Mike Novotny - Burned Out? Emotionally
If your last week was a piece of paper or your last year could fit onto a page, how much margin would there have been? Well, for some of you, the answer is a lot. Maybe for a few of you, the answer would be too much. You binged every season of Yellowstone in less than a month; you have very much margin. You scroll TikTok or Instagram every day; you haven’t worked a 50-hour week in forever. For some of us, our struggle is to persevere, endure, and not quit—to run, not walk, the race that God has called us to.
But I would bet in our modern American Christian culture, for every one person who struggles with laziness, there are probably five of us who struggle with burnouts, who minimize the margins, who squeeze in an extra commitment, who push the hours and compromise the rules that God has set up for our bodies. Are you one of those people? If someone could see your day planner or just watch you on a reality show to see your schedule, would they react in the same way some of you would react to my printed sermon? Oh, does she need help? Should I say something? Because it’s unsettling when you see a page that’s filled up from edge to edge, and it’s very unsettling when you see a life that is filled up from start to finish.
But here’s what I think might be happening to some of you: even though you’ve been here for this whole sermon series, even though I can prove to you from the Bible that Jesus rested, even though the Sabbath is a huge theme throughout the Scriptures, even though your heart has everything it needs in Jesus, even though the Father created you with rules to sleep, unplug, and rest and not serve people all the time, even though I’ve preached all that, there are some of you who haven’t changed a thing just yet—same commitments, same craziness, same pace, same pushing it.
If it was just you and I over a cup of coffee in a quiet office and I asked you why, why are you doing this again? Like last year’s page was to the edge; it seems like you’re repeating it for round two. Why are you doing that again? I bet what you would share in that vulnerable moment, after we explored it a bit, would be something very much here and very much here. You would repeat to me some things that you believe deep down at an emotional level that make it almost impossible for you to slow down and stop. I would say that there are lies or half-truths that you believe in your head that are very important to your heart, and that no matter what I say or what passage I quote, you won’t slow down because you think you can’t.
Now, there’s a whole list of lies that people like us believe that keep us so busy. I want to share just three of them with you today, so if you’re taking notes at home or you’re here live, here are the three biggest lies I think lead to frequent burnouts.
Lie number one: It has to be perfect. Some of you do good work; you get good grades; your boss thinks you’re a good employee, but for some of us, good just isn’t good enough. It has to be perfect, right? Maybe your parents said this to you. You’re still studying, you’re doing fine; your teachers love you; you get good grades. But for some of you, like an 88 is absolutely unacceptable, as is a 92, 94, 96, or 97. You have a reputation, too. I see some people nudging each other right now, right? Like you’re just used to this super high level of academic excellence. The world would be fine; you’d still make it to heaven if you got a B, but you can’t get a B—it has to be perfect.
Some of you are that way at work. You put together a presentation or a pitch; the numbers are strong; you’re not going to get fired; you’ve been faithful to your job, but faithful just isn’t good enough—it has to be perfect. And so you rewrite the email, improve the project, stay up late, and keep the laptop open in bed. You just want to be not good at your job, but great at your job; not great at your job, but perfect at your job. For some of you, this happens on social media. For some of you, you have to keep a perfect Snapchat streak with your friends, or you would die. For some of you, you have to pick the perfect filter; you have to update the post. It can’t just be okay or good—it has to be perfect.
There are some marriages here today; I have a hunch this is true—where a husband checks his watch and says, «Honey, are you ready?» Some of you are thinking, «Pastor Mike, don’t—don’t—don’t go there.» He thinks you look beautiful; like he’s your husband, but you’ve got to try on another dress, and there are like three pairs of shoes, and which looks best? And we’re working on the hair and the makeup—it literally is taking an hour of your limited life and time. Some of you spend an hour every single day because you just don’t want to look fine or average; you want to look as good as you possibly can. You want to look perfect in a thousand different ways.
Our education, our athletics—not just making the team, but starting—not just starting, but being All-Conference. We’re busy and exhausted, and we really don’t have the time, but we push it. And here’s why: it’s very, very emotional and important for us to be perfect.
