Leon Fontaine - Emotional Exhaustion - Part 2
So today, I want to talk to you the part two about Emotional Exhaustion. It's a mental exhaustion. The word that we have been using that the Bible uses and that's what you got to use to find out a great principle is weariness. And so this last time we talked about how that people who are tired. That's not serious at all. Take a break. You know, if your arm becomes tired doing a physical job and it starts to cramp. I've had that happened to me. Well, then take a break and rest that arm. It's tired. It's overworked. But emotional exhaustion, this weariness is something the Bible talks about a lot. And it's because people will quit on life. People will quit. They'll take their own lives. They'll commit suicide. They'll quit on their marriages, their kids. And if they don't actually quit, they will literally just go through the motions and they may as well have quit. In their careers their bosses notice. That guy just does whatever in.
My Australian friends says clock in, clock out. It just means they punch in with their time card and they punch out. They just put in their time. They're not helping that business, that organization to succeed. But not creatively solving problems, working together with people. There's not a passion and excitement. They're more like an anchor. You're dragging them along with you. And smart leaders will try to get you to rise up, excited again. And if not, they should let you go. As a leader of many teams, that I have to hire to get a job done. When I find somebody who is emotionally exhausted, they're weary and they're just sarcastic. They're indifferent. They robotically go through their job. That destroys a team. And so if I can't turn them around and excite them, you know. And I'm not talking about just tiredness or not havin... No. This is themself. It's this emotional exhaustion.
Then you've got to move them out because that thing will just spread and will get the whole team would become robotic. Because well, if you can get a paycheck and do next to nothing just put in his time. What's the sense in me trying? 'Cause when I try and it gets to him. He drops the ball anyway. It's like a basketball team. You got five guys going down the court. If one guy always fumbles, always travels, always misses his shot. The coach better pull him off because no one 's going to pass to him, no one wants him to have the ball, and you're missing one fifth of that great team on offense going down the basketball court. The same is true in work, in career, in family, in kids. I mean, in every area.
As a couple raising your kids and creating marriage, creating family, one of you should never become this emotional exhaustion. A sign of that we talked about last time was this indifference, this sarcasm. And often sarcasm is not a good thing. Some people have great senses of humor and they're sarcastic. But even there a lot of times it's hiding something else. And so today I want to dive into this and we're going to go a little deeper. And we're going to look at this thing and I said in part number two. If you haven't seen part number one, you need to as we really identify this huge issue.
Now, some of the practical areas that people will get weary in. Let's go through them. The first thing, is any time you're involved in a challenge or a project that requires a big effort, putting out a lot of energy. You're going to find that it's very easy to become weary especially when it's done. I'll give an example. If it was a huge project that has a due date and we're all going hard at it. I mean , we put in an extra hour. You might even have to burn the midnight oil. And we'll go for days, for weeks, even for months. And no one 's getting sick. It's just driven you. You got a vision. You got a purpose. Everyone's excited about it. But when you accomplished the goal, this is where you've got to be careful. Hence once you accomplished the goal, everyone allows themselves to go and they start talking, "Oh, man". And then they start getting sick. You'll see a bunch will book off sick from work, you know.
And I think if people are smart, that's the time to take holidays. That's the time if you put an extra hour, to get in lieu of take some time off. But one thing I want to show you is they become emotionally exhausted. They become weary. And that is when you'll find that you can get sick. You can just make bad decisions, etcetera. Another thing is you can get worn out by obstacles. That sometimes there's an obstacle in the way that never seems to go away and it's like it's always there. If only this was gone, man... Be careful. You know, things are going to change. Don't let obstacles in your life, your path, your career, your marriage. Don't let an obstacle begin to make you feel like nothing ever is going to change. Because if you'll just keep your strength up and you're, and this is bigger from the presence of God.
You know, it's interesting that the Bible talks about Holy Spirit. Times of restoration, times of reviving, times of refreshing. They come from the presence of God and we're going to talk about that. Another thing that that will cause people, these are the times when people will get weary or emotionally exhausted is when attacks are coming your way, when people talk about you. Today, it's amazing how people going to rally social media. And people are just overcome. They just freaking out. People are talking about me. People are saying this, and it can really affect them. And the enemy knows this. And people who are self-centered and wicked people will do it on purpose.
