What does the Bible say about burnout?

At this time we hear of the apostles gathering to the Lord Jesus, reporting to Him everything they had done and what they had taught. He does not then incite them to further afforts, but leads them apart into a deserted area in order to rest for a time. They (and we) need the quietness of the Lord's presence away from the crowd in order to have strength renewed for any further testimony for Him (cf.Isaiah 40:31). We may be too influenced by "many coming and going" to take time to eat our necessary spiritual food. Yet this private communion with the Lord Himself is indispensable: without it we shall collapse.

Let us never forget that a period of rest in the presence of the Lord, apart from men, is necessary after a period of busy service. The disciples of John came from their sad service heavy-hearted and distressed. The twelve came from triumphant encounters with the power of demons and disease, probably flushed with success. Both needed the quiet of the presence of the Lord, which avails equally to lift up the drooping heart and check undue elation of spirit.

Elijah fell asleep. Well he might, for surely he was badly over-wrought. After some time (not too soon, we may be sure) an angel touched him, saying, "Arise and eat." Looking around, he saw a cake baken on hot stones and a cruse of water; having refreshed himself, he slept again. Here we have a truly wonderful manifestation of the kindness of God. An angel sent from heaven to provide a meal for a faulty servant who had forsaken an important post of duty, and who was now completely outside the path of God's leading!

Elijah leaves the land and wanders alone into the wilderness, seeking isolation apart from his fellow men. What a journey! trusting in none, attended by none. What living death, when a man feels only safe when entirely separated from his kind! Our blessed Lord could not "commit Himself to man," because He knew what was in man; but Elijah shunned the company of men in fear and bitterness of soul, and sought his death at the hand of God. Blessed God! thy compassion fails not; thou wilt save the afflicted soul. "He remembereth our frame." The first relief which his weary spirit has is in unconsciousness: "he lay and slept under the juniper-tree." And there the angel touched him and said, "Arise and eat." "And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again." This was a deeper and a closer token of God's interest and care for him than the supply of the ravens or the widow's barrel. 'The cake baken on the coals and the cruise of water at his head, intimate to him how God provides for him; but the presence of the angel to point out and urge him to partake of them, displays the Lord's own personal interest in him. Solitary as he was, he was not left alone or unattended. An angel is sent as his companion and servant; and a second time he touches him, after watching him doubtless as he slept, and with increasing solicitude for him, says, "Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for thee." Whither was that journey to be? To Horeb, the Mount of God.

God is not unaffected by this condition. He has His eye upon His servant, and will care for him. One of the lessons of the way is to get hold of how God can stoop, and delights to stoop, to arrange the little things for His servants. Alas! how distrust of the One whom we serve - distrust of the interests of His heart in us and in His people - thrusts its way oftentimes before the soul. Who would have thought of the blessed God preparing a cake, baking it, filling the cruse, and then sending His angel to that poor, weary, depressed servant of His, to tell him of what He had ready for him! Such is the heart of Him whom we serve. And Elijah eats and sleeps, and again is aroused by the angelic watcher to eat yet again. (How God lingers near us, so to speak.) "And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee."

Turning now to the other side, it is beautiful to see the Lord's tender care over His servant in his despondency, and the way in which He dealt with him to prepare him for further service. Elijah had now but one desire, and that was to die. With darkness within and without, he moaned out his request, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers." Not yet will the Lord reply to the prophet's prayer; but rather, in His infinite tenderness and compassion, He will minister to the needs of His poor servant to enable him to receive His correction and instruction. An angelic messenger came where Elijah was sleeping for very sorrow, "under a juniper tree," and "touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat." In like manner the Lord Jesus, when about to probe the heart of Peter, said to him, and to the other disciples with him, "Come and dine." He would give him a proof of His tender love before He laid bare the cause of his failure. So here; and when Elijah, after haying eaten and drunk, laid him down again, the angel of the Lord came the second time, and touched him, and said, "Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee." The prophet, obedient to the heavenly voice, arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

But what does the Lord do? Elijah goes to sleep presently, and while he is sleeping he is touched by an angel, who says: "Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again" (1 Kings 19:5-6). A minister from God is at his side. Not now is he tended by a raven or a widow, but by God's own loving hand. This weary man, who thinks nobody cares for him, looks up and sees this much-needed refreshment. Who put that there? God Himself Ah, beloved friends, God does not give His servants up, blessed be His name. When I fail it is quite possible that my brethren may give me up. My Master will not. The Lord does not fling His servants off as the devil does his slaves. When the devil has got all the work out of you that he can get, he will leave you to die like a dog in the field. But it is not so with the Lord.

