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Leadership & Life
Beating Burn-Out (Part 3) - Fix Your Broken Windows
Mal Fletcher
According to the Bible, Christians can, through the power God gives, engage their enemy in the battle of the mind (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). We can head off burnout before it occurs, or, if we've been through a burnout, make a quicker recovery by God's grace.
Thus far, we've seen that burnout can be beaten by developing a personal culture of success, and by becoming a process-thinker, rather than an event junkie. Now we turn our attention to another helpful key.
Fix your Broken Windows
Trying to reduce high crime rates in cities like New York in 90s, psychologists and sociologists came to realise that people were more likely to commit crimes if they lived in run-down surroundings. If walls were filled with graffiti, windows in public buildings were left broken and so on, it suggested to people that the fabric of the social system was failing. It left them feeling undervalued. So, city officials began to clean up the walls, to repair the broken windows. They found that the level of petty crime began to fall.
God's promises are windows into his preferred future for your life. They point you toward a better outcome.
Sometimes, though, those windows can be broken. We allow the pain of broken commitments, failed deadlines or poor performance to become the normal décor of our day.
We let people who complain or who are bitter and defeatist become a part of our surroundings. We look at life through their broken windows and it drags down our sense of value.
In 1 Kings 19:7-8, God called Elijah, who was in the midst of his own burnout experience, to return to Mt. Horeb, or Mt, Sinai. For Israel, this was not simply a place of law, it was a place of promise. The law had been only to keep people walking in God's promises.
Elijah needed to fix his broken windows. He had lost sight of the promises God had made to his people in the shadow of Mt. Sinai. God was calling Elijah back to those promises.
God never issues a call without attaching a promise. This is something we see again and again in the Bible. God always reveals in advance the good things that will happen for us when we obey the call (cf. Gen 6:18; 12:1-4; Judges 13:4-5; 1 Samuel 2:34-35).
God knows that a call without a promise is a frustration waiting to happen!
So he issues promises that are personal, so that we act not on command alone but on personal promises.
I love to get postcards. Postcards are like windows that open into a better place. They're portraits of a better world. When we're in the middle of winter, they sweep us off to exotic locations filled with warm summer rays. When the rain's falling outside our front door, they carry us far away, to someplace sunnier.
When we're missing friends, postcards tell us that we're not forgotten. When we're feeling a little alone, a little overlooked, they encourage us. The most encouraging of all postcards are the ones that carry a caption; those four magic words, 'Wish you were here...'
God's promises to you are postcards - they're portraits of your future, how your world will look as you follow God's call. Underneath the picture there's a caption written in God's own hand: 'I wish you were here.'
What has God personally promised you regarding your church, family, business, career or ministry? What has he told you through the revelation of the scriptures, or through prophecy, or through the encouragement of Christian friends?
You must take out those promises, which point you toward a better future. You must record them, recite them, pray on them and act as if they are going to happen, making room for them in your life.
If you are willing to fix the broken windows in your environment, you can become a burnout beater.
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