Why do I keep burning out even though I have faith?

Twenty-odd years ago my spiritual mother told me, burnout is the sure sign of a lack of reliance upon God. I can't tell you how many times as a priest I've felt burnt out, asking, how do I get more of that reliance on God? And just this last week, talking it through with somebody, a light bulb went off: lack of reliance on God can also mean you're just doing too much.

Sometimes we actually need to pump the brakes, because our life is out of balance. We put so much of a burden on ourselves, struggling to control life, the narrative, the way we want things to go, and the byproduct is we lose all our peace and become exhausted. Bishop Emilianos has a beautiful line: when we're doing something on our own strength beyond the strength God has given us, it's just ego.

When I read that, I was floored. This doesn't mean we don't work hard. But if we're losing our peace because things are not clicking in the time and way we want, we need to ask, is this my will or God's will? Do we really have faith that God's providential hand, as a good father, is invisibly guiding our life? I'm habitually guilty of trying to get everything done yesterday, and living like that without a normal rhythm is overwhelming.

Even Christ often retreated to quiet places to pray, and Blessed Theophylact's commentary says he did this so we would emulate him. When life stacks up, that is not the time to doom scroll. That is the time to retreat to a quiet place and pray, to do what is in front of us to the best of our abilities, and to put everything we cannot control into the great providence of our heavenly Father.