Well, Elijah goes to sleep a second time, and the angel comes again and says: "Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God" (1 Kings 19:7-8). There he learns some marvellous lessons. God's food sustains him these forty days and nights, and then God teaches him that He has been at work in a way that His servant knew nothing of. God had a great regard for Elijah spite of his failure. There is a remarkable prediction regarding him in the last chapter of the Old Testament "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse" (Mal. 4:5-6). No doubt in a day yet to come God will give him a wonderful place in connection with the restoration of that Israel upon the earth whom he had failed to restore. The Lord has not given him up.

"He himself went … into the wilderness." What a blessing when the Lord leads us there so that we may there experience those infinite resources which are in Him; how humiliating but how beneficial too, when our own will has brought us there, that we be there to learn what is in our hearts! Such was Elijah's situation. — "And he lay down and slept under the broom-bush." He was giving up his mission, so to speak, just as its reality had been proven by brilliant exploits. But it was necessary for him to learn that his inner life was not being sustained by faith as his outward testimony had been.

"And behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, Arise, eat!" (v. 5). In 1 Kings 17 it had been he, Elijah, who had dispensed food to others after having been fed himself; here where his lack of faith had driven him, he had no food at all. But God does not abandon him: He thinks of him. The only strength available to him comes from food which God has prepared for him; at his head he finds a cake baked on hot stones and a cruse of water. He eats, but does not understand what God wants of him, and goes to sleep again. A second time he finds the same food and the angel says to him, "Arise, eat; for the journey is too great for thee" (v. 7). God fed him in order that he might walk. An important lesson for us! The Lord had fed him at Cherith and at Zarephath so that he might render a powerful testimony, but if divine food does not impart strength to us for ourselves, will God's purpose be attained?

But while attempting to trace the path of God's patience in all these moral processes with man, there are also to be noticed the instances of faith in connection with His dealings. Elijah's faith is marked by great power, but not less marked is, in one instance, the absence of it. Ahab grieves over his dead priests, Jezebel swears by her gods to do the same to Elijah. His faith falters on hearing of this and he flees. After the glory of the scene upon mount Carmel, he did not expect to have to flee for his life, and to hide himself from a woman's fury. A murmuring feeling rises, and he asks God to take his life, saying, "I am not better than my fathers." This is not humility, but saying that he ought to have been better treated; since he was not, better to die: he had had enough of trial. "It is enough, now, O Jehovah, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers." A saint in intimate and peaceful communion with God never says, "It is enough," but, following in the steps of the Perfect One, says, Thy will, not mine, be done. But a merciful God meets him, and satisfies his hunger. Food, miraculously provided, and in the strength of that meat miraculously sustained forty days and forty nights. We think of One who had no meat miraculously given, but endured for forty days and forty nights; not that He would not be subject to the feeling of hunger, He was a perfect Man, and was willingly subject to its need. "Afterwards he hungered." But He was the mighty God — Elijah a weak servant. This goodness of God to a wearied and persecuted servant does not set aside discipline, and at last the solemn question is put, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" God strengthened him to go to Horeb, but did not send him there. He had run to Jezreel in the power of the Spirit, and no sooner there than he ran away, but not in the power of the Spirit. He left his post: hence the solemn question, What doest thou here? God, who had sent down the fire, and consumed the sacrifice, altar, water — who had strengthened his arm against all the idolatrous prophets — was not He able to curb the fury of an enraged woman? Elijah's faith, which was equal to the great occasion on mount Cannel, was not equal to the quiet, patient dependence upon God for his life. The passive power of faith needs for its sustenance closer communion with God than its active energy. Action, as it were, nerves us to the conflict; but quiet endurance of wrong, or snaring of any kind, which neither friend nor foe sees, but only God, this indeed needs divine power, and without God's support none would bear the strain. Many a saint has shown the courage of faith before his enemies, as Elijah when he faced Ahab, but who, like him, quails and flees, when there is nothing to do, but quietly trust in God.

Yet the Lord can graciously meet his poor servant even asleep under a juniper tree. "He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust," and therefore, instead of granting the petulant request of His harassed and disappointed servant, He rather seeks to feed and strengthen him for further exertion. This is not "the manner of man," but it is, blessed forever be His name, the manner of God, whose ways and thoughts are not as ours. Man would often deal roughly and harshly with his fellow, making no allowance for him, but acting towards him in haste and severity. Not so God. He ever deals in the deepest pity and tenderness. He understood Elijah, and He remembered the stand he had recently made for His name and truth, and therefore He would minister to him in the season of his depression.

"And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said to him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God." (1 Kings 19:5, 8)