Last week, on one of the early mornings, I had to drop off my son to his school as usual. When I was on my way, my wife called and told me that she heard a loud noise in the garage after I left. She then checked and found that one of the safety springs for the garage door snapped. So, the garage door is now stuck. Hearing this news, I thank God for His protection not letting the garage door slammed on me, when I was backing out my car.

Apparently, material failure caused the spring to snap after repeated usage. Initial reaction I had was “How can this be? I thought I just changed it not long ago. Well, what can I say?” The premature failure does reveal two possible causes. One could be due to over-usage and the other could be “poor” product quality, due to manufacturing process variation. As the other side of the safety spring is still good for the time being, I have to assume the cause is because of poor quality.

The phenomenon of premature failure is a behavior that most manufacturing companies trying to prevent, as it would damage companies’ reputation and consequently revenue streams. In viewing our journey of faith, do we have the phenomenon of premature failure too? I think so. It is called “burn-out”. In a sense, the Christian’s burn-out would also damage God’s reputation and hinder the spread of His gospel too.

How do you know that you are at a stage of burning out? When you feel that you are out of energy in serving God and you like to complain more and more, you are at the edge of “burning out”. Theoretically, every Christian would encounter this phenomenon, regardless of his/her serving post. However, it may be more obvious on those who are heavily involved in ministry serving than those who are not. A notable example is Moses, who led millions of Israelites wandering around the wilderness for 40 years. As it is recorded in the book of Numbers, Moses had to put up with numerous complaints and slanders from the Israelites – the cry babies. In one of the incidents, we find that those cry babies complained about manna food they ate (Numbers 11:4-34) – they want to have similar food as they were in Egypt, instead. As a result, God became exceedingly angry, and Moses also was displeased. So Moses responded to God with several questions: “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors? 「你為何苦待僕人，我為何不在你眼前蒙恩，竟把這管理百姓的重任加在我身上呢？ 這百姓豈是我懷的胎，豈是我生下來的呢？你竟對我說把他們抱在懷裡，如養育之父抱吃奶的孩子，直抱到你起誓應許給他們祖宗的地去。(Numbers 11:11-12)”. At the end of his questions, Moses complained that he cannot carry all these people by himself. He thinks the burden is too heavy for him. Have you noticed the phenomenon of “burn-out” on Moses? I think he is giving up and wants to quit!

My dear brothers and sisters, are you at a stage that you want to give up or quit? Are you feeling that you are all alone doing God’s work? Then, be alert! You may be at the edge of burn-out. Please don’t underestimate the power of destruction of burn-out. Let’s not forget that we have to remain in Him constantly because this is the only way to avoid the phenomenon of burning out!

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Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.