Burnout can sneak in even when your heart is fully surrendered to God. This was a surprise to me. I used to think that burnout meant I was doing things all wrong, but it turns out you can be doing a lot of things right and still need to recalibrate. This year, I learned firsthand how to discern God’s will without burning out. I was doing good, God-given work: pouring myself into ministry and writing. But somewhere along the way, I started building in my own strength. I was building it in a way that then required me to sustain it all. I was chasing momentum instead of joining the momentum God was already creating, and eventually, when additional stressors caught me off guard, I ran out of energy to keep it all going.
This post is the story of what happened next—how God met me in that burnout, how He taught me to listen differently, and how I learned that when we let the Spirit drive the work, it doesn’t drain us. It energizes us, and He sustains us.
Discern God’s Will without it Becoming a Weight You Can’t Carry
At the start of this year, I was doing all the right things…or so I thought. I prayed, planned, worked hard, and gave everything I had to accomplish the vision God had placed in my heart. But my pace for discerning and accomplishing God’s will wasn’t fully aligned with His pace, and my surrendered “yes” had sneakily turned into striving. The joy I used to feel was replaced with exhaustion. I started to dread the very things I once loved. I started to lose the spark I once had in my eyes. I noticed myself avoiding, escaping from, and procrastinating the tasks that had once energized me. And I knew something had to change.
So I stopped. I wasn’t the girl who just pushed through anymore. I knew that “unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1). After being on this post-burnout healing journey for all these years, my worth was less tied to my production. I knew that pushing past my limits came at a cost I wasn’t willing to pay, and a cost Jesus never required of me. So, I pulled back from everything I could possibly say no to (yes, even blogging) for three months to rest, recover, and seek the Lord. I laid down my deadlines, my strategies, my striving—and I waited. Instead of resuming my work as soon as I felt rested again, I asked God to show me when and how He wanted me to resume. And then I waited for His signal.
As I sought God’s will, He graciously revealed that I had been trying to build and sustain something myself rather than trusting Him to breathe life into it. And He was right. This pace and this pressure I had so naturally put on myself weren’t sustainable.
The Green Light: Discerning God’s Will in Real Time
After those months of rest, I felt a quiet peace from the Lord. So, when He finally gave me the green light to move forward again, something had shifted. The very first blog post I wrote after that felt completely different. It wasn’t draining; it was energizing. I could feel His presence in it. What I had been doing was trying to “conjure up” inspiration within myself to create. But this time, the inspiration flowed from the Holy Spirit, and the creative process was a true collaboration between me and the Lord. This time, I didn’t feel like I was hustling to make something happen or striving to discern God’s will for me. I knew things were about to be different.
It made me feel more alive than I’d felt in months. It was such a tangible reminder that when God is leading, He also supplies the strength to keep going.
That moment shifted my prayer life.
Now, instead of asking God to bless my plans, I pray:
“Lord, show me where You’re already building momentum so I can join You—and let Your Spirit be the one to sustain it.”
And sure enough, He’s been opening doors I could never have opened on my own.
My Mario Kart Moment: Learning to Join God’s Momentum
I’m not much of a gamer, but one image keeps coming to mind: in Mario Kart, as you drive your little racecar on the track, you’ll see glowing arrows on the road called boost pads. When you steer over them, your kart suddenly accelerates. You’re doing the same thing, with the same exact fervor, and going the same exact direction—but you’re propelled by something outside of yourself.
That’s what it feels like when we partner with the Holy Spirit to discern God’s will and align with it. Our role isn’t to create momentum, it’s to notice where He’s already moving. We get to look for the glimmers—those moments that glow with His fingerprints—and then steer toward them. The more in tune with Him you are in prayer, the more you can sense it. There’s almost a “shimmer” to it, like that glow on the Mario Kart track. You can sense His presence in it—you can discern the Holy Spirit guiding you and opening doors along your path.
When we see those moments, our job is to steer toward them, to join what the Spirit is already doing, and suddenly we find ourselves being carried forward with ease. It’s almost like the momentum boost a surfer gets when they find that perfect peak of the wave to ride. Same water, same surfboard, same surfer…but a whole different pace, filled with momentum, carried forward with a power that’s not your own.
