Christian Living on Burnout

liturgy

Spirit of the Living God—Fall afresh on

Author

Scripture

Philippians 4:6-7, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Romans 8:26-27, John 14:26-27, Psalm 51:10-12

Spirit of the Living God—Fall afresh on us this day. Spirit of God present and powerful, Spirit of God fruitful and faithful, Spirit of God filling and fulfilling us as children of the Father and foll...

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Existential Brokenheartedness

Author

Austin Fischer

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 1:6-7, Habakkuk 1:2-3, John 16:33, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Isaiah 53:3, Psalm 22:1, Romans 8:18

In this short excerpt, pastor and author Austin Fischer describes a surprising dynamic that sometimes occurs in the life of a Christian: believing so strongly in a loving God that one cannot fathom th...

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Pushed to the Brink of Destruction

Author

James A. Knight

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 12:12-13, Psalm 147:3, Romans 8:28, Isaiah 61:1, 1 Peter 5:10

Psychiatrist James Knight describes in graphic detail the experience that members of Alcoholics Anonymous experience: These persons have had their lives laid bare and pushed to the brink of destructi...

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Author

Brittany Burgunder

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 1:6, Psalm 147:3, Hebrews 12:11, 1 Peter 5:10, Isaiah 43:2, Romans 8:28, James 1:2-4

Sometimes the process of growth looks a lot like destruction and pain. But you’ll realize with time that you’re not breaking; you’re healing.

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Author

Helen Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 41:10, Revelation 21:4, Psalm 34:19, 1 Peter 5:10, Romans 8:18

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

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Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Psalm 34:18, Ephesians 5:13, Romans 8:28, Galatians 6:2

In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light fo...

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Physical Therapy and Spiritual Practice

Author

Cody Sandahl

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:9-10, Romans 8:13, 1 Timothy 4:7, Hebrews 12:11, 1 Corinthians 9:27

My transition into my 40’s came with the obligatory hip surgery. The only way to stop the cycle of hip pain was to literally carve out some bone. Those parts had to be removed. But recovering my funct...

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Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 16:24-26, Colossians 3:1-3, Romans 8:12-13, Romans 6:18-19, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:5, 2 Timothy 2:3-4, 1 Peter 4:1-2, Luke 9:23, Mark 8:34-38, Luke 14:26-28

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end...

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Joining the Human Race

Author

Parker J. Palmer

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 34:18, Isaiah 42:3, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Romans 8:22-23, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Hebrews 4:15

As the darkness began to descend on me in my early twenties, I thought I had developed a unique and terminal case of failure. I did not realize that I had merely embarked on a journey toward joining t...

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Author

Mary Jane Moffat

Keywords

Healing

Scripture

Lamentations 3:22-23, Galatians 2:20, Romans 8:28, Isaiah 43:18-19, James 1:2-4, Philippians 1:6

Recovery is not a process we can will, but consists of experiencing many small deaths, the passing of significant anniversaries, until our identity is solid and natural in the pronoun “I.”

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Remember it Ends

Author

Annie F. Downs

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 40:31, John 16:33, 1 Peter 5:10, James 1:2-4, Psalm 30:5, Romans 8:18, Ecclesiastes 3:1

I saw a live podcast a few weeks ago, and the host, actor Dax Shepherd, gave the audience a couple minutes to ask questions. One young woman in the front row asked him, “How do you get through the har...

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Author

Billy Graham

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 147:3, Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28, Psalm 34:18, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

People by nature build, tear down, and rebuild. We build our hopes, get disappointed, and then search for renewed hope.

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True Healing Occurs When…

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 11:30, Matthew 11:28-30, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Romans 8:18, Hebrews 12:1-2, James 1:2-4

Paradoxically…healing means moving from your pain to the pain…When you keep focusing on the specific circumstances of your pain, you easily become angry, resentful, and even vindictive. You are inclin...

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Waiting: Leaning into the Pain

Author

Ashley Hales

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 16:2–4, Isaiah 40:31, Lamentations 3:25–26, Matthew 4:2–4, Romans 8:24–25, Psalm 130:5–6

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

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Author

Marc Lewis

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 29:11, 1 John 1:9, Psalm 32:5, Romans 8:1, Isaiah 43:18-19

I see my past drinking as a behavioral problem, a learned response to dealing (or not dealing) with emotional pain and stress. Once I achieved the excavation of my wounds, I no longer lived with the s...

