“It does seem to me that at least some of us have made an idol of exhaustion,” writes Barbara Brown Taylor. “The only time we know we have done enough is when we are running on empty and when the ones we love most are the ones we see the least.” When I broke my foot and landed myself on the couch for three months—stuck in a place I didn’t want to be in, confronting a mess of a life of my own devising—I had to confess that I had made an idol of exhaustion, and I had to admit that the model of Christianity I followed had done the same.
Somewhere along the way, “sold out for Jesus” had become “worn out for Jesus.” We in the church had begun to equate busyness with our worth; we measured and judged our lives, our families, and our marriages by how many extracurricular activities we were all participating in. We measured our obedience to and love of God by how many small groups, ministry teams, mission trips, retreats, service projects, and church sports leagues we joined. Even the things we started as recreation became work. Our frenetic pace as we tried to do it all made our play exhausting and our worship drudgery. We have made an idol out of exhaustion in the name of Jesus, Amen—a modern Christian martyrdom rising up to help us to justify our newest golden calf.
Jerusalem Jackson Greer is an author and lay minister; she lives with her family in Arkansas. Devotional text taken from At Home in This Life: Finding Peace at the Crossroads of Unraveled Dreams & Beautiful Surprises, copyright © 2017 by Jerusalem Jackson Greer. Used by permission of Paraclete Press; www.paracletepress.com. Learn more via this video or by downloading a free chapter.
