SIGNAL CHURCH CAPE TOWN
Terran Williams: Fuelled:- Emotional Replenishment
Hello everyone, so lovely to be with you guys. My two oldest children are away at the Signal Teen Camp. The first time we've had a teen camp in Betty's Bay at the moment, so that's been lovely to see them finding each other and connecting more with God. And then also about 30 of our people I reckon are at, of course, in Nati's inauguration, that's the wrong word, ordination at his new church, wellspring this morning. So we think of that church. So I am speaking about how to replenish yourself emotionally, I didn't know whether I should call it that, or how to avoid burnout, or how to recover from burnout. And something like three quarters of adults have been burnt out at some point, and something like a quarter of adults now, in the last decade, say that right now they are burnt out or they're pretty near to burnout. So it's a massive thing. And somebody who has been burnt out on at least two occasions, I can tell you, it's the worst, worst thing, because your capacity for serving others diminishes at the exact time that your capacity for misery expands. And usually we preach on Jesus, and we actually in the middle of a series on the church, the church that Jesus is building. But we wanted to take the Sunday to just speak to a very important subject in our city, and in your life, no doubt, but also to just do a little bit of an advert for the subject that we actually going to be working through in our nightclubs, starting in the 21st of August. So everybody who's part of the nightclub will get one in these booklets called Field. And it's a six week journey into a biblical journey into a holistic personal renewal, physical renewal, mental renewal, spiritual renewal, and emotional renewal. And what I've done this morning, just so you know, I wrote the book by the way, is I've pulled out a little bits under the section on emotional renewal. So I hope that not only will you be mentally helped, but that you'll be so enticed, you're like, dang, this church, trick me, and I've got to be part of a nightclub to find out more, because then I'll be stoked. It didn't trick you, you know what I mean? Ticed you to something awesome and good. So let me just get right into an emotional renewal. So three rules, firstly, the rule of inflow art flow, the rule of inflow art flow. You've got to think of ourselves as a tank. Well, actually, four tanks, emotional tank, mental tank, spiritual tank, and the other tank, physical tank, which we want to miss. Stephen Cove in his book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People asserts that the seventh habit involves taking responsibility for your personal renewal, and he identifies four primary areas of self-renewal, physical renewal, mental renewal, emotional renewal, and spiritual renewal. It so happens that the Bible has so much to say on those four subjects that it'd be good for us to know what it is. But here's the idea of inflow art flow. Think of yourself as a water tank if you will. Something flows out of you, something flows into you. And I want to speak about that. It'll be my main metaphor today. Something's flowing into you, something could flow out of you. Jesus said, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink." That's inflow, right? And whoever believes in me as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. That's outflow, but notice Jesus says inflow first, outflow next. And you didn't have to go to matric with science to realize that if your art flow exceeds your inflow, then the shortfall will be your downfall. If your art flow exceeds your inflow, the shortfall will be your downfall. It's so easy to say, and yet it's the thing that almost all of us miss. Yeah? Second rule is the rule of sustaining your service. The rule of sustaining your service. Our culture is besotted with self-care. It's actually pretty tragic because you get individuals that go in life as self-care. So please hear, no, no, that's the lame thing to do with your one own only life. You hear to make an impact. You hear to serve. Jesus says, "Love your neighbours, you love yourself." Our culture just teaches us how to love ourselves. I don't want to, but at the same time, I don't want to say anything bad about self-care because you try, serve others. For a long time without self-care, you're going to have problems. Acts 20, verse 28 says, "Speaking to pastors of churches, interestingly, watch over yourselves and the flock under your care. If you just care for other people and you forget to care for yourself, that's a mistake too." So I'm not saying me first. It's not a case of me first, but I think it is a case of me too. At the same time that we're trying to pour out our lives to others, we've got to be, it's got to be self-care built into our lives. So self-care is not selfish, although my goodness, our culture has turned it into selfishness. But if you've got a life of service, you sustain that serve through self-care. And if you are just at the edge of burnout and you can't think of good reason why to stage a radical intervention in your life, then let me just say