and emit even more light, burning hotter, before finally breaking and then causing the light to go out completely.
Our “filament” is the stress and the overwhelm and the busyness and everything that we have going on in life, and then when we pile on more and more and more, just trying to keep up. So, we’re burning hotter and faster, and we get irritated, and our temper is more easily agitated, and we try to carry on like normal, but pretty soon we’re going to snap. We see this oftentimes in those who overextending themselves in ministry, or just in everyday life in general. On the outside, you look really good, you’re glowing! But inside, you are wearing thin. Christmastime is a prime time to feel the pressure. We are so busy with parties and gatherings and events and kids, and school and life and it just seems like the year ramps up in busyness. Sometimes the busyness begins in August. As soon as school starts, you have sports and all of the fall activities. By the time Christmas gets here, it’s like we are just so stretched, and it doesn’t take long to feel the pressure and the weakening and the wearing and tearing. Many of us have been burning like a Christmas light since August, probably some of us since last Christmas! And we’re wearing ourselves thin, we’re running ragged and thinking we’re holding it all together. We think to ourselves, “I’m still shining baby!” Wrong! What is the result if we don’t throttle back? We’re going to break. We’re going to burn out. We’re not going to be beneficial. We’re not going to be useful or effective.
Just like there are physical signs of Christmas lights burning out, we also show physical signs of burning out. We get short-tempered with people. We pull away and begin to check out. We start to resent the very people that God calls us to serve. We even begin to harbor bitterness. We just become miserable people and we’re unable to have the rest and the peace and the joy that the Lord desires us to have. So, what do you do? When you start to weaken due to wear and tear, what do you do so that you don’t break and cause your light to go out completely? I think one of the things we can do is to practice a Sabbath rest. We need to take time to step away from busy things, even when we feel we don’t have the ability to do that. We need to leave a margin in our calendar. If we are literally running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we’re not giving ourselves time to breathe. God’s Word tells us we should and need to take a time of rest.
Rest is crucial to our overall health. We need to take a Sabbath, a time to step away – and it’s not just to sit on the couch and be unproductive. The purpose of taking time to rest from our busy schedules is to spend time with the Lord. When we’re so busy doing all these things in the world, we are likely not taking time to read our bibles or spend time with the Lord in prayer. When we give all that we have to the world (our time, talent, and resources), what is the Lord receiving? Our leftovers? It’s important that we ask the Lord to help us order our activities. We don’t have to say yes to everything; we can learn to say no. If you struggle to take time to rest and step away from your busy schedule because you feel it’s selfish or lazy, just remember that God commanded rest in the very beginning.
Consider our Christmas lights analogy. Everybody knows that a light always lasts longer when you give it a break, when you switch it off every now and then. If you leave a light on, burning continuously, it’s going to burn out faster and it won’t last as long for you as it would if you were to give it a break. The same is true for us! In Mark 6:31, Jesus is talking to His disciples. He had done several miracles, and His disciples had been working and serving together with Jesus. So, He tells them to come away by themselves to a desolate place and rest a while. Sometimes it’s really hard for us to be obedient to that Scripture because we think it’ll be faster if we just do the work ourselves. We think we can handle it; we’ve got everything under control. Sometimes it’s just our pride getting in the way. Can I be honest with you? No one wants to see you burn out. No one wants to see you become frustrated, short-tempered, bitter, and resentful because you’ve piled too much on your plate and have taken on more tasks than you can complete. Instead, people would rather you be honest and say, “You know what? I can’t fit this in, I have too much going on this week. I’m so sorry.” People would rather you be honest, than to take on something that’s going to be done halfway or even quit a task early and be unable to finish. When you burn out, many people will be affected. Instead of piling on more, it would be better to politely decline that extra responsibility that could easily be given to someone else. I think many times we fail to remember that we’re just human. We’re not God. We can’t do everything He can do. The Bible says God never slumbers, but we need sleep. Our bodies need rest.