Today, we got a lot of wicked people out there who come against anything just because you don't agree with them. And they'll attack you, lie about you. You know, if you believe everything you read on social media, you need to get a brain. If you're going to believe everything you hear that's negative about people, recognize there's always somebody who's going to come against successful and good people. Someone says, "Well, where there's smoke, there's fire". That is all lie from the enemy. Jesus said, "They hated me and I died for them. They hated me and I did nothing but good. They're going to hate you, too". There are people who will just come against you because they have that vindictive side to them. So when attacks come your way, they're going to stop. Why? Because the energy and the presence of God in you is more powerful than them coming at you. When they see they're not getting any progress, they'll quit. They'll move on.
Another thing that I've noticed people get weary from is limited progress in what they're doing. It's not like they thought they could do, or a lack of fruit the Bible talks about. You're not, it's not happening as fast as you wanted, or like you wanted. The first few years of marriage can be like that. This is not what I thought marriage would be like. No, you got to learn. You got to grow, develop principles, understand each other, have real talks, etcetera. This limited progress in career. You can change your career, you know. We talk about the four quadrants of a change. And how that at first when you get a new job, for example. You're so excited. And then the second phase is complete utter dejection. I'm not, it's not happening like I thought. It's not what I thought it was. It's not going like I thought it would. And you're just...
And then as you go through these phases, you know, and fourth phase is an excitement and a passion because you're further than you've ever been before. But just making changes it's not like you think it is. It's not all just fantastic. There can be limited progress for a while. And so we find that there's lots of times it's just plowed on. Just move forward. In fact, that's often what armies train their people. Just move forward, move forward. It doesn't matter how slow it is. Sometimes you're going to have incredible advances and other times, the Bible spell with the word suddenly. You can suddenly have incredible progress. In fact, as a church, as we begin to develop our teams and to reach people for Christ and design buildings and raise money. It takes years.
All of a sudden, God will open a door and wham! An explosion of incredible things would come our way. But it was because of the faithfulness of months and maybe sometimes years. This working, line upon line, precept upon precept. If you don't do that kind of work, you can't hang on to the sudden huge explosions that can happen and happen to everybody in different areas. Another thing that causes people to get weary is complex problems. Weary the mind. They don't, it's not just an easy solution. They can stay there a long time. And when there's a complexity to something, that you're trying to figure out, and then I got this nuance and that issue. And then but it also affects this and it affects this. And if I do this, that's going to happen. How in the world? This complexity, people just begin to back way.
And you need to understand something. A lot of times whenever I have to face complex problems. I would just take the first step and the second step and just keep moving forward. And don't allow it to make me become weary or emotionally exhausted. And I watch my words. We'll talk about that, too. Because words can just, your own words destroy your own body. And it is literally like, I remember reading an article about a brain expert, neurologist who said that the part of the brain and that over, that that looks after speech overrides the rest of the brain. And I know the development and the teaching about the brain is always growing. But I do know from reading many men and women on this topic. That the words that come out of your mouth. There is some kind of listening that goes on in your own brain. That it will go do what you say.
So when you say, "I had it. This is enough. I just can't do them. I'm just so sick and tired of". Literally these words affect you. Someone say, "I don't believe that". Well, let me show to you a really simple way. Would you want your child to say every couple of hours, "I'm so stupid. No one loves me. No one cares about me". Would you want them to say that? No. Why? Because it affects their belief system. It affects the people around them. And it affects us as adults as well. Our brain doesn't just clean that area up and go, "Oh, your words are meaningless". No. Your words are powerful. And so don't let complex problems. You know, often people will tell me this, and I hear this often in healthcare like from paramedics, and they say, "Well, problem sure come in threes". I hear it everywhere.
Now, I never say that and I don't agree with that because as just the people start saying that and believing that. So they have one problem. They're just expecting another one. Then they get two problems. They're expecting, where's that bad third one? Or they're things like, things are going so good, something's got to go wrong somewhere. They actually believe that. I know because I began to believe that years ago. When things are going too good, watch out. They won't keep going good. I disagree. You can continue to bear fruit. Meaning, get results with your life. Now, you might have to fight a battle while you're doing it. You might have some siestas while you're doing it. But nothing has to stop the fruit-bearing. The results of your life as you're doing what every... But I don't believe at all. That something's going to come in and just shut me down. Don't believe it. Don't require it. And when battles come, I don't go, "This could be the big one that stops us all". I don't even believe that. I don't talk that way. And so I don't have to deal with this much emotional exhaustion as other people simply because of the beliefs.