Soaring Instead of Striving
Isaiah writes, “Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles.” (Isaiah 40:31)
I used to wonder what that meant until one summer after college, when I was lying in the grass at a camp in northern Wisconsin. As I felt the prickly blades of grass brush my fingers, I looked up and saw birds soaring overhead. I observed them for a moment, noticing that they weren’t flapping or straining—they were resting on the wind. They were carried atop a gust of invisible air.
That’s what it looks like to discern God’s will and walk in it. There’s effort, yes, but not striving. There’s movement, yes, but it’s powered by grace. It reminds me of a lyric by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project: “In the fields of the Lord, our work is rest.”
When we join the momentum God’s Spirit is already creating, our work stops being exhausting—it becomes energizing. Because now we’re drawing from His limitless strength, not our limited reserves.
The Freedom of Surrender in an Every-Man-For-Himself World
Often, our culture thinks of surrender as weakness. Surrender makes you vulnerable. Surrender means you’ve lost. Surrender allows powerful (and sometimes evil) people to mistreat, abuse, or altogether trample you. Surrender is never a good thing.
But what if it’s a surrender to a loving God who delights in you completely, designed you for wholehearted rest, and is working for your good in all things? What if surrender through a relationship with a loving God is actually what we were designed for? What if that kind of surrender can transform our lives, revolutionize our work, and unlock a level of joy and peace we didn’t know was possible?
We resist surrender because we’re scared of being powerless and trampled by motives that aren’t for our good. But maybe the surrender that Christ has been calling us into all along allows us to let our guard down and actually enjoy the freedom a loving surrender can bring. Maybe it’s worth committing to a “30-day trial” where you actually fully commit to live in that type of surrender and see what happens. It might be worth the leap.
When God Sustains the Work, Burnout Loses Its Grip
This is the heart of learning how to discern God’s will without burning out:
You bring your skills, ideas, passion, and your full self to the table.
You tell Him what you want, you tell Him about your dreams, you brainstorm with Him.
And then you trust Him. You wait for Him. You listen to discern God’s will.
Sometimes, He says no to free you up to say yes to something better. Sometimes, He adjusts your vision so that it’s better set up for success. Sometimes, He flings the door wide open with a knowing smile and says, “why not?” And whatever His response, you know that it’s the best possible option because He’s running numbers behind the scenes that you could never fathom, and is working things out in better ways than you could ask or imagine.
So, you surrender with faithful anticipation. You let Him determine the pace, the timing, and the wind beneath your wings.
Discerning God’s will stops being a harrowing search and starts being a treasure hunt.
And when you do that, you’re no longer confined by the limits of your own time, energy, or money. You don’t have to get stuck in an anxious scarcity mindset, hoarding your limited resources and scrounging pennies or free time for a rainy day. Instead, you’re tapping into the Kingdom’s treasury. As a child of God, you have access to the throneroom, not just the back alley. You’re on a royal budget now. And if you run out, you just approach the King (your Father who loves to give good gifts to His kids) and ask for what you need with humility and confidence. And when you realize that you’re part of His Kingdom now, suddenly, things that once felt impossible start to unfold naturally.
Because when the Spirit builds the momentum, all we have to do is steer toward it—and everything changes.
Discern God’s Will by Looking for the Momentum
If you’re weary from trying to discern God’s will or feeling like ministry has become something you have to sustain yourself, I get it.
I think these moments are a natural part of being human. We have God-given limits, and we live in a super-human culture…so it’s only natural to get off kilter every once in a while.
Is it time to recalibrate? Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
Do the things that once brought me joy feel exhausting?
Have I stopped feeling like myself because I’m too exhausted?
Do I feel like I can’t take a break because if I do something will fall through the cracks?
If the answer to any of these is yes, it’s time to take a breath. Pull back. Start saying no and clearing margin. And then ask Him to show you where He’s already moving—and steer toward that.
The Kingdom of God isn’t powered by hustle; and it’s not built on unceasing grit. It’s powered by His Spirit, and where His Spirit is, there is freedom. When we align with that Spirit, we don’t burn out. We SOAR!
If this encouraged you, take my free Spiritual Burnout Quiz to help you identify where you might be running on your own strength—and discover practical ways to realign with God’s gentle, sustainable rhythm. Stop surviving—it’s time to soar instead.
