Handling Emotional Burnout Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• Do you ever get to the point where you ready to just check out, things are hitting you from every direction, and you are at your wits end.

• Life runs at a fast pace these days and it is easy to get overly stressed or emotionally burned out.

• The American Psychological Society performed a study in 2007; mind you this is before the economy hit the skids.

• Three quarters of Americans experience symptoms related to stress in a given month

• One-third of Americans feel they are living with extreme stress.

• About half of Americans (48%) feel that their stress has increased over the past five years. I BET IT IS AS BIT HIGHER NOW!

• One in four people report that they have been alienated from a friend or family member because of stress.

• Emotional burn out or extreme stress is not healthy for us.

• Another study suggests that Workers who report that they are stressed incur health care costs that are 46 percent higher, or an average of $600 more per person, than other employees. Source: Steven L. Sauter, chief of the Organizational Science and Human Factors Branch of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

• Over the past few weeks we have been examining the dark emotions of life that we all face and have to come to grips with at one time or another in our life.

• Today we conclude our series by looking at the dark emotion of Emotional Burnout.

• This emotion can help render us dead to the world around us. Burnout can manifest itself in a loss of motivation, an increasingly cynical and negative outlook, along with decreased satisfaction and sense of accomplishment.

• It can lead us to withdrawing from responsibilities, isolating ourselves from those we love, among other things.

• Today we will look to Psalm 40:1-3 for help and encouragement in dealing with emotional burnout.

• SLIDE #2

• Let us being in verse 1

• Psalm 40:1 (ESV) I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry.

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

We can get a better handle on emotional burnout if we understand that...

I. God hears your cries for help.

• This Psalm was peened by King David most likely during the time of his son Absalom’s rebellion.

• This was a very trying time for David and he was emotionally burned out. Even when he was delivered from the hand of his son, David was hurt, and burned out. As a matter of fact his after Absalom was killed, David wept bitterly, and Joab the Commander and Chief of David’s army had to confront him.

• SLIDE #4

• 2 Samuel 19:4–7 (ESV) 4 The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, “O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!” 5 Then Joab came into the house to the king and said, “You have today covered with shame the faces of all your servants, who have this day saved your life and the lives of your sons and your daughters and the lives of your wives and your concubines, 6 because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you, for today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased. 7 Now therefore arise, go out and speak kindly to your servants, for I swear by the LORD, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now.”

• David was a mess. We all face times when it is hard to carry on. The stresses of life can be very hard to overcome.

• When we face emotional burnout, one of the things we tend to do is isolate ourselves. We think we are alone, we feel that no one cares.

• David was facing one of the darkest moments of his life.

• I think this was worse than what Saul was doing to him because this was coming from his son whom David loved dearly.

• One of the things that David learned throughout his life was that he could count on God. God did not remove him or shield him from problems, but God was there to help him through it.

• SO David tells us in verse 1 that he waited PATIENTLY for the Lord. When we are hurting we can cry out to the Lord because He hears us. The struggle we have many times is that we do not think God is listening to us because we are not seeing the action and outcome we want in a given situation.