I had a very rough day yesterday. I couldn’t focus, felt down and just kept thinking, “What is my problem?” Finally at the end of the day, after talking to my husband, we figured out my problem. I think I got my first taste of “ministry burnout.”

I have always had and always will have a very strong desire to help people and it was just about one year ago that I started to do this more through writing.

It started last January when I started blogging about my story of what God had been doing in my life during the previous year on my grace journey, after He so radically transformed my life on January 2, 2012. Now I am in the middle of editing my first book with Penguin Random House Publishing. What? How did that happen? One answer – by God’s grace.

My name, Sandra, means ‘helper of mankind.’ That was no accident. Once I discovered how my desire to help others, my love for writing and the gift of encouragement God had placed in me could all come together to be used for God’s glory, I was just beside myself with joy.

But…

With all that energy to help people, sometimes I can get carried away and forget that I need to do normal things too, like maybe sit down and watch a movie. Last night, my girls and I did watch one of my all-time favorites, Seabiscuit (edited version), and it was wonderful! In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I thought, “Wow, I need to relax and do stuff like this more often.”

Like my Mom always says, “If the devil can’t get us one way, he will try to get us another.”

He knows he can’t get me to keep my mind on myself all the time anymore like he did for years, so now he’s trying to get me to stop thinking of myself all together to the point where I don’t take good care of myself. Sound familiar?

Yesterday was a great reminder for me and good that I am being reminded of it early on as I begin stepping out more to minister to others. Balance is such a beautiful thing!

I do believe when we are truly following the Spirit’s lead it will naturally result in us living a balanced life. The Spirit will never lead us to swing out of balance one way or the other. Looking back on yesterday, I now realize I was not following His lead. I can feel the difference. I even felt it yesterday, but I kept plugging right along, helping others and doing ministry. There was no flow to it, but I kept pushing.

There comes a point where any of us can move from being really fruitful by God’s grace to merely doing good works by our own self-efforts. I think I had just started to cross over that line yesterday and God caught me. That’s one of my favorite things about God. I know I can totally trust in His keeping power over my life. (see Jude 1:24-25)

I pray that if you’ve been feeling burnout lately, you will learn, along with me, to live by the leading of the Holy Spirit each day. There is such a wonderful peace that accompanies us when following Him.

It’s a journey. We’re not going to be perfect. But I know as we learn to follow Him, we will be so much more effective in every aspect of our lives!

If you have not yet made Jesus your Savior and received the wonderful joy that His finished work on the cross has provided for you to live in, please visit my page here titled Jesus In The Driver’s Seat. On this page I explain the good news of the gospel and you will have the opportunity to pray a prayer of salvation, making Jesus your Savior! Jesus loves you and His arms are wide open!

Sandra McCollom

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