this. You've still got decades left of serving other people. Please look after yourself. If not for yourself, for the sake of all those people. And then thirdly, the rule of self-leadership. The rule of self-leadership. I've listened to so many talks over the decades on leadership. And by far the most helpful thing I ever learned about leadership is that the hardest person to lead is yourself. The hardest person to lead is yourself. And yet if you don't learn how to lead yourself, you pay for it. And it's this area of emotional renewal and the other renewals that really is a place where we need to grow in self-leadership. Proverbs 27, verse 12, wisdom will lead a man or woman to anticipate danger and to take action. And I want to recommend to you self-intervention. Self-intervention. So maybe you are a coach, maybe you're a counselor, or you just care about people in your life, or you yourself are trying to figure out how do I avoid burnout and how do I recover from burnout. I'm going to give you 10 questions that come from decades of pain in my life that I think are a good outline of some of the most important things you can do to replenish yourself and help other people replenish themselves. So 10 questions. Number one, how do I tell when my emotional tank is full? So in this tank picture, you got an emotional tank. First thing is self-awareness. Do you even know what it feels like to have a full emotional tank? Well, if you can't think of anything, let me just say this, when our emotional tank is full, I'm quoting from the book, we are more buoyant, we're non-anxious, we're more creative, more loving, more playful. We make wiser decisions, have more to offer others, live out our values more authentically, produce our best work, and derive great enjoyment from life's journey. So if you've got those things all happening in your life, they probably indicate as your emotional tank is quite full. So the second question of self-awareness is how do I tell when my emotional tank is depleted? So let's say you could measure your emotional tank out of 10. I propose that you should actually be able to, right now, say I'm at a six, come at a two. I'm at a nine, I'm at a four. And thinking through the indicators is how you actually can do that. So how do I tell when my emotional tank is depleted? In the book, we give a major focus to the person Elijah in the Old Testament, because this guy in 1 Kings 17 and 18 looks something like a superhero. He is invincible. He is unstoppable. He is supernaturally empowered. He confronts the most powerful tyrant king. He is a one man powerhouse. And then what a shock. Suddenly in 1 Kings 19, he gets one threat. The queen of this evil man says, I'm going to kill you. Listen, it's the straw that breaks the camel's back. You didn't know it was, you thought he was doing fine. Well, behind the scenes, something's not right. But listen to this. 1 Kings 19, 3 to 4. Elijah was afraid and ran for his life when he came to Bathsheba in Judah. He left his servant there while he himself went a days journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. I've had enough Lord. He said, take my life. I'm no better than my ancestors. There's a guy who's properly burnt out. He's properly burnt out. And I wonder how you can see the signs of burnout in your life. Like Elijah, when we're depleted, we become irrational and able to be objective about what's happening in our world. Like him, we may feel hopeless, sure that things will only get worse. The peace and joy that once mocked our lives is nowhere to be found. Feelings of worthlessness and defeat cause us to withdraw from people closest to us. Better towards life, God, others or even ourselves. We sign ourselves out of any further service to God and others. That's extreme burnout. But what are the signs that your emotional tank is running a bit low? Well, the lower our emotional tank, the more irritable we are, the more anxious we are, the more isolated we feel, the more overwhelmed we get, the more dissatisfied, discouraged, withdrawn, exhausted, insecure or numb we tend to feel. Let me keep on going. We may experience an upsurge of tears out of the blue. Lacking perspective, we lose our tempers at the slightest offence. We shorten testy with the people we live and work with. Lacking buoyancy and enthusiasm, we are driven along by toxic instincts like anger, jealousy, resentment or the fear of failure. When our tanks are running low, we're less present to the people we love. We're far less to give them. Sensual temptations that we can usually easily overcome seem to take on a new power. Tasks and situations which we normally handle suddenly overwhelm us. Even work that once energised us feels now more like a burden. As our can-do confidence or self-starting mechanism falters, our work life may deteriorate too. Alternatively, our work life may go into overdrive. We work even harder as a means to cover up the emptiness inside. This spirals us into the deadly cycle of work harder, feel emptier, work even harder, feel even emptier, work even harder and crash. Feeling so low, the quality of our relationships and our physical