Or how about lie number two: I have to make everyone happy. I covered this last week at a deep level, but it is such a pervasive thought and so personal to many of you here today, I want to cover it just briefly again, if I could. See, last year’s schedule, where you answered the question, how are you, with the word busy all year long? If peace and joy and resting in Jesus didn’t define your last year, it was just too much. And yet we flipped the calendar, and you’re doing the same thing again. If I were to say, «Isn’t that the definition of insanity?"—what do you think is going to happen to you spiritually? The same thing that happened last year? You’re going to miss all the promises and the goodness and the peace of Jesus because you’re running, running, running. You’re exhausted.
My wife and I run together. If we try to sprint side by side, the conversation is not great, right? We have to slow down to a pace that’s not perfect, but it’s good, and we can connect. I would ask some of you, why are you not slowing down so you can connect with Jesus? And you’d probably say, «Well, if I changed this, they wouldn’t be happy. If I stopped volunteering for this, if I didn’t coach my kid’s team, if I told my boss I can’t do as much, if I stepped back from what people are used to receiving from me, if I didn’t host the holiday party again, if I didn’t make the famous dessert that everyone loves to eat, „—people would not be happy. They’d be sad or mad.
And for some of you, instead of saying, „Okay, well, that’s how they feel, ” you feel very responsible for other people’s emotions, which is a destructive way to live, by the way. Instead of saying, „Okay, he’s mad, ” you panic and say, „He’s mad, and I have to fix that!“ No, you don’t. „She’s disappointed in me; obviously, I need to work harder.“ Nope, no. Nope. She’s disappointed, sure. Period. But for some of you, that deep desire to have everyone like you, love you, applaud you, and approve of you means you can never slow down. You’ll just say yes to everything everyone asks you to do, and there will be no exit ramp until you crash and burn because deep down, you believe you have to make everyone happy.
How about lie number three? It’s fine, also known as I’m fine, also known as whatever. Wait, how many weekends was your family gone to sports tournaments? Yeah, it’s crazy, but it’s fine. How many hours do you sleep? How much coffee do you drink? Yeah, I know, but I’m fine. Some of you think deep down in your heart that God has given you a cheat code. Back when I was growing up playing the original Nintendo, there was a game called Contra. Some of you played Contra and you know the cheat code—up, down, up, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, A, B, Select, Start—and you get unlimited lives. You can do whatever you want; you can jump off a cliff, you can get shot by the enemy because I’m fine. Whatever. Some of you think you have a cheat code to life. I go through the drive-thru, I skip a workout, I work too much, I never slow down—it’s fine. But God didn’t make you for that.
Yeah, my doctor is appalled by my lifestyle. It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? No, but if you believe that you’re the exception to the Creator’s rules, that just because nothing has happened yet means nothing will happen, if you believe that in here, you won’t change out here. So whether you’re striving for perfection, trying to make everyone in your life happy, or just thinking that you’re the exception to God’s rules, all of us have some lie or lies that keep us sprinting instead of running the race that God has called us to.
So here’s what I hope to do today: I want to grab that book, the Bible, the Word of God, and I want to take those three lies head-on. I want to try to push them out of your brain, convince you with the help of the Holy Spirit, and replace them—renew your mind with the truth of God’s Word—so you can shake free from the slavery of needing to be perfect, make everyone happy, or the foolishness of thinking it’s fine. That’s our goal: replace those three lies with three bits of God’s truth with the hope that not that you would walk in laziness, but that some of you would slow down and not sprint in foolishness but instead run the race that Jesus has called you to.
