The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Throwback Episode: Avoiding Burnout

Episode Date: September 26, 2026

We have another throwback episode as Jeff is working on some new projects! Stay tuned for more details. Burnout is an unfortunate reality for many of us. Jeff Cavins sheds light on what we can do when experiencing burnout and how we can avoid this cycle in the future. The key is found in a relationship with the Lord. By uniting ourselves to the Lord during our most challenging times, He will give us the strength and grace to persevere. Leave your burden at His feet. Snippet from the Show Stop fighting and give this to Jesus. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 397, avoiding burnout. Welcome to the show, my friend. Good to have you with me again. I always enjoy spending time with you every week and think about you throughout the week. and I'm always writing down little things that I want to remember to share with you. And then when I get here behind the microphone to share with you, I just get excited because I consider it a real relationship to be able to talk to you on a weekly basis and to bring to the table and to the conversation whatever I can in terms of my experience or observations. And I know that if we got a chance to sit down and talk to one another, you'd have a lot to share with me as well.

as I learned so much from the people that I'm around and so very blessed by the many relationships that I have. I hope you feel the same and I hope that you have those kinds of relationships where you can get together with people and compare notes and pray with each other and get an idea how others are growing in Christ and get an idea of what people are facing in their life today. Speaking of topics, what people are facing, I'm going to talk to you today about avoiding burnout, which is a topic that many people struggle with. And oftentimes they don't realize that until, well, until they're in the midst of it. And then they come to the conclusion, I'm just burned out. And so we're going to look at the process of that and a solution, at least a working solution at this point. I do have some scriptures to share with you this week.

And if you would like to get a copy of the show notes, all you got to do is text my name, Jeff Kavens. That's one word, Jeff Kavins, and text it to the number 3-3-777. And we'll get you on board with all the notes, not only for today, but all the shows in the future. And if you have some problems getting the notes and maybe you signed up at some point, and all of a sudden they stopped for some reason that I can't explain, then do it again.

sign up again. We'll make sure you get back on the mailing list there. And so let's talk about burnout a little bit this week, shall we? Have you ever had an experience in your life where you could say, you know what? I'm done. I'm burnt out. I can't do anymore. I am worn out and I feel like my brain is mush and I'm not sure how I'm going to go forward. You know, as I look at my life, I can identify several times in my life where I felt that way. And when you feel that way and you find yourself in the middle of burnout, in some ways, it's too late because you could have avoided burnout. But if you're in burnout right now, then you can do something about it and then hopefully

live in a more wise way in the future. But if you're like me, you know, you want to live a wise way, but then all of a sudden things start creeping up on you again and the schedule gets busy and The time in your life is being taken by other people. They demand much of you. And before you know it, there you are again. It's kind of like a cycle, isn't it? In life, kind of like a cycle.

And it can happen to anyone. It can happen in your job. It can happen in your schooling. It can happen in a relationship. And it can even happen in your relationship with God. And so there's a lot of ways that we find ourselves in burnout, but it affects so many different areas of our life. And often if you are burned out at your work,

then it will affect your relationships at home. And it can reflect your relationship with God as well. So I would love to share with you some insights here. And I'm going to use the writings of Isaiah as my starting point to help see how we might get out of burnout in our lives. As we look at the prophet Isaiah, typically the book is divided up into two books. Some would argue three, maybe even four, but for argument's sake, we're going to say that it's divided into two books. And we have chapters 1 through 39, which speak to Judah about impending judgment.

And their reason for that is because of disobedience, not following the ways of God. and they are going to be eventually taken off into exile, into Babylon. And so chapter 39, chapter 39, 1 through 6 kind of sets the stage for Judah to be carried off to Babylon. And then in chapters 40 through 66, those really speak about comfort. So you could look at the book in two ways, or look at the book in two different waves. Chapters 1 through 39 is impending judgment, and then in chapters 40 through 66, comfort. Comfort is coming. And although Judah's fall wouldn't happen until 586 BC, Isaiah began to predict the restoration of a people who had beaten down. And beaten down might be another word for burnout in your situation.