health suffers, especially our sleep quality. Many then self-medicate, rely on addictive escape methods and our culture feeds them up, consuming food, alcohol, porn, drugs, vegetatively becoming glued to our screens, binge-watching series, succumbing to the endless scroll on our social media feeds. Yet these remedies make us feel even more vacuous in the long run. That was quite an extreme description. But what are the signs that your emotional tank is dipping dangerously low? These first two questions are questions of self-awareness. The next one is how do I process heavy emotions more healthily? How do I process negative emotions more healthily? Because when you're burning out, either the thing that calls you to burn out or the burn out itself tends to come into your life as strong, negative emotions. Usually you're able to cope with your emotions, but now these emotions are overwhelming. So what is your approach to dealing with these heavy emotions? And maybe your therapist can really help you on those points if you go to therapy or some wise can't sleep in your life. But the question is like, what are you feeling? Just naming your feelings if you've ever known. There's a saying what you name your tame. It's like if you're anxious and it's like a ten out of ten feeling, when you just simply say, "I'm so anxious, it drops to a seven," just like that. It doesn't go away completely. I'm so scared. I'm so angry. I mean, at least Elijah's doing that right. He's naming his feelings and he's naming them to God. You can also ask what brought these feelings on. You can also ask, "Who can I ask for help?" Whether through counseling therapy or support groups, there are resources available to assist us on our journey. It does us no good to pretend our intense feelings are not real. Some of us put on a facade of happiness telling people, "I'm fine, thanks. When we're actually coming I'm done on the inside." There's no need to go to alone. We can do all things through Christ. Yes, but this includes asking others for help. Jesus, give me strength and courage and power to ask others for help. On this point, we note that Elijah was suicidal. In this room, there are some of us that have suicidal temptations and thoughts. A study reveals that a trifecta of three crippling thoughts tend to converge in the suicidal mind. Yes, they are. I am alone. I am a burden and things will never get better. I am alone. I am a burden and things will never get better. Yet these thoughts are mostly a misinterpretation of reality. By reaching out to others, someone can help us find the care we need, the agency we have and the hope that is around the corner. Fourth question, here we go. What are the causes of depletion? Where's all of this emotional energy going? In the book, we go into that in detail because we actually track down in 1 Kings 17 and 18 things are happening in Elijah's life that are each depleting him. It's not just one thing, it's many things. When I look back at burnout, the first thing is, oh no, you worked too hard and it's true, overwork too long can burn you out. I think the number one reason for burnout is unresolved conflict in our lives. There's no situation at work or in your family or in relationships and it's a bit broken and you're trying to fix it but the more you're trying to fix it, the more broken it gets. It carries on for weeks, months, sometimes years and you just keep on trying to be brave but you've got a leak in your tank. It's going the whole time. You see some of that in Elijah's life. He's in this, he's a necessary conflict but it just carries on for a long time. But I wondered if you were to think about things that could be draining you. It's good to just write them down. For Elijah, by the way, it was an emotional rollercoaster of ups and downs. It's ups that can weigh you down, not just downs, the intense battle of wills, the adrenaline coursing through these veins and the seismic spiritual warfare. It may be these or other things for you. So let me ask you, is it heavy responsibilities? Is it wealth, health worries? Is it financial stress? Is it relational concern? Is it an unsustainable pace or too many back-to-back intensive outputs? Is it a season of adrenalized, effort and success? Perhaps it's your inability to influence decisions others are making that affect your schedule assignments or workload. Maybe it's a challenging stage of family life. You've got young kids or teenagers or an aging parent has moved in. It could be emotionally draining people in your life that are wearing your art. You're two of the people in your family are burnt out and are they burning your art because goodness. It could be a shattered dream, a devastating accident, the end of an intimate relationship, the loss of a loved one. Whatever it is, do not feel bad about your ability to be drained. I love this verse in James 5 or 17. Elijah was a man like us, not alone. You're not God. You cannot survive unlimited pressure and outflow. It's better to keep your eye on your emotional gauge and be alert to what is draining you. Run through the things that are taxing you emotionally. Then the fifth