So let’s jump in. Lie number one: it has to be perfect. I want to share with you what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 4— a time in his life where he was under severe criticism for not being good enough at something. Did you know this? The Apostle Paul was critiqued and criticized for not being good enough at public speaking—shocking, huh? He started the church in the Greek city of Corinth. Apparently, Paul admitted himself he wasn’t as good at this kind of stuff as other people, and after he left to start other churches, people came in and critiqued him. „Paul’s a chump; like Paul wouldn’t get enough YouTube views; he’s not good enough.“ They criticized him and critiqued him; he wasn’t perfect at that craft. And to defend himself and the validity of his ministry, Paul responded with these words from 1 Corinthians chapter 4: „This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries that God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.“
Paul didn’t panic that he wasn’t perfect at public speaking. He says, „No, I’m serving Jesus; Jesus entrusted this ministry to me. And yes, I preach, but when God evaluates me as a preacher, He’s not going to say, ‘Were you perfect? Did you put any ums or ahs in your sentences? Could you move people to tears? Could you tell the right story to get them at the end? ’ No, no— it is required of me, as one who’s been given a trust, that I must prove in the eyes of God to be faithful.“
Here’s my application for you: let’s think about the things that God has entrusted to your life. Maybe you haven’t been entrusted with the call to be a missionary or preach the gospel from a stage, but I bet God has entrusted you with some very important things. Let’s do a quick show of hands: for how many of you has God entrusted a physical body? I’ll wait. Okay, I was waiting for you. All right, so God’s given you a body; He has some things to say about it—to be faithful to the body He’s given you: work and rest, sleep and exercise, nutrition. How many of you has God given a soul? Who has a soul? Yeah. Souls need to be cared for with the Word of God, grace, and truth.
How many of you have been entrusted with a spouse? How many married people here? Yeah, that’s a sacred trust—to love as Christ has first loved you. How many of you have been entrusted with children? Yeah, that’s a sacred trust. Last one: how many of you have at least one, if not both, of your parents who are still living? Honoring and loving your parents is a trust, too.
Now here’s what really wise people know that perfectionists forget: if you’ve been entrusted with a handful of things and you try to be perfect in one of them, you probably will not be faithful with the rest of them. I think that’s probably the most important thing I’m going to say today, so let me say it again: if you try to be perfect in one of the things that God has entrusted to you, you will run out of time and energy to be faithful with all the things that God has entrusted to you.
Some of you actually grew up this way. Maybe you don’t have a super close relationship with your dad, but your dad had a super close relationship with his work. He was striving to be perfect; he put in extra hours; the boss loved him; he accomplished great things. Nothing wrong with doing good work, but the problem was if he strove for perfection in this area of his life, and as a limited human being who only had so much time and so much energy, when he came home, was he able to be faithful to the things that God had entrusted to his care? Was he able to be faithful to you?
You see the dark side of perfection? This sometimes happens to parents. We want to be perfect parents; we want our kids to have the best life. We want them to be involved in all the things, and so we sign up for this and that, and there are lessons, and there are tournaments, and there are opportunities, and there are teams to make. Mom and Dad, maybe both pour themselves in. They’re sitting on a bleacher every single weekend, like we’re trying to be perfect parents. But you know what happens? If you try to be a perfect parent, I’ve seen this too often: you’re often a very, very, very unfaithful spouse, or you’re exhausted from all the kids' stuff, and is there time and energy for me to love you like Christ loves His bride? Do I have ways to show you respect and speak your love language, or have the kids absolutely exhausted us of everything? I try to be perfect here, and I end up very unfaithful here.
But in so many different ways, wise people know as a limited human being, if I overextend myself in A, I’m not going to be faithful in B and C and D. And so here’s what scripturally wise believers do: they say no to most things; they focus on the few things that God has entrusted to their care, and they know, „I’m never going to be the best at any of these.“ Will there be better public speakers than me? Millions of them. Will there be better husbands than me? Not to Kim, but yes. Will there be better fathers than me? For sure. Will there be better athletes than me? Yes. And I’m okay with that because to be perfect, to strive for it in any of those areas would cost me something that matters way too much—my body, my soul, my relationships, my work. Paul says if God has given you a trust, it is required that we should prove ourselves faithful.
So in the name of Jesus, I give you permission to be average at stuff. The only other option is to look back in life with regret. When I get much older, I want to have a close relationship with my grown daughters, and that means I have to make some choices now so they want to be close with me when they’re grown. Don’t be perfect; it costs too much. Be faithful. Last bit of advice: as bonus content, be careful of social media. On social media, we see people’s perfection, but there’s no algorithm that dictates their faithfulness.
