Earlier this year a man came walking up to me, and one of the first things he proudly told me was that he had not taken leave for the past five years. I calmly replied to him with words more or less like these: “Even God needed to rest.” We read this in Genesis 2:2: On the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing, and He rested from all His work.
For some reason people today think they are better and stronger than God. They may feel indispensable, or want to feel indispensable. No school or workplace, so they believe, can function without them. They like to believe that the success of a school or a job depends on them. That is why they never rest. They go one step further and take on far too many responsibilities. As a result, they become a time bomb when it comes to exhaustion and burnout. They forget that all people are made the same by God: we all need rest. Everyone is made with limited strength and energy that must be replenished again after a long period of hard work and giving your all.
The well-known author Phil Anderson, in his book Running on Empty, describes a person as an airplane taking off from an airport. Everyone admires the beautiful and fast airplane. No one knows that there is a serious fault with the engine and that the plane will crash four hours later. That is how many people go through life: rush, rush, rush. Everyone admires them, but deep inside they are exhausted and burnt out—ready to collapse. Jesus made it clear that He needed to spend much time with His Father in Luke 2:49(b): “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
The following short poem, written by an unknown author, contains many truths:
Make time to work, it is the price of success;
Make time to think, it is the source of power;
Make time to play, it is the secret of eternal youth;
Make time to read, it is the foundation of wisdom;
Make time to be friendly, it is the road to happiness;
Make time to dream, it links your expectations to a star;
Make time to observe, the day is too short to be selfish;
Make time to laugh, it is the music of the soul.
Here a number of things are mentioned that make one think deeply: make time to laugh, make time to think, make time to dream, and make time to read—to mention just four. When last did you deliberately make time for these? Is there not a serious imbalance in how you use your time—such that you are on your way to becoming exhausted and burnt out?
Written by Johan Smith