question is what drainers can I reduce or stop up? I know this is so much to take in. I'll try to keep moving. What drainers can I reduce or stop up? I don't know if you've listed the things. You can draw a tank on a paper and then you draw a little tap and you're right next to the tap. The things that are draining you, the artflows, but now that you've listed them, what drainers can I reduce or stop up? Identify these undesired artflows that you can partially limit or completely seal. In most cases, you do have some control whether it's saying no to excessive demands, whether it's addressing your tendency to derive self-worth from achievement or the desperate need for others' approval. Do you need to end a draining relationship? Do you need to change an unhealthy work environment? Do you need to swallow your pride and seek help from others or delegate responsibilities? Do you need to organise a meeting with a troublesome friend, colleague, boss or relative to express concerns? Do you need to make suggestions for improvement, establish boundaries and clarify expectations? So long list, but my point is a lot of these artflows, you can do something about them. You can stop them up, you can reduce those artflows. And number six, who are the people who replenish me? Who are the people who replenish me? So now we're thinking about inflows. Because here's what you'll notice, artflows happen whether you like it or not. Life is an artflow. Inflows, when you're young, they're in the system, they just come to you. But as you get older, you have to intentionally create the inflows in your life. And the first way you can get inflows going is asking the question, who are the people who replenish me? I love this verse. You read it to you. "Your love has given me great joy and encouragement because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord's people. So let me ask you to think about who the people are in your life. And when you spend time with them, you walk away and there has been an inflow into your emotional tank." It's amazing, especially if you're in a position of leadership or you care for others, you gravitate to the people who need you, but you forget to spend time with the people just being with them, good friends, maybe mentors, inspiring people. It's watching one of the infinite Netflix series yesterday around athletic performance, now that the Olympics is happening. And this guy was, he said this thing, he said, "When I'm not training, he says, 'I spend time with my wife. She's my battery.'" Who are your battery people? When you're with them, you're something is happening, something is happening. Two Friday nights ago, Julian went to Luke and Jen's house and Luke's parents were there, Dave and Colleen Pederson. They hit up Vineyard in South Africa. And when Julian and I left, we felt so emotionally, we just felt great. It's like, those are the kind of people. Just want people that, battery people, to hear your people. And you might need to just be courageous and try and move towards them. Well, here's the thing, you get super inspiring humans that are oversubscribed to, they just, you know, but still you can find a way to get to them, get to them. And then number seven, what are the places that rejuvenate me? Not just people. Have you noticed that there are places that rejuvenate you? What's your element? Cape Town, we are spoiled for places. I mean, my heart goes out to these big cities where, as far as I can see, they are buildings. I don't know how those people rejuvenate. I think they're, when our rates must be huge, but what are the places you go to? I suppose maybe coffee shops and book shops for a lot of people will be at. And I'll tell you about myself that you wanted to hear, but I'm going to tell you because I got the mic. And often my wife would say, "Oh, let's go for a walk in the forest." And I'm like, "Okay, look in the forest." And now I've walked around, I feel claustrophobic, these trees that people are whistling. By the end of it, I feel a little more exhausted than I did before. But the sea. But the sea. And then I've got my special places. Yesterday, it was northwest wind, but it was mild. So I could surf in Musenberg, or I could surf in Sea Point, a bit more onshore in Sea Point. And I just thought of Musenberg, it's nice, but sea points. Yeah? And that's surfing at that spot. What's your element? The places you could just go to, more often than you do, just, and they refill you. And then, number eight, what are the activities that energize me? What are the activities that energize me? Is it swimming, cooking, camping, reading, hiking, gardening, biking, going to the gym, eating out with friends, spending time alone? Think especially about how you use your evenings. Watching TV series may take your mind off work and worries, but they also tie your brain, making you a little more tired for the next day. Whereas an evening in which you talk over a meal, listen to music, play Scrabble, or read a book and get to bed early will energize you more for the next day. Let's not forget things like prayer or worship that lift you up in your deepest call. These