But this comfort and plan of restoration starts in chapter 40. Okay, chapter 40. Listen to the beginning here in chapter 40 in verses 27 through 31 as we look at the beginning of restoration after being beaten down and experiencing judgment because of our behavior, because of Judas' behavior in the biblical drama. Listen to this. Isaiah says, and this is the transition, why do you say, oh, Jacob and speak, oh Israel, my way. way is hid from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Now listen to this. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. So Isaiah the prophet is

acknowledging how people are really out of strength and they're exhausted. And yet he says, but listen, he says, they that wait upon the Lord are going to renew their strength and they shall mount up with wings like eagles and they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint. Now that's the beginning of good news, wouldn't you say? It's the beginning of good news. Now, Romans, Paul writes to the Roman, Romans in chapter 8 and verse 37. And he talks about the fact that we are more than conquerors. And this means that we come out of a battle with more than we went into it. And we are more than conquerors. And if you are facing, you know, burnout in your life, if you're facing a period of

time where you're just plain exhausted, it's important to remember that we in Christ are more than conquerors, and there is a way out of this. Now, we go through the learning process in our lives, but then comes the testing time. And many of us have studied. We go to Bible studies. We go to a conference. We meet with people in our church, and we've been learning a lot. But then comes the testing time in our life. And when we get through it, we absolutely cannot be shaken. We actually become stronger than ever before. But the key is to get through that time. testing time. And what we have learned, we own. It becomes ours and it becomes a pillar in our lives, something that we can depend on for the rest of our life and something that we can share with

other people who are in the midst of being exhausted or burned out. Now, there's really five steps to the process of burnout. And I'll put these in the notes for you. And again, if you want those notes, just text my name, Jeff Kaven's one word to the number 337. Now, there is a process to burnout. Number one, we are challenged with something. We're challenged with something. It could be our family. It could be work.

It could be our health, whatever it might be. And so we typically will give it all we've got. We'll go after that problem. We'll try to tackle it. And we'll try to navigate these new waters that we've never navigated before. So we're challenged with something in our life. And you know in your own life what that might be that you are challenged with. And then the next step, step two is we go through a bit of denial. We go through a bit of denial. In other words, we deny that we are worn out. Someone says,

you know, Jeff, you really are getting to be worn out. You look tired. You look exhausted. You need to take a break. How are you doing? And we typically, and I've been there before myself, typically deny that we're worn out and continue to do what? Well, we continue to go on in our own strength with some spiritual words to make it look, you know, legitimate. And we may feel that it is. Our attempts to refuel ourselves, they just simply don't work. And so during the second phase, we kind of deny that we're going into burnout or that we're exhausted. And it's just, it's just, just a little phase that we're going through. And we don't address it. We don't address the problem that is really facing us. And so after we're challenged with something, and then we go through a bit

of a denial stage, we hit the third point, which is we start to withdraw. We start to withdraw from things. And we kind of hide ourselves behind, like the fortress, behind tall walls. And we start to withdraw. We don't get involved with things like we used to. Maybe you're withdrawing in your marriage, your relationship, you're not talking about things, and perhaps even turning to other things to mask that exhaustion in your life. And sometimes that can be unhealthy. It could be drugs. It could be painkillers, alcohol, pornography, whatever it might be. Some hurtful hobby in your life, or I should say, rather than hurtful hobby, not a healthy hobby. your life, okay? And so you begin to withdraw. And then what happens in stage four oftentimes is

you become bitter. You become bitter, especially towards those who are around you that you might start thinking they're the reason for my burnout. You can even do a little gaslighting, right? And so it might be your spouse. It could be your children. It could be your boss. It could be your small group members. They don't get it. They don't understand. They don't see what you're going through. And you get bitter towards others because they won't tell others that they are spent. You won't tell them you're spent. And they might even notice it in your life and might even hint about it, but you're still in some kind of withdrawal or denial and you get bitter towards them. And I've experienced that in my life. I really have at different times where I might get upset with Emily.

Why? She doesn't seem to get that I'm exhausted or burned out or I've had enough and I need a break. And then there might be a couple more things that are brought up for me to do. And you can snap at that point. Maybe you've been there. Maybe you've experienced that. And since others don't know, they don't seem to know that you have a tendency to do this. Then you get more embittered. They don't know your ways. And then finally, the fifth thing, you walk away. you walk away you quit the bible study you quit your small group discussion with your brothers or your sisters in the lord and you walk away and you can do this by walking away from your responsibilities in your marriage or with your children but the point is you go far away it's kind of like being in exile in the bible where god picks you up and physically moves you to where

you're at spiritually burnout will do that eventually you'll walk away to where you're at and that's far from the Lord, far from your critical relationships, and you find yourself just in an absolutely miserable place. Now, one of the reasons that we suffer burnout is that we have, we typically have a wrong view of the gospel. And I'm speaking here about being burned out when it comes to church work or to your responsibilities as a Christian. And so we suffer burnout because we have the wrong view of the gospel. We view it as a gospel of rules and regulations. Legalism. Listen, my friend, legalism leads to bondage. And as we see the gospel, not as the good news, but as more rules and regulations and regulations and meetings and showing up and this and that and volunteering, pretty