You see this guy who’s really ripped at the gym or this woman who looks amazing in her swimsuit, but you don’t realize: is her soul okay? Has she neglected her most important relationships? You see the championship trophy, the traveling team. Oh, you want to be like that, but do you want to be like that? Do you know if they’ve been faithful to all the callings? We see the one thing that’s going great; we don’t see the four things that are falling apart. So take it with a grain of salt: most posts are people’s perfection, not their faithfulness.
See someone up close who’s faithful, who says no more than they say yes, whose life is balanced and biblical? Imitate them because God doesn’t want you to strive for perfection in one calling but to be faithful in all of them. Ready for lie number two? All right, here it is: I have to make everyone happy. The Apostle Paul in the very next verses of 1 Corinthians 4 addresses this as well. Here’s what he says, starting with verse 3: „I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court. Indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.“
Wow, is that an amazing scripture? Like maybe these days, we’re kind of used to saying, „I don’t care if you judge me.“ What did Taylor Swift say? „Haters gonna hate.“ You know, you just gotta shake them off, ignore that stuff. But Paul says something that is so unlike Taylor Swift and everyone else in America. He says, „Indeed, I don’t even judge myself. What do I think? I don’t care. Do I think I’m a good person? Is this my truth?“ Paul says, „No, no, no, no, no! You don’t get to judge me; I don’t even get to judge myself. I’m trying to do what’s right; my conscience is clear, but it doesn’t make me innocent.“
Here’s this point: It is the Lord who judges me. I’m not trying to make me happy; I’m not trying to make you happy; I’m trying to make God happy, right? That’s the truth I want you to write down. This is so liberating and so beautiful—that I want to make God happy. When I get to the end of every day, my goal is not to think, „Did I do the things I wanted? Is everyone speaking well of me?“ The number one most liberating question is, „Is God happy? Is there a smile on God’s face?“
And I want to apologize for repeating the gospel from last week, but if you are connected to Jesus through faith, the answer is yes! I love this about the Christian faith—it’s not just a list of things to do; it’s this reminder of what Jesus has done—that everything about you that would make God unhappy, Jesus removed it and left it there at the cross. Anything that would make God scowl instead of smile, He highlighted to the last sin. And when He shed His blood, He pushed delete. If you’re a follower of Jesus, every single day you wake up to it; you fall asleep to it, and you get it all throughout the middle that God is happy. His face, as we love to say in the blessing, shines upon us; it looks on us with favor, like, „Ah, it’s great if people like me. I don’t need them to because God Himself likes me.“
I love it when people click the little thumbs-up button on my post; I don’t need that to be happy; God, through His Son, is giving you the thumbs up. We have the most amazing gift in the world: the smile of God, His presence, and His love. And if that weren’t enough, when we follow God faithfully, when we do things whether people get it or they don’t, some Christians say that’s a God-pleasing decision. Have you heard that phrase before? To live a God-pleasing life. So maybe you set down something that’s just too much for you this year, and people aren’t pleased, but does it make God happy? Maybe you’re going to go back on your previous mistakes where you minimized the margin of your schedule and just say no to some things you said yes to last year, and people are like, „Why are you stepping back?“ Could you close your eyes and see the face of God who says, „Yes, I like that work and rest, serving and then stepping back? That makes me happy.“
And we sometimes think, especially in the church world, the only stuff that makes God happy is going to church, volunteering, coming to events, but that’s not true. Those things make God happy, and so do sleeping and resting and recharging. It wasn’t like the Heavenly Father just looked at Jesus when He was in the crowds and said yes, and then when Jesus got in the boat to get away—oh, all of it was God-pleasing. And when you think of your life as like the only stuff that makes God happy is when I’m doing, doing, doing, you’ve missed about half of what the Bible has to say—that the Creator who created the rules for your body is pleased when you take time to make something healthy. Whether you’re on your knees by your bed praying or at the gym lifting, both of those things are pleasing to the Lord.
