Burnout Recovery: Stop Exhaustion with God’s Rhythms of Supernatural Grace

A rhythm is a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.

It’s something you do regularly. Although we’re not required to keep a certain day of rest under our new covenant, we have to get into the rhythm of rest.

Well, how are you supposed to do it? What day? What time? The Sabbath was not created as a list of rules for you to follow. Mankind was not made for the Sabbath, but Sabbath was made for mankind. When Jesus said this, He shocked the religious leaders of His day. He also identified Himself as the Lord of the Sabbath.

How do you enter the rest for your life? You come to Jesus. What did He say in Matthew 11?

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly (Matthew 11:28-30 MSG).

In learning that there are “unforced rhythms of grace,” you learn that there is a rhythm to your rest. Now, you may not be required to keep the Sabbath day or a Sabbath year, but you have to learn to rest. When the Israelites were too busy every Sabbath to rest, that was their rhythm.

There is a rhythm of rest for your life, too. There are times when everything should be fast-paced. You might say, “Well, I don’t like fast-paced.” But there are times when you have to move fast. There are also times when you have to move slow. Which is which? When you follow the Holy Spirit, He’ll tell you to speed up. He’ll tell you to slow down. He’ll tell you to do nothing. He’ll tell you to get up and do something. He’ll tell you to go on vacation.

The rhythm to your rest is the rhythm of grace. It is the rhythm of following the Spirit of God and actually acknowledging Him in all your ways. There may be many valid reasons why you have never learned to rest, but you have to learn now before your body is put on a forced rest.

Do not allow the enemy or your culture to tell you that you cannot rest. Do not buy the lie that tells you the only way you can rest is through smoking weed or some other damaging habit. Sedatives do not equal a vacation, and they will trap you.

Don’t say that you can’t rest because you work in a toxic workplace or have a bad boss. Although those two things can be challenges and contribute to making rest difficult, for most people it isn’t their boss or their job. It’s them and their mentality. If every job is too hard and every environment is toxic, then the problem isn’t the boss or the job. It’s that person.

If you are currently working in a challenging, even toxic, workplace, are you taking your toxic patterns and toiling mentality into that workplace? Even if you are not in that type of workplace, do you blame your boss because you had time off and you still couldn’t rest? Do you keep blaming your spouse or your kids? If it is always someone else’s fault that you cannot rest, there is a common denominator. It’s you. As you read through this book, make a decision in your heart that you will experience the rest God has for you no matter what the challenges are in your life.

Scheduling Sabbaths

As we look at the concept of the Sabbath under the old covenant, we learn that it is a wise practice to take time every week to not work. That doesn’t mean you do nothing, because in this life, you still have to do something. You’re still going to have to eat, right? You still might have to do something with the kids. But what you need to do is to set a pace for that day that’s different than your workdays. Whatever your job schedule is, you have to pick a day and say, “This is my Sabbath. This is my rest.” It doesn’t matter whether it’s Friday or Saturday or Tuesday.

Now, because of the schedules and demands of life, that day could change from week to week. However, you still need to get into the rhythm of the spirit of grace for your life and pick a day and say, “Today, I’m not doing all the other stuff I normally do.”

That decision, mentality, and rhythm will preserve and lengthen your life. If you are a person whose mind is always racing, you have to learn to tell your mind to calm down.

You might say, “Well, I get my best ideas at night.” Let’s examine—why are you so creative at that time? You might be a night owl and are creative at night. That’s fine. You might be a morning person and you are creative in the morning. Examine and pay attention to yourself. Why are you creative at this time? Why are you getting ideas? Is it a certain time of the day, or is it because you finally stopped moving and got into a still position—you finally put distractions away? Why are you really creative and productive at that time?

If it’s because you’re finally still and you put aside the distractions, then make time for that throughout the day so that you can get your ideas out, capitalize on that creativity, and still enjoy rest at night. You have to approach your life with a different mentality and be willing to restructure. Plan to go to bed just a little bit earlier. Bring your notebook with you to bed so you can jot down those ideas. By the time the creativity stops, you go to sleep.

If you don’t consider yourself creative, remember your heavenly Father is creative and you’re made in His image. You have to pay attention to yourself to know when you are most creative. Guard that time so you can keep being creative and then structure your life around it.

This is not a foreign concept. You structure your life to go to work and get your job done. You have to take the same mindset when it comes to creativity. Creativity is an important part of you enjoying the rhythm of rest for your life. If you’re creative, you’ll be more productive.

You are not a hamster in a hamster wheel. You’re not supposed to keep running until you don’t have any energy or power left. The hamster is not producing anything. It’s time for you to get off the hamster wheel of life and become creatively productive.

When we think about the ministry of Jesus and study it, we see that He traveled to many places far apart. At times, He and his team were moving at a fast place as they were covering a lot of distance. How- ever, as we read the Gospels, we see that the Son of God would take breaks and rest. He even took all of His apostles on a vacation to step away from the demand and busyness of ministry. Jesus was only in ministry for three years and He took frequent breaks. If He did it, you might need to follow that example.

Remember, we have a new covenant. Our Sab- bath rest is not a hard, set law to rest on a certain day. In this new covenant, you have to get into the rhythm of grace for your life. You have to pay attention to your life. You have to learn when you are the most creative. You have to discern when you are the most productive.

Times of creativity and productivity differ from person to person. It can be different for every single one of us. In order for you to create, so that you can produce, so that you can make a difference, you have to discover yourself.

What’s Your Rest?

How do you rest? All of us rest differently. For some, if you sat down and literally did nothing, you’d be that hyper person on the couch just bouncing your legs all day. As soon as the rest day was over, you would be thrilled because you didn’t actually rest at all. You ceased from activity, but you did not rest. Yes, you need to sleep, but you also need to find out how you rest.

My wife and I were talking about this recently. When we go on vacation, we have different versions of rest and what is refreshing. I’m a very energetic person. Some people might say that I’m hyper, and they wonder why I even drink coffee and who was responsible for introducing me to coffee.

Are you like that? If you are a person like me, your view of rest may be different. For me to rest, I need an adventure. I like going to new places. I will work out even if I’m resting on vacation. I will hit the gym, get ready, and look forward to the next activity. What am I doing? I’m resting in my mind. That’s what I need.

You may be a person who needs to take a vacation and just sit by the pool all day. That’s the way you rest. It’s important for you to discover what type of rest you need and get into that rhythm of rest.

Here’s another question connected to the rhythm of rest that you need to answer: how often do you need to change the scenery? When you understand how God made you, you can set your faith and have that as your reality. You’re not trying to copy some- body else’s vacation. You’re not envious of somebody else’s beach house or travel schedule. You will realize that occasionally changing the scene of your life is not just a desire, but it is a need because of how God made you.

What does Philippians 4:19 (NKJV) tell us? “God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory.” If you don’t know you have a need, you won’t set your faith to receive it. Here are a number of additional questions I want you to consider:

• How often do you need to go somewhere?

• How often do you need to change the scenery?

• How often do you need to go to the mountains?

• How often do you need to go to the beach?

• How often do you need to go to the city?

• How often do you need to have an adventure?

Pay attention to yourself and start writing these things down so that you can release your faith to walk into this reality. God has more for you, but if you just keep doing what you’re doing, you won’t be able to go the distance. The plan of God for your life spans several decades. You’re going to have to learn how to rest along the way if you want to not just complete the call on your life, but also enjoy it.