Spiritual Stress and Burnout
In the Old Testament, we read that Elijah experienced God’s supernatural strength to do the extraordinary. But at a latter part, we find Elijah fearful, running scared, exhausted, depressed, and wanting to die. “Enough Lord, let me die” was his cry. The continuous stresses he faced consumed the last of his energy, his ability to go on and to say: "I have had enough; I would rather die than go on facing this day in and day out”. Elijah was a man just like us. Stress is all around us, perhaps not as extreme as for Elijah, but it's just around the corner, always consuming spiritual, emotional and physical energy. It can be forced on us by circumstances or induced by the choices we make. Colin Buckland describes burnout in “Freedom to Lead”: “The exhausting of the inner resource that enables a carer to go on caring. The using up of the essential ‘inner you’, rendering the individual in a serious condition of dysfunctionality. The spending of self on others in such