So I want you to see in a very big, holistic way, that this is the stuff—all of this stuff—is what makes God happy. I’ve told some of you at this church this story maybe four times now; I’m going to say sorry for saying it the fifth because some have never heard this before, and it’s probably the best advice I’ve gotten in my whole life. It has protected me from burnouts in the 15 years that I’ve been a pastor; it has blessed my marriage and my children and my body and my soul. So real quickly, let me tell it again: when I was 26, I think I was about to become a pastor, I got a call for the very first time. My home pastor up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said, „Mike, whatever church you end up at, wherever you get called to, I want you to go to your very, very first leadership meeting, and I want you to ask the leaders of your church how many hours you should work.“
And I said, „No, no, I’m not going to do that; that sounds like terrible advice. You know, what’s the minimum I have to put in around here so you don’t get mad at me or really angry?“ And my pastor said, „No, no, no, you don’t get it. You could work 60, 70, 80 hours a week, and then you wouldn’t be at the one thing, and someone would be mad at you, so ask them what it looks like to be faithful as a pastor.“ And so I did. Short version of the story: I didn’t have these words for it when I was 26, but I asked, „I want to run and not sprint and crash; I don’t want to be another pastor who’s amazing until he morally fails because he’s running on fumes. I don’t want to be the guy who you love as a church but whose wife and children don’t love because he’s always at church. I don’t want to preach out of an empty soul, but times of refreshment that I’ve had in the Word of God—not because I’m trying to double duty at studying for a sermon and calling that my personal devotion. I want to serve you well for a long time.“
I asked the people in that room how many hours could you do that, and they gave an answer. One guy said 45; another said 55. Someone said I could work 50; another said 50; another said 50; one said 60; one said 40. So we took the average of all the numbers. We came up with a faithful work week: 50 hours—not scrolling Facebook but serving people in God’s Word. And now for 15 years, that’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve tried to work hard and be faithful, but I’ve been able to step away. Before, I had a number, I would always feel guilty. „I could be doing more; the sermon could be better; someone needs my help; a guest came to church; I could follow up.“ The work was never ending, so I needed a place to not feel bad when I stopped, to know that God was still smiling and I was being faithful.
I know your work is different than mine, but it’s really important for you to know wherever that line is of how much you can invest. When you get to the other side of it, like God’s not scowling if you work hard to serve people in love and then you step away. It doesn’t make you bad or unfaithful or unlike Jesus; actually, it makes you just like Jesus, who for every second of His life made His Heavenly Father happy.
Last but not least, the lie number three: It’s fine. I’m fine. You know, the tricky thing about that lie is that you’re probably right right now, and it’s not like if you sleep four hours a night, drink four cups of coffee in the morning, skip your workouts this week, you will die by next Monday. It’s kind of the tricky thing about seeds and fruit—you don’t see what they become or what they don’t today or tomorrow; it takes a bit. But for a person who’s breaking the rules that the Creator put into our bodies is playing with fire, and it catches up to you soon. Maybe you’ve been living physically and with your schedule kind of like that person who never wears their seatbelt in the car and they’re always texting and driving. „It’s fine, dumb rules; I don’t need them; nothing’s happened.“ To which you would say, „Yet!“
But for those of you who aren’t readers, and you’re not going to binge ten books on burnout, let me tell you what I learned when I binge-read them. Every big story of burnout has the exact same script: a pretty talented, accomplished person who did well at their job, had extra opportunities because they were good at their job, said yes to those opportunities, and ran out of time for rest and Sabbath and sleep, got more opportunities because they worked more hours until it got to the point where it stopped being fun and peaceful and joyful and it felt like an obligation—an obligation that they carried until they compromised. Until their body one day, boom, blew up.