Other things that cause people becoming emotionally exhausted is delayed dreams, delayed vision. It's not just the day to day. They had a dream. It's not happening. I watched young men when they hit their thirties, about the end of their thirties. And now they've been going after a dream for over 10 years. And if there hasn't been some steps that made it happen, you'll see them get old pretty quick. And in their forties, you know, they just start to try to hedge their bets and just get things to go the way they want. And in their fifties, they're already old and thinking about freedom 55 which is retirement. And then there are others that they're not backing down. They're going to keep this vision there. They're going to keep going for it.
And those kinds of people when we measure their lives, the most productive they'll ever be is in their fifties and sixties and seventies. They're just stunningly productive because they never let, you know, they never give up and get exhausted or weary. I have noticed that if sickness is pushed, it could just be a flu. It could just be some kind of sickness you have caught. You got to kind of get healthy and push it off. But when you have health issues, you can very quickly become weary. You become emotionally exhausted. And that everyone notices and everyone can see that. When you look at these about seven quick areas that I have noticed. At times where this is, it's more dangerous to become, you know, because this is when you become emotionally exhausted and you'll make poor decisions. People make lousy decisions.
A wisdom principle is never make a decision when you're weary because you will make a wrong decision. You know, even, you know, life can go up and down, up and down on its way up. I mean, every day can have ebbs and flows. But I don't like making decisions when things are at the total top. And I don't like making decisions about something when things are at the total bottom because you can make mistakes both ways. But watch for a while and spend time before you make these decisions, as you go into the Word of God about this. Now, it gives us real keys to dealing with weariness. Like, recognize the source. Analyze what's going on. Ask yourself a question. Why do I feel so emotional? And the world they kind of have, "Well, listen to your emotions".
Well, I would agree that I listen. If I feel an emotion rising up, I'll try to pay attention to it. But I don't let it lead me. I recognize that it's not me. I am not my emotions. Emotions rise up from what I focus on. Deep-seated feelings rise up from my strongest beliefs. And so, you know, we talked quite a bit about that and other areas of ministry on these topics. But to recognize the source. Am I in a situation? And then you kind of go, "You know what, this is why I'm feeling this way". And recognize that sometimes you don't even know why. It could just be an attack. It could be sickness pushing against you. But as you get into God's Word and recognize Holy Spirit will guide you and recognize... Just me talking about.
If you've listened to this message today so far and you've heard the first message. I literally have equipped you with a great radar system. And just to recognize I'm just weary. I'm just getting emotionally exhausted. So recognizing weariness is crucial. It has helped me get through so many tough times. And then make sure that you make decisions. And this decision is I'm going to outlast it. I'm going to outwork it. I'm not giving into it. Often when I sense weariness push against me. You know what I do? I'll run to God. But I have another thing I do. I always look at other people who are doing more, or who are going through worse. I go, "Man, I'm living in Canada. Man, I'm, things are going great. I'm not living. I'm not trying to get this done in Russia or China or in a country right now that is against Christianity, or, or, or".
And somehow, I got so much to be thankful for. And then I clicked back into thankful mode. I'm always remember the mission. That really helps you. Nehemiah, the book of Nehemiah talks about him building the wall. And how that these two guys would continually harass his workers and try to discourage them and get them become weary. And he would encourage them with the vision and a dream and the why. Whenever things aren't going well in your team, your business, your family. Do you know what keeps you going when you, when nothing else is encouraging you? A dream of what it's going to be like. A vision of where we are going to go. We're going to get through this and we're going to be doing this.
Remember your mission. Remember your dream. Feed it to your kids. Have something ahead of you to look forward to rather than just getting into the regular weariness of everyday life. If you're going through tough times. When you're weary, get connected to encouragers. Get connected to other people. Don't stay by yourself. In Ecclesiastes 4:9, it says, "Two are better than one". I know that people around me and there's times I just, now I'm going to phone someone and go see a movie. I'm going to just say, "Hey, let's have people, our family over for supper and let's play some board games, or let's whatever". And you begin to recognize that you need to be connected. That's why church, a good church because there's so many churches you kind of wonder, "Well, this is not the way Jesus designed them. So I don't like religion".
But a great church is one of the most beautiful things. Get there on Sundays. Get involved during the week. Roll up your sleeves, volunteer. This connection will cause you to draw strength from the rest of the family of God, the body of Christ. I find that I've got to remember the faithfulness of God. That really helps me when weariness is pushing against me, which what are some of the things God has done for me. David when he faced Goliath was, you know, he must had a gulp somewhere because he started talking about how he killed the bear, how he killed the lion. He began to rehearse his former victories. And it does something to you. And he began to rise up and he took him out. Replay the miracles even in your own family.