phones are amazing at connecting me to news in the world and to each other. I sustain hundreds of conversations every week because of this thing. My goodness, if it's in your life the whole time, it's such a drainer on your mind's freshness. I just wonder how we could come home? I've got a friend. I've got a new system. Come home, put it in a drawer where it gets recharged, put phones in there. Next morning we go to work, take it out. I say that like a new people. I've got another half of their life where they are present to the people and just off their devices. And then, number nine, how can my work align more with my gifts and interests? How can my work align more with my gifts and interests? A lot of us are looking for work and we pray to God that He will provide employment for you. Many of us are doing work that is far from our deal, but it's the only job we can get and we thank God for that. And if you have any leverage at all in the actual job that you do, probably you should go for work that aligns with your strengths and gifts and is stuff that interests you. I love King Solomon writes that it's good and proper for us to find satisfaction, replenishment in our labour. Ecclesiastes 2, verse 24. So let me say it again, as far as possible, take steps in your job selection and working life so that mostly you spend your nine to five or whatever you're working outside doing work that you enjoy, that really matters to you and primarily utilises the strengths and the gifts that you have. So let me pull all of it together. How do I tell when my emotional tank is full? How do I tell when my emotional tank is depleted? I'll put this on Facebook, by the way, if you want to jump on to get this list. What are the causes of depletion? How do I process heavy emotions more healthily? What trainers can I reduce or stop up? Who are the people who replenish me? What are the places that rejuvenate me? What are the activities that energise me and how can my work align more with my gifts and interests? That's a good self-intervention. You go with those questions it takes a bit of time and you will avoid burnout. You'll recover better from burnout. You'll replenish yourself emotionally. But there is a tenth question. What do I do with the trainers beyond my control? I mean, there are so many trainers, be they things, people or situations that cannot be eliminated or even restricted. In fact, Paul, who writes some of the New Testament, had constant drains in his life. He once asked God, "Please take it away from me!" And God said to him, "Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." God allows us to have vulnerabilities and outflows in our lives so that we rely on him. I'm not proposing that you have full capacity to live 10 out of 10 because life is happening and because God is at work through the difficulties in our lives. I love this passage. Isaiah 41 verse 10, "Do not fear for I am with you. Do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Ray and Lee had quite a challenging situation in the lost, I don't know how many months now, eight, seven or eight months, a drainer to your life that you have no control over. And I remember praying and God giving me that passage for you guys. And in the WhatsApp to them I said, "Notice the phrases, I am, I am, I will, I will." When we focus on our deficiencies and weaknesses in the face of life's challenges, it breeds fear. But when we trust God in these circumstances, it allows his strength to prevail. Elijah was a man just like us. You know, you can be inspired and helped by that guy. And a lot happens in his life that he gets replenished, which I can't do in this talk, but we'll go through in nightclubs. But Jesus was a man like us, but without sin. I love this verse, "Since the children have flesh and blood, Jesus too shared in the humanity, he had to be made like them, fully human in every way. Because he himself suffered when he was tested, he is able to help those who are being tested or tempted. Jesus is able to minister to your brokenness because he knows what it is to be human." And he says these beautiful words, "Come to me, all of you who are tired and weary, and I will give you rest." Sorry. "Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." And we want to spend the last few minutes together standing up and coming to Jesus who can give us rest. Can I have the band on the stage? What I'm proposing now is as helpful, hopefully as my message has been, things that you can work on. Now would be a really good time to fish some supernatural help. Can you sense Jesus speaking to you? Can I ask you to stand? Seeing these words, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." We actually have 15 minutes together, people, 10, 15 minutes together. So I know you've got a big day ahead of you and a big life, but I'm sure you would like some supernatural help. And let's open ourselves up. We're going to sing a song and then we're just going to make space to just receive the direct ministry of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus keeps His promise to us. [music]
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