soon you experience that burnout. Now, Jesus came to bring us life and life more abundantly. And I want to talk about that on the other side of the break because I think that there's some things that we can do. I can't solve all the problems in a podcast for my life or yours, but I do have some things that I can share with you that have made a difference in my own life. Okay? You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi, I'm Father Michael Joseph Paris and I am one of the hosts of season three of Catholic classics where we'll read and explain the story of a soul by St. Teresa of Liseu, doctor of the church, an incredible saint who has inspired millions of Catholics. with her life and teachings.

To follow along, get the reading plan at ascensionpress.com slash Catholic Classics. Welcome back talking about avoiding burnout today. You know that Jesus came to bring us life and life more abundantly. And there are two kinds of life spoken of in the New Testament. There is bio, B-I-O, biological life. There is biological life. You, if you're listening right now, you have biological life. And then there's another kind of life that we would call Zoe, Z-O-E.

I'll put this in the show notes for you as well as all the citations. So don't worry about that. But Zoe is a kind of life. And what is it? It's God's kind of life. It's his quality of life. And we can have just plain biological life and experience tremendous burnout. or we can live God's life, and that is a nurturing life.

It is an uplifting life. It's life that affirms and it's fruitful rather than biological life that just keeps hammering away and going at it. And if you do that, without a relationship with the Lord, I can almost guarantee that you are going to experience burnout. Now, listen to this from John's Gospel. I'll put it in the notes for you. It's John Chapter 11, 17 through 12. which says, on his arrival, that's Jesus, on his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem and many Jews

had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them. Why? Well, in the loss of their brother, Lazarus. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to him, but Mary stayed at home. Lord Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask. And Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. And Martha answered, I know he will. I know he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day. I know that.

And Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection in the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never, ever die. And then he asked, do you believe this? Do you believe this? Very important question, right? So when Jesus comes to bring us life and life more abundantly, I think we have a choice.

Are we going to receive that life? Or are we going to just acknowledge it and keep, going a hundred mile an hour in our own direction. And yet we refuse to come to him so often when he's offering his life. Like I think about what Jesus said in Matthew 11, 28, and 29, he said, he said, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden. And I will give you rest. He said, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.

And so Jesus says something there that really addresses this issue of burnout. He says, come to me if you're weary, if you're heavy laden. I'll just say if you're burned out. Come to me. Come to me. You know what happens so often when people are burned out? They head on over to Barnes & Noble. And they're going to look for some kind of book that's going to get them out of it.

You know, maybe they need to organize their life a little differently or whatever. But the problem of burnout is not an external problem. The problem of burnout is an internal problem, and more specifically, it's a problem of relationship. And it's priorities, to be sure. And you've heard me say many times on this show that, you know, we don't talk about priorities. That's a new idea in world history. We talk about priority. What is the priority?

And we have one priority rather than 10 priorities, which we can't keep track of. The priority is to be a disciple and obey the Lord and walk in his goodness in his life. Everything flows from there. Now, in John chapter 10, in verse 10, the scripture says the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And it's important to know that the enemy does have a plan for your life. It's not a good plan. It's not a plan of sheer goodness, as the catechism says in paragraph one. He says, the thief has come to steal and kill and destroy, but I, Jesus says, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

But these are written that you, he says, these are written that you may believe, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. And Jesus said, you know, John's just full of good advice here in John 10, John 20, which I'm going to give you all this in the notes. And then turning to his first letter, 1 John chapter 5 in verse 12, John says, he who has the son has life. He who does not have the son of God does not have life. The very life that was in Jesus when he walked the earth is the same life in us today. The same one. And so John is even filled with more when he says more great advice. He says, I tell you the truth.

This is Jesus. I tell you the truth. The son can do nothing by himself. He can do only what he sees his father doing because whatever the father does, the son also does. Or the father loves the son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement, he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the son gives life to whom he

pleases to give it. You see, the Christian life and the answer to the problems of burnout that we face, the Christian life is not a formula. It's not just a formula that we plug in and go with in which God has saved us and made us holy and we continue to be saved. And that's an important thing to remember is that the answer to burnout is not a formula. It's not more things you have to do. It is a relationship that you must enter into and relax and enjoy that relationship with the Lord and allow him to give you that needed restoration and that peace that new fresh life. Jesus put it like this. I am the vine and you are the branches. Apart from me,

you can do absolutely nothing. You will die. There is a quality of life that runs through us as we relate to him. And typically burnout happens when we decide not to be in the vine and not to and not to receive that nurturing life, that grace that God provides for us. You know that word grace means the life of the Trinity. And when you go off the vine, when you go off the vine as a branch, you're open to all kinds of burnout at that point. You really are. You really are.