I read a book by a doctor who said she was so stunned when she needed medication for her depression because her whole career she had just given it to people who were depressed, but she burned out—or the amazing pastor from up in Canada who was respected as a Christian leader in the ministry thought he could cheat God’s rules, but he could not. And when he blew up and doubted his own faith and stopped being able to sense the presence of God or believe His promises, he realized he was not fine. It was not fine; he needed to restart and follow the simple things that we’ve been learning. For many of you here today, you haven’t blown up your life yet—yet, and that is only because of the absolute mercy and patience of God. You’ve been working way too much, striving for perfection way too often, neglecting the one and only body that God has given you, and nothing’s happened yet. And if so, thank the Lord Jesus, it’s not too late—that before at 80 miles an hour, you go crashing into that burnout wall, God’s given you a chance today to pump the brakes and slow down and drive the car of life at a pace that He designed you to drive.
For some of you today, you need to hear this passage from Proverbs chapter 1. I love this; it says, „The complacency of fools will destroy them.“ Complacency—to be complacent, to not change. But whoever listens to me, to the voice of wisdom, will live in safety. Or maybe you’re pushing it all last year, all your life; you’ve been pushing it. If you’re complacent after learning these truths from God’s Word and you think it’s fine, here’s the promise: it will destroy you; it’ll catch up to you; something will fall apart. But it doesn’t have to be that way. But whoever listens to the voice of wisdom, the Word of God, will live in safety.
Here’s the truth I want to put into your head today: wise people change before they crash. Today for some of you in the room is your opportunity to change—maybe to disappoint your own standards, to disappoint other people, and to save yourself from something that is six months, 12 months, two years down the road—something you would deeply regret and wish you could come back to this Sunday in this sermon and say, „Why didn’t I listen?“ You can listen; whoever listens to me will live in safety.
So, brothers and sisters, let me summarize it this way: for the past three sermons, God the Father, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have been standing here invisibly on the stage, reaching out compassionate arms to you. Here’s the Father, the Creator, saying, „I made you; I was there; I knit you together in your mother’s womb; I loved you; I know how your body works—listen to me.“ And then Jesus says, „Amen, Dad.“ He says, „Come to me, and I’ll give you rest.“ If you’re running just because you want love and approval in your heart, I’m giving it to you for free. I lived and died for you so a smile would always be on His face.
And the Holy Spirit says, „Amen and amen; let me fill you with wisdom. Let me renew your mind with the Word of God so you don’t believe these lies that will make you lose way, way, way too much.“ Father, Son, Holy Spirit—can you see their three faces, their six arms extended to you saying, „We love you; we want what’s best for you; we want to bless you and not watch you burn out—listen to us!“
My wife and I are trying to listen. This summer, I’m going to celebrate 20 years of marriage, God willing, with Kim. And when I met Kim, some of you don’t know her; she is like a classic German Protestant—she’s reliable, dependable, hardworking. You put a ball in Kim’s hands and she will not drop it. She does what she says, and she’s a woman of incredible character. She pushes; she’s an amazing woman to have as a wife. She has a checklist for her checklist, and there’s a backup checklist just in case she lost the first checklist for the other checklist—that’s Kim.
And then in 1999, she met me. I’m a box checker myself. I love to succeed, try new things, swing for the fences, do things that are big and grand and wonderful and really impressive. So the box-checking, hard-working, nose-to-the-grindstone met the high-achieving man. We got married; what could go wrong? Well, nothing at first. I went to grad school, worked three jobs; she started as a preschool and kindergarten teacher, which was some long hours. But there was enough time, and there was a little bit of margin for us to date and work out—but then the worst thing happened.
We had a baby. Babies are so dumb. I love my kids; I really do, but I think, „Wow, that was a game changer.“ So there was like just an energy and time vacuum—a big shift. And now, it was really hard. And then, 15 months later—oops! Here comes baby number two. And to be candid with you, it wasn’t funny because it almost broke us. We weren’t unfaithful sexually in marriage, but we were just not faithful to the vows we had made. We poured out everything into work and into the kids, and we just weren’t connected.
We actually went to counseling to get help with that. By the grace of God, my parents moved into our basement, and they helped us raise those two kids and made it possible for me to work and Kim to work. And then we came here to Appleton, and we tried. There was a lot of margin, just a little bit. But now what we’ve seen happen to us is what some people have called the squeeze years. You ever heard of them? Our kids are 13, 14—they’re old enough; they’re involved; they have friendships; they need rides. One is in high school, one wants to go to the basketball game and stay connected; there’s piano lessons and drum lessons and musical practice and volleyball and club volleyball and tournaments. There’s that on one side, and the other side are our parents who are very local and very close to us, and as they get into their 70s, they can’t do what they used to do.
