iShineInMinistry

Psalm 55:22

Cast your burden on the Lord,

And He shall sustain you...

Have you ever had one of those moments where if one more thing gets added to your "life list" you will literally combust? You are the 'go-to girl' for so many people that call you friend or trust you with sensitive information. You are the favorite cousin, aunt, youth leader, teacher (or whatever you are) that everyone loves to get prayer with and talk to Jesus about. You are working, volunteering, helping people in need, cleaning, trying to stay healthy and somewhere in all of that trying to find time to sleep or just have 10 minutes to yourself to regroup. You seem to have so many things in order and people love to be around you and tell you about all of their struggles. Your desire to lift them up in prayer and be a blessing to those around you has almost allowed you to conclude that your problems are menial and don't really need as much attention...so you just keep going!

This is a horrible trap to fall into in your walk with the Lord. Once you get to this place, you focus so much on everything and everyone else that you forget that your cares and burdens are also important to God; He wants to help and bless you as much as the ones He allows you to help in ministry. Once you get in this place, it becomes a conundrum of mayhem, where you are busy all the time, helping all the time, working all the time and draining yourself to oblivion. While it's great to be using the gifts that God has given you, you must also take time to restore the temple God has given you to use for His glory. Otherwise, you will be rendered useless for His kingdom and that is not what He wants for you.

Let's take the time to really balance out our lives so that we can fully do all to the glory of God. He will then be the one to sustain us as we go from moment to moment and we won't get to those places of total burn out. We must be diligent in each area of our lives, including times of rest and renewing our minds. We also need to tend to the areas of our own lives that need lifting up.

Don't add anything else to your overflowing plate until you cast you burdens on the Lord and allow Him to help you put it all into perspective. Ask God to search your heart and also help you in the areas where you struggle. Find your 'go-to girl' that can pray with you in these times and help you monitor when you may be doing too much.

As you trust Him with everything in your life and the lives of those around you, He will give you order in all of the chaos, bring all things to pass and give you a little bit of downtime to rest in the midst of it all!

Matthew 11:28

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Do you feel like you can't do one more thing? Are you completely overwhelmed? Every area of our life should be an act of worship to God, including times of rest because He wants us to have those times. How can you better balance so that He will sustain you and help to prevent those times of burnout? Pray about it...