Christmastime is often when the fatigue and stress set in. It’s like the weight of the whole year is on our shoulders as it comes to a screeching halt. We look at the calendar and we think, “We have a whole New Year. A clean slate.” Then, we turn over the calendar only to find our busy schedule just keeps going. We feel like those Christmas lights that never get unplugged. Eventually your body is going to tell you physically that you need to slow down. You need to sit down. You cannot do all of this. At some point, we may get sick or something will come up unexpectedly and all of a sudden we will discover that we’ve met our limit. We hit a wall, so to speak, and that’s it. We’ve got no more strength No more energy and it’s not fun anymore. Now it’s work – hard work, and we get mad because nobody’s helping us. Oftentimes, the things that fill our calendar are not by choice but rather a byproduct of life. It’s kids needing stuff for school, collecting donations, having parties and special events in their classrooms. It’s having kids in sports, and you’ve got games and travel. It’s having a full-time job and trying to maintain a home. Regardless of if you have a spouse and kids or not, it’s important that we learn how to balance all the things that come at us in this life on earth. We need to seek the Lord and ask Him to order our activities. He needs to be the one in charge of our calendar. That’s why it’s so important to leave a margin. We need time and space in our day and week to consult the Lord and ask Him for wisdom and help with all the things that go on at home, work, school, or church. We won’t be easily able to meet with the Lord if we are scheduling things to do Sunday through Saturday, every day, all day long.
Not only should we pray and ask the Lord to help us with our calendar, but we should also pray and ask Him for help, strength, and energy.
God is so good to help us, even when we don’t realize how much help we need! I have often stretched myself thin, taking on a full load, and doing my best to work through it. Every now and then, I feel like the Lord gives me a little extra grace. I will reach out and confirm appointments and meetings for my day only to find that someone can’t meet, or an appointment is cancelled, or something has come up at the last minute and we have to switch days or times or put it off a week. Those are amazing interventions by God – like a forced break in my busy schedule. I welcome them. I don’t go looking for them, but when they occur, I acknowledge that God is providing me some extra time I hadn’t planned for. I try not to fill it in with other things because a lot of times that break or opening in my day was just what I needed. Occasionally, that break in my schedule provides time and opportunity to serve the Lord in another way. That’s why it’s so important to pray and seek the Lord’s counsel. Ask Him what He would have you to do. Ask Him to direct your steps.
I’ve met some people who struggle with taking time for rest. For some reason, they just can’t bring themselves to create margin in their schedule. I don’t know if it’s because they’re scared of being quiet or scared of being called lazy. Maybe it’s feeling the need to constantly be busy so there’s no time to think about anything else. Perhaps it’s a fear of feeling idle and unproductive. I think we as women tend to be more geared in that way, but I also know many men who are constantly on the go! They can’t see that having a break is okay; and not only is it okay, but it’s also commanded. Instead, it seems we rush around like Martha instead of taking time to sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary. It’s a healthy example for us to follow and it will help our family when we take the time to rest from our “work.” When we are constantly on the go, planning something for every hour of the day, it can often create a more stressful environment for our kids. They don’t have a chance to just sit and rest and calm their senses. When they are constantly stimulated – whether from being drug all over town, running errands all day long, or going to all the places with sports and extracurricular activities – they never have a break or release from the constant tug on their bodies. Pretty soon, they will begin to burn out. They will grow weak and weary from doing “all the things” and they will start to show sign as well. They can get cranky and stressed, short-tempered and irritable.
We need to follow the example of Jesus. The Bible records multiple accounts of Jesus stepping away from the busy crowd. If He did it, we can too. He set the pattern for us. He could have stayed and continued to help people, heal people, minister to the variety of needs that He was constantly faced with, but instead He chose to take time to step away and pray and quiet Himself.
What does it look like to “step away”? I think it’s different for each person because we all have different things on our calendars, different jobs and seasons of life we are in. Sometimes it can look like limiting your work to certain days of the week. If you have work five days a week, then clear out the other two days for a quieter load. If you work from home, maybe you could try time blocking. Block out a certain period of time for “rest”. I knew one mom who had two kids, and one of those kids had special needs. She carved out thirty minutes each day for a power nap and asked the teen girl next door to come over and sit with her child and read to him while she “stepped away.” She came back refreshed and ready to finish her day. I knew another lady who was in ministry full time and she always schedule things on certain days and the other days were off limits. She used those “free” days to take care of her home, family, and health care needs.