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Author

Barbara Fiand

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 57:18, James 5:16, Jeremiah 30:17, Romans 8:28, Psalm 34:18, Isaiah 61:1, Psalm 147:3

Wholeness is brokenness owned and thereby healed.

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Author

Laura Sobiech

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 8:18, Philippians 4:6-7, Psalm 30:5, 1 Peter 5:10, James 1:2-4, Isaiah 61:3, Romans 5:3-5

“[Zach] had gone from seeing beauty in the midst of suffering to creating it. He had taken this thing that could have suffocated him with despair and stripped it down until all that was left was hope....

liturgy

Heavenly Father: You know all about us

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 21:4, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Jeremiah 17:14, James 5:15-16, Romans 8:28

Heavenly Father: You know all about us – our weakness, our failing, our sin; And you still love us enough to give your Son to redeem us. Hear the cries of our hearts today. There’s someone for who...

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COVID and Learning to Wait Well

Author

Ashley Hales

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 13:1-2, Isaiah 26:3, Philippians 4:6-7, Hebrews 12:11, Romans 8:24-25

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

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Author

Richard Rohr

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 41:10, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Psalm 147:3, James 1:2-4, Romans 8:28, Isaiah 61:1

If you do not transform your pain, you will surely transmit it.

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Author

Mark Batterson

Keywords

Scripture

John 3:8, Acts 1:8, John 16:7-15, Acts 2:4, 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, Romans 8:14, Ephesians 5:18-19

In my experience, take the Holy Spirit out of the equation of your life and it spells boring. Add it into the equation of your life and you never know where you are going to go, what you are going to ...

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Author

Robert Kellemen

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 8:18, John 16:22, Isaiah 41:10, Psalm 147:3, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

No grieving; no healing. Know grieving; know healing.

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Author

Richard Lovelace

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 5:1, Romans 8:1, Galatians 2:16, Titus 3:5, 1 John 4:15, Isaiah 61:10, Hebrews 10:14

Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God l...

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Healing with Words

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 58:11, Romans 8:28, Psalm 119:105, John 14:6, Isaiah 30:21, Psalm 32:8, Proverbs 3:5-6

Walker Percy wrote six novels in which he made us insiders to the spiritual disease of alienation that he found pervasive in American culture. His name for the condition is “lost in the cosmos.” We do...

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Author

Studdert Kennedy

Keywords

Scripture

James 1:2-4, 1 Corinthians 15:57, Psalm 46:1, Isaiah 40:29-31, Romans 8:37, Psalm 73:26

It is not finished, Lord, There is not one thing done, There is no battle of my life That I have really won. And now I come to tell thee How I fought to fail, My human, all too human, tale Of weakness...

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Healing From the Inside Out

Author

Dave Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:13, Psalm 147:3, James 1:2-4, Romans 8:28, Jeremiah 17:14, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Isaiah 41:10

The bad news was that a friend’s leg was severed in a gruesome automobile accident. The good news was that it was surgically reattached. A few months later she asked if I wanted to see her scar. I swa...

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The Weight of Hell Shifts to the Weight of Glory

Author

Ann Voskamp

Keywords

Scripture

James 1:2-4, Psalm 147:3, John 16:33, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Romans 8:28, Psalm 34:18

In her book The Broken Way, Ann Voskamp shares a beautiful exchange between her and her husband (The farmer). His encouragement is for all of us: that God uses the broken things in this world for good...

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Author

Ursula K. Le Guin

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 21:4, Job 38:4-7, Romans 8:18, Isaiah 55:8-9, Philippians 1:21, Psalm 90:12, Ecclesiastes 3:11

If you see a thing whole—it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives… But up close a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life is a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You ne...

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Life’s Greatest Trap

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:9-10, Romans 8:31-32, Psalm 139:1-4, Ephesians 2:10, John 21:15-19, Ephesians 3:17-19

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation...

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The Two Runners

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:33, Colossians 3:23, Psalm 39:6, Luke 12:15, Acts 15:29, Matthew 5:14-16, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:62, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, James 1:12, Romans 8:16-17, Galatians 2:20

The true story of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, two British sprinters who qualified for the 1924 Olympic Games, illustrates two contrasting approaches to life and identity. Abrahams was driven by ...

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