Spiritual Burnout

It’s more common than you might think. You read a ‘few compelling’ articles online and you’re convinced you must become Orthodox. Next thing you know, you purchased a few dozen icons, three fasting cookbooks, and were baptized. Fast forward to today, and you lost your passion.

Your pray but can’t remain focused. You keep forgetting to fast if you haven’t already stopped trying. Attending Church no longer is a priority for you. You miss ‘those days’ but can’t seem to get back to where you were.

If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. Whatever you do, don’t panic. It’s never too late to rediscover your passion for ‘the one true faith’ we call Orthodoxy. But, before we go back to where we were, we must figure out why we burned out in the first place.

The idea of burnout is something every HR department understands, and many therapists have built their fortune on helping people rebuild their lives from burnout to success. While professional burnout might be a bit different, spiritual burnout can be just as crippling.

Spiritual burnout isn’t unique to ‘converts’ either. Whether we are born Orthodox or come later in life, the struggle that comes from reading about the saints’ rise to holiness is enough to call each of us to the edge of reality. We are all susceptible to spiritual burnout.

What I refer to as ‘over-reading’ is often at the core of spiritual burnout. With the advent of Orthodox blogs and inexpensive publishing, we have easy access to unlimited Orthodox content previously inaccessible to most believers in the past, even most saints. Yes, I get the irony.

We read so much, we forget to live at our level, instead of the level of the saints that inspired us. It is easy to forget that the holy elders weren’t always living in that monastery. I remind people, “If you’re not living in a monastery, stop trying to live like a monastic.” It just won’t work.

When it comes to reading, I expect my spiritual children, first and foremost, to read the Scriptures. Believe it or not, you don’t have to read about every elder to be a ‘good’ Orthodox Christian. Those same holy elders spent their time in prayer and reading the Scriptures.

It isn’t just reading too much that causes spiritual burnout. Prayer, fasting, even almsgiving and church attendance can be ‘taken to an extreme’ and cause burnout. If I can make a completely unrelated comparison to purchasing a new car, “You can’t go from 0 to 100 overnight.”

If you are new to Orthodoxy or have never really taken it seriously, then you know what I mean. You can’t be ‘super Orthodox’ in one day. The saints didn’t do it, and neither can you. Even the Church didn’t do it overnight. It takes time.

The life of the Church has evolved over two thousand years. We don’t fast like we used to. We don’t worship like we used to. We don’t do just about anything like we used to. Were ‘they’ not real Christians because they didn’t fast two hundred days a year while doing 1000 prostrations?

So, take a step back and sit with your spiritual father. If you don’t have a spiritual father, get one. All the elders you read about, that ‘convinced you to be Orthodox’ had relationships with spiritual fathers or other holy people. None of us are ‘free agents’ to choose our own life.

If you don’t believe me, take a moment and visit your neighborhood fitness center. Try to make the rounds through the gym ‘working out’ without advice from a trainer. It won’t take long before you either hurt yourself or stop experiencing progress. You WILL burn out if you go alone.

Now that we understand how we ‘got here’, there’s hope to get our passion back. Let’s start with the Holy Scriptures, and the Parable of the Sower found in Luke 8. Pay special attention to verse 14 about the rocks.

A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?” And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience

Luke 8.5-15

Spiritual burnout happened because our roots weren’t deep enough to support the spiritual struggles that came. When we were ‘new’ to the faith we shot up. If we don’t give our spiritual roots time to develop, and run deep, we will burn out. Can we recover? YES!

Believe it or not, it is easier to recover from spiritual burnout than other forms of burnout. A good spiritual father will help you take inventory of what went wrong and help you get back on track. Then, move slowly, to avoid sliding back into being ‘super’ Orthodox. Trust me.

With the guidance of your spiritual father, you can learn repentance, the kind of repentance that leads to living A New Life In Christ, which is our motto at Be Transfigured Ministries. That new life will be Godly focused without forgetting the Parable of the Sower.

Maybe you were the path or the weeds in the parable. That’s ok. The solution is the same. Work the soil of your soul, and the Seed of Christ will take root and mature. It takes time. If you try to rush it, you will burn out again, until you finally learn to repent. I’m rooting for your roots.