The times when you did go through rough times and look what happened. We saw that through. We went through a rough time here in our marriage, our kids, remember when? And all of a sudden, rehearsing the victories helps you because you're remembering the faithfulness of God. I want to challenge you today. That all through Word and with a few minutes I have left. You'll notice that the Bible teaches us that we can have God's energy. Now, the Bible calls it His strength. And but it means energy as well. The energy for your physical body. The energy for your mind, energy for your emotions. The Bible puts it this way. It says if you are born again and the nature of God is within you. That literally that every cell in your body has the Zoe life of God.
If you'll renew your mind with God's Word. And now when you renew your mind, it renews your imagination, your dreaming. When you renew that, it says you're going to rise up and do the perfect will of God. You can pull energy and ability. Joy comes out of your recreated spirit. It's a state of joy. There's a state of peace that is never gone. It's in your spirit. But as you renew your mind and you stay in God's Word, there's a washing of water by the Word. And so I always do this. I was chatting the other day with some family and, "First thing in the morning, I get into the Word. And then the last at night, I'll get into God's Word".
There's something about God's Word that anchors your mind during your dreaming times and your sleeping times. When you wake up in the morning, you can just go straight to your problems. But then you start to feel problematic. But if you go into God's Word, you begin to feel like an overcomer. You begin to feel like more than a conqueror. You begin to feel that God is on my side. And so this time with God, we called them devotions. First thing in the morning. It's crucial. I'm not talking about for hours, although those are enjoyable. I'm talking about 5-15 minutes. Just find, maybe listen to half of a message that really touched you. Read a great teaching book. Find verses in the Bible, or, you know, read along in God's Word. Just these times of talking with God. Spending time in God's Word are crucial.
I want to remind you again in Galatians 6:9 that I read in during our first message. It says, "Let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and in doing right, for in due time and in the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage". Did you know that emotional exhaustion is when you are loosening the Bible shows us and relaxing your courage. Rise up and be courageous. Rise up and know that you can do this.
Isaiah 40:28 teaches us, it says, "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. There is no searching of His understanding. He gives power to the faint and the weary, and to him who has no might He increases his strength, causes it to multiply, to abound. Even youths faint and be weary, and selected young men shall feebly stumble and fall exhausted. But those who wait on the Lord, who expect and hope in Him shall change and renew their strength, their power. They're going to lift their wings and mount up close to God as eagles, run and not be weary. They're going to walk and not faint or become tired".
I want to encourage you. That there are so many verses like this. You read them out loud every day because speaking the Word is what takes that, that the verses and makes it usable. If you've got a medicine cabinet or a vitamin cabinet, there's vitamin C and there's vitamin B complex. And over there is all these great stuff. It's no good in the bottle. You can even read it and read a whole book on magnesium and then, "This is fantastic". But you don't participate in it. You don't receive anything from it till you digest it and get it into your system. To get the Word and the promises of God into your life, your mind, your body, your marriage, your kids, your future, your finances, speak God's Word.
What does that look like? Whenever you read the Bible, read it out loud. Don't read it to yourself. But then always find a moment and take about a minute or two and begin to just speak over your day, your year. Speak over your marriage. Take the promises of God. Say, Father, I want to thank You that no weapon formed against us prospers. No deadly things shall hurt us. Nothing that I, that I breathe in. Nothing that I eat. Nothing that I absorb. No radiation. Nothing shall by any means hurt me the Bible says and I claim that for my family. I thank You right now. The favour of God is on our finances and the work of our hands.
Today, I want to thank You. I've got the energy of God. The strength of God is mine and I'm getting up protected by His angels. I literally, I mean, I love doing this. You can tell. I could do this and I'll often do this on and on. Just until I sense and feel this victory rise up on the inside of me. That's how I often pray. I'm just speaking out God's Word. And so I want to challenge you to do that. Don't allow weariness. Don't allow this emotional exhaustion. Recognize coming out of you is joy, coming out of you is peace. If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you have to make the choice. He won't force Himself on you. So make sure right now and just say:
Jesus, come into my heart. I'm asking You to. I choose You. I want to grow in Your knowledge, in Your wisdom. I'm going to follow You for the rest of my days as my Savior and Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.
Just tell Him that right now. And then keep following, so we can show you who you are in Christ and what is ahead of you.