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Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.
Mark 1:35
It’s not uncommon for some of us to run out of gas at some point in our leadership too.
Most of us remember when we have run out of gas while driving to an appointment or on vacation. If you ever ran out of gas and had to wait or even go for help, you know it was not a fun experience. It is painfully inconvenient!
It caused me to realize the similarities between running out of gas and running out of energy or passion in leading others. Many of the exact causes are shared by both. Below are nine reasons we run out of gas physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
- We don’t begin with a full tank.The way we start our day sets our day. If we don’t begin our day with a full tank, we’ll run on empty as the day goes on. That’s why we must start each day by spending time with the Lord to fill up emotionally and spiritually.
- We’re too busy to pause and refuel.Without regular periods of refueling spiritually, emotionally, and relationally, we’ll run out of gas. The problem is we often get busy and think we don’t have time to refuel. But the truth is, we don’t have time not to refuel. We need to plan buffers in our lives, or we’ll never have time for them.
- We aren’t aware of the hidden leaks that are draining us. I’ve found two big categories of leaks in our lives—relationships, and responsibilities. Often, we don’t realize that we might have relationships that sap our creativity, energy, and strength. We also overload ourselves with more responsibilities than we can possibly fulfill. Both of those leaks will deplete our energy without us realizing it.
- We ignore the owner’s manual and push ourselves further than we were created to go.A car’s owner’s manual will tell you how far it’s designed to go on a tank of gas. Unfortunately, most of us never take the manual out of the glove compartment. The same is valid with our “emotional tanks.” If we ignore what the Bible says about how we’re made, we’ll run out of gas regularly. For example, the Bible tells us to take a day of rest every seven days. When we ignore this command, our bodies pay the price.
- We’re in a hurry. If you drive 80 miles per hour, you’ll run out of gas much faster than if you drive 40 miles per hour. Hurry wears you out. We must constantly check the speed of our lives and make changes to create necessary margins.
- We’re distracted and not watching our gauges.Some newer cars have a digital gauge to remind us how far we have left and even a sensor to alert us to our tank is near empty. We have gauges in our lives that show us when we’re headed toward disaster. Sleep is one such gauge. If you’re not getting enough sleep, you’re in danger. You ignore that danger warning at your own risk.
If you think about it, you’ll come up with gauges that tell you when you’re approaching danger, too. - The more we carry, the sooner we’ll run out of gas. We’re often exhausted because we have too much on our plate. It’s easy to add one more task to our to-do list without considering how it will impact our energy levels. It’s harder to deal with the fallout that inevitably happens when our tank gets depleted because we keep “adding one more thing” to our lives. We try to put a gallon-size tank of responsibilities into a quart-size tank of capabilities.
- We feel pressure to do it now. Any time you try to do something too quickly, it will drain your energy. You can’t constantly “push the pedal to the metal” without facing the consequences. Rapid acceleration wastes gas when you’re driving. It wastes your energy in life as well.
- We think the limits of our tank don’t apply to us.Some of us think we’re superheroes. We believe God’s instructions on building margin into our lives don’t apply to us. That kind of arrogance will deplete energy. None of us are immune from the consequences of overloading our lives.
You may recall the events in the life of Jesus where He was extremely busy during the day and into the late evening. Yet to show us an example of what to do when we are near burnout, here is what He did the next morning…
Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.
Mark 1:35
Let’s go and do likewise…often!
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