They need help with the yard work and the technology and the passwords and the codes and all the updates. So there’s, you know, there’s stuff here with the kids that’s getting busier, and there’s stuff here with our parents that’s getting busier. And to honor your parents does not mean just not to talk back to them when you’re 17; it means to love and serve them as their bodies slow down. And our margin went from an inch to three-quarters to a half to a quarter, and we just feel it. I’m not asking for your pity; it’s a first-world problem.
But my wife, she does not push hard from 9 to 5—she pushes hard from 5:00 to 9:00. Actually, 4:00 a.m. is when she wakes up to get to the gym and read her Bible before she crashes hard at 8:42 p.m. So this season of life and this series is very personal to us. We’ve gotten all the things done; the balls still in the air that we were juggling, but it’s hard to rejoice in Jesus when you’re sprinting too much. And so recently, we made a huge, huge decision. My wife, who probably works 50 to 60 hours a week as a preschool teacher during the school year, said, „I can’t do that and this and the kids and us.“
And so we made the massive choice to move from a full-time, 60-hour-a-week teaching job to 20 hours a week. And if I told you that wasn’t emotional, I’d be straight-up lying to you. We thought about the little kids who just love Kim; we thought about the parents who sent her the sweetest notes: „What a blessing that you taught my kid about Jesus.“ We thought about the great needs of this ministry, which is growing. We need more people to serve, not less. We felt just the pressure of disappointing people and making them unhappy—the kingdom of God we’re working for; Jesus, it’s our job; we’re stepping back.
And so these things that we’ve been learning together, they matter because we don’t want to be perfect in one area and unfaithful in others. We’ve taken a step, and we’re not looking back. And we know when we close our eyes that God’s not disappointed in us; He’s actually very happy. How about you? You probably have an emotional choice to make, too. You’re going to feel the tension of so many good things at the same time. But I tell you this: as hard as it is in the moment, a year from now, you will not regret it.
Kim and I try to run together most Saturday mornings. Some days, the wind is blowing pretty strong. We get to the end of the driveway, and we have to turn into the wind or run with it. It’s really tempting to run with the wind, but after you run three miles, do you know what happens? You’ve got to run home. I never thought of that. So she and I, we have this phrase: it’s our philosophy of life—“Into the wind.» Let’s do the hard thing right now because there’s going to come a time when we can turn around and life will be so much more enjoyable.
Brothers and sisters, would you go into the wind? Do the hard thing; make the hard decision. It will not be easy; it will not be unemotional. But you will get to that moment where you’ll turn around, feel the wind of God’s blessing at your back, and you will find the very thing that Jesus promised: rest.
Let’s pray. Dear God, thank You for speaking the truth to us. It’s not easy; it’s not always convenient or popular, but it is good for our souls. Amen. With this many people here, this many people watching at home, we’re all in such different places. Some of us need a kick in the pants from You, and some of us need an arm on the shoulder to slow us down. I pray, more than anything, that You would help us all to remember that through Jesus, we have an identity that can’t be shaken—that our worth and our value is not in how much we produce but instead in what we have been given free of charge at the cross of Your Son. Help our greatest joy not to be in our income, our home, our looks, our accomplishments, but instead in everything that Jesus accomplished through His death and resurrection—ours, free of charge, by grace and through faith.
Heavenly Father, I can just picture five years from now marriages that are restored and kids who aren’t anxious because there are a million things on their schedule. I’m picturing people lingering over open Bibles with a cup of coffee, having time to actually pray and realizing how beautiful and glorious You are, God. Such things are possible when we stop sprinting and instead run this race of faith that You’ve called us to. Help us to get there by Your grace and with Your help. We pray this all in the beautiful name of Jesus. And all God’s people said, «Amen.»