Healing Spiritual Burnout: Putting Paul’s Biblical Secret Into Action

I remember the day I crashed. After years of working in the child protective system, something finally broke inside me. I asked myself, “Why am I even working for CPS? All of my effort doesn’t even put a dent in all of the problems I see.” At that time I had a caseload above 50 clients, I was conducting countless risk assessments for child abuse and neglect, and I was working with an endless stream of kiddos who had been traumatized in their homes. I would lay awake at night and on weekends dwelling on them. Will they be safe this week? Will all of my working and planning and checking spare these children from the worst possible thing?

And then it hit me; the fundamental truth that led to my eventual exit from the field. In a moment of clarity, I realized that while I might be able to protect a child’s body, ultimately there was nothing I could do to protect their little heart from being decimated by trauma. And at that moment, I was done.

You might be asking “what does this guy’s work have to do with spiritual burnout?” Let’s back up the bus a bit. In my doctoral research, I explored the meaning of occupational burnout and its effects on helping professionals. What I learned was that burnout isn’t just exhaustion from overwork. What really fuels it is a profound sense of futility and pointlessness. Burnout comes when a person begins to suspect that their work is for nothing. 

Do you see the parallels with church life? Historically, we had big dreams as a family of churches. If the phrases “one suitcase challenge” or “go anywhere, do anything, give up everything for God” strike a chord within you, then you likely come from an era when as a church we were taking over the world! Mission teams were going out weekly. Young faith was bursting forth alongside neon shirts and walkmans. I remember watching the growth charts and thinking “this is really happening!” 

But then the growth charts started to level off. The exponential growth promised in the Discipleship Study began to stall out. And since then, it’s been a bit of a rocky road. In my therapy practice, many clients have expressed that they are mourning the loss of a dream. Many are disillusioned. And many are still putting in a valiant effort of service, contribution, and sacrifice in the name of helping the church to grow.

Here’s the challenge though: our resolve will never last if our motivation is external.

It’s so easy to pick on the early disciples for their external ambitions. They thought that Jesus had come to militarily usher in an earthly kingdom. They wanted to sit at his left and his right. They literally argued about who was the greatest. More than once, they drew the comment “are you so dull?” from their Savior. That’s basically a first century facepalm from the Lord of Lords.

And we’re dull too.

At least, we are naturally given to thinking in earthly ways. We love to build stuff that we can see, and that is a recipe for burnout. Jesus came to build a largely unseen spiritual kingdom, but his followers struggled to see past the physical. 

At one point, after being sent out on a practice mission with virtually nothing to sustain them, the disciples returned feeling victorious. And Jesus shared in their rejoicing. It was a victory! But he also warned them, “...do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). The disciples were all wrapped up in their outer accomplishments. They were charged up by their new-found invincibility. Yet Jesus knew that couldn’t sustain them. He knew they would face some discouraging lows and wanted to arm them with something that would get them through to the end- the knowledge of their relationship with God and gracious standing before him. 

Where does your hope live? Is it in your ability to serve, contribute, and sacrifice? Do your dreams depend on winning the world in one generation? Does your faith require external goal attainment to fuel it? Consider that true faith is based on what cannot be seen. That’s the point Hebrews 11 makes abundantly clear. When we place our hope on what we can see and do and accomplish, we are on shaky ground indeed. 

God deeply impressed this lesson on Paul by taking him to the brink of death. In 2 Corinthians 1, the abnormally-born apostle faced an unbelievable amount of pressure. He said that his stress was so extreme, in fact, that at one point he literally wanted to die. Scholars differ on what precisely was happening to Paul and his crew that was so agonizing, but one thing is clear: the externals were pretty rough and they were suffering badly. Their capacities had been completely overwhelmed. There was nothing they could do to fix this problem by their own power, but that was just the point. 

Many of us have to contend with the fact that no matter how hard we work, we can’t fix the state of the church. We cannot solve the problems of the world. These are God-sized problems and that is by design. The amazing thing about this? It’s where Paul’s secret really comes to life. He declares, 

“But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:9-10).

When we set our hope on ourselves or on the attainment of earthly goals (even ones that sound really spiritual!), we set ourselves up for disappointment, burnout…or worse. When Christ fuels us and when our hope in the resurrection moves us and when the knowledge that our names are written in the Book of Life inspires us, we become unstoppable. Not us, but God living in us. 

I know that some of you feel burned out. You’ve had your hand on the plow for a very long time, and you are feeling tired and burdened. That’s why I teamed up with Joel Peed to build a course called “The Eremos Academy: A Path to Jesus’ Light and Easy Yoke”. The course is designed to help you take your eyes off of yourself and truly depend on God. If you are looking for a way to try differently in 2026, check it out. The next collaborative tier class starts on Jan 1, 2026 - so the last day to sign up is December 31, 2025.

And by the way, you might be wondering “do I even have spiritual burnout?” If so, I have developed a one-minute test you can take for free here.