When I live a performance-driven Christian life…
- I build my identity on my performance and my accomplishments…not around the identity God has given me.
- I enslaved to pleasing people…being a people-pleaser and a God-pleaser are inseparable.
- I live with anxiety and fear – that God won’t be pleased with my performance…that He is sitting in judgement of me.
- I never enjoy acceptance for who I am – only for what I do. I have to accomplish something before I can be someone.
- I must always strive for perfectionism – so God will approve of me.
- I have to create my own righteousness – by my performance.
- I see God in a conditional relationship with me – meet the standard or else.
- I feel relationally detached from God – I have not met the friendship standard.
- I obey to protect myself – from God’s disappointment and rejection.
- I always allow my shame to define me – I never live up to God’s standard of approval. I am a disappointment to him…every day.
- I hide my spiritual failures – at least you won’t be disappointed with me. Now I am a fake.
- I live with regret for not doing better and trying harder. Perfection does not allow excuses.
- I will always be exhausted. I can never rest in what Jesus has already done for me.
One of the life-changing lessons I learned from my burnout and depression is the Gospel eliminates performance as the basis of my relationship with God. I love Brennan Manning’s life message that God loves us ju
st as we are…not as we should be. Does this mean I don’t put effort into maturing spiritually? Of course not. But it does mean I can go to bed tonight knowing I am totally loved…totally accepted.
QUESTION: What are your bullet points? What would you add? Share them with us?
ACTION: Check out the “Monday Quotes.” There will be new ones every Monday about laying down the performance-driven Christian life and living in the freedom of the gospel. I won’t send you an email reminder about new quotes because you already get enough email! You might bookmark this site so you can easily check what is waiting for you at the beginning of each week.
Glad you analyzed how you got to burnout. Burn out does come from other issues as well, I think, but all essentially come down to lack of faith in the sufficiency of our Lord. Our spiritual mentors were wise to urge us to practice the daily “quiet time with God” as a serious and vital part of any productive day.
So thankful for your ministry Bill… it is really needed these days and the church truly does need a second Reformation…keep up the good work
Stuart Smith
Bill, do you think one of the first casualties of moving further down the burnout scale is Joy?
Steve – You may well be correct. For me I did not notice the lack of joy, but I noticed what replaced it – and that was fear, dread and a feeling like I couldn’t do the next thing required of me.