Maybe those examples scare you or just the thought of taking a break and stepping away from your schedule scares you. Can I let you in on a little secret that’s not such a secret? The world is still going to be spinning if we step away and take a day off from our busy schedules. The world’s going to keep going. God is so competent and able to keep managing the world that He doesn’t need our help 24/7, 365 days out of the year. So, if Jesus Himself thought it was important to take that time to step away, who are we to not do the same? I understand that for some people, they may not be able to take a day off. It may be more difficult and not so practical to rest in the same way as others. If that’s you, then pray for God to give you the extra energy and motivation to get through those things until He provides you a break. Pray and ask the Lord to be that sustenance that you need when you feel like you’re running out of gas. The other thing you can do is pray and ask God to give you help, whether it be your family or friends or others who can come over and help you to relieve you to provide for you that break. Much like the Christmas lights you hang on your house, when one or two bulbs in a strand would be out, but the whole rest of the strand continues to stay lit. You need to surround yourself with other lights, so to speak, so they keep burning – even when you can’t.
Who are your other lights? How can you surround yourself with other lights?
- Get plugged into a local church.
- Get plugged into a small group, a life group, or a Sunday school class.
- Be vocal about your needs.
- Be transparent.
- Find a group of people where you can be honest and say, “I’m struggling. I just need an hour on Thursday. Can you help me with the kids from 9:00-10:00?” That break may be just what you need so you can go to get a pickup order from the grocery store by yourself.
- Ask a neighbor kid (maybe high school or college age) to come over and play with the kids outside in the back yard while you do the dishes or laundry.
Maybe you’re a young single adult or an older single adult and you are so busy, and you’ve taken on yet another task and you have realized that you have been stretched too thin. You’re like that filament in the Christmas light and you’re starting to weaken. You’ve got wear and tear you feel like any moment you’re going to break. There’s another reason why you need to be vocal and communicate with people and say, “Hey, I need help. I’m going to need someone to take this off my hands.” Maybe instead of being the leader or being in charge of something, you drop your rank a little bit and just be a helper. Just be someone who does one thing and not the one that calls the shots. This decision takes humility, but it also takes obedience to God when He’s trying to tell you to do that because a lot of times the Lord will be putting that on our hearts. We know we need to step down and take some time away from that activity. We recognize we are beginning to wear thin, and we feel like we are starting to weaken. If we don’t acknowledge those warning signs, we’re going to break. Our light’s going to go out; and if we don’t pay attention to that and be obedient and humble ourselves, we will burn out. It doesn’t mean we have to step away forever. Maybe it’s just for a season, maybe just for the next month or for this quarter. There’s no shame in doing that. Remember, even Jesus had to press pause and step away from ministry to speak to His Father, to be strengthened and refreshed, and really that’s the purpose of it. When you have created margin in your schedule and you’re able to step away, God restores you. He renews you and replenishes your strength. He restores your joy. Remember in school when you had to run the mile? As soon as you could stop, what’d you do? You took a fresh drink of cold water, and you rested! You felt better, didn’t you! Why? Because you took time. You got out of the race, and you stepped aside, and you rested and nourished your body. That’s what we need to do! Jesus is our Living Water. We need to drink of Him through His Word and prayer. We don’t need to wait until we are worn out and burned out before we do that. We need to make it a frequent thing to take time to rest and step away from our busy schedules.
The world needs your light!
Acts 13:47 says, “For this is what the Lord has commanded us: “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.”
Your light has a purpose. Your serving matters. Your work matters. Your parenting matters. It all serves to show Christ to the world, and you can’t do that if you let your light burn out. So remember, when you ask for help, when you take breaks, you are recharging your batteries. You’re recharging your light so that it can keep shining and keep telling the world about the Lord. It can bring salvation to the ends of the earth! What is the salvation that the world needs to see in your light? It’s Jesus. They need to see your faith, your salvation, and hear the Gospel message so that they can come to salvation too. We can’t shine that light unless we have the light in us. In John 8:12 Jesus spoke saying, “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.” So, we cannot have the light in us unless we have Christ. And that’s why He says, “he who follows me shall not walk in darkness.” Jesus is the light of the world and He’s bringing light to those who follow Him. When we follow Him, we stay in His light. We don’t walk in darkness. Do you have that light? Are you in that light? Has there ever been a time or a place when you placed your faith in Christ? Has there been a time in your life when you believed His Word? Romans 10:9-10 tells us, “If we confess with our mouths Jesus as Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Through Christ, God has given us the opportunity to confess that we’re sinners. We just have to do that. We have to believe that Jesus is who He said He is. We have to believe that He died for us, to forgive us of our sins. Do you believe that? Have you put your faith in Christ? If you haven’t, today is the day. Confess with your mouth, believe in your heart, and He will save you!