And back to Isaiah 40 in verse 27, there is a way to live our lives without getting burned out. there is a way. So what is the solution? Well, I love what it says there in Isaiah that we gain new strength. Gaining new strength means exchange, exchange. And I just love that. And let me read that to you, in fact, here. What I read at the beginning here in Isaiah 40, why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord and my right is disregarded by my God. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint. And to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youths, that's young people. even youths shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. I don't know about you. If that, man, that sounds good to me. It really

sounds good. Those that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength or gain new strength. And it means literally like an exchange. You're going to exchange. You're going to give God your weariness. He's going to give you strength. But you have to wait on them. You don't just confess it. You know, you don't just read a book on it. You have to enter into this by doing what? Waiting on the Lord. That word weight is related to, get this, to braid something like hair. Two or three things become one. To wait on the Lord, to be intertwined with the Lord and strengthened with the Lord. And though one may be overpowered, it says in Ecclesiastes 4 in verse 12, though one may be

overpowered. Two can defend themselves. And a court of three strands is not quickly broken. And so I see the solution to burnout, partly this interwinding with Christ and spending my time with him and allowing him to permeate every aspect of my life. But the only way that you can do it is to wait on him. And the only way you can wait on him is to find the time and the place where you're going to do it.

And I think that one of the best places to go is your church chapel. and maybe you have an adoration chapel in your church that you can go to and just relax. You know, the first few times that you go, you don't need to go with an agenda that you got to work hard at. You know, when you need that kind of respite, you need that kind of refueling, just go and sit before him. You might be tempted to go pick up a book or something else. why not just sit in his presence and say, you know, I feel burned out, Lord. I need to exchange strength. I need the grace.

I need the life of the Trinity. I just need you right now, Lord. You became one with Jesus. You became one with Jesus when you became a new person in baptism. And those who are braided with God will overcome and become strong. His strength is inexhaustible. His source of strength, the Word of God, the Eucharist, adoration. His source of strength is inexhaustible.

And he says that whoever believes in me, Jesus said in John 738, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. that is a fruitful person. That's a renewed and refreshed person. And that's what you need. And there's nothing in life that is more important than being renewed and refreshed by the Lord in light of how exhausted you feel.

You know that if you keep going in that same direction, you're going to totally burn out. And it's going to have a, or play a toll or what they say, it's going to have consequences. you're going to pay for it physically, emotionally, spiritually, unless you stop right now and spend that time with God. And maybe you're listening to this for a very good reason because maybe you're at that point where you feel like, I'm going to be burned out. And listen, if you're burned out, you're not that good for your family, not that, you know,

effective as a father, mother. So ask a question when facing. fatigue and burnout. Ask yourself this question. What do I need to learn from this? What do I need to learn from this? How did I get myself into this situation? And I really believe, with all my heart, the Lord will show you. He'll show you the path you took. He'll show you the times that you ignored him. He'll show you that your time of devotion and reflection was broken up into little bits that it's not like it used to be. So when do we learn the most? Not by reading books or listening to a CD or counsel, but by failing.

We learn by failing oftentimes. Think about it. It drives us to the word to see where we went off the path. It drives us to the Lord in adoration to find out what went wrong. And I know that He will show us and then it's up to us to repent. Repentance is not this evil, dark word. Repentance is, listen, to radically reorient your life to Jesus. That's what you need to do if you're going to be burned out or you feel burned out.

Reorient your life. Stop what you're doing. It's not working. You know, I think about that scripture where we mount up with wings as eagles, right? The Lord causes us to mount up with wings as eagles and we soar on the winds high above all the fray. And the eagle, what does the eagle do? The eagle, this is so beautiful, the eagle locks his wings in the face of a storm and then sails up and above the storm. My friend, it's time for you to lock your wings.

Lock your wings and allow the Holy Spirit to lift you up and refresh you. Don't worry about the deadlines. Don't worry about those things. Your spiritual health and your mental and emotional health is more important than getting that last thing in. So Paul said there is a piece that passes all understanding and it's found in a relationship. Not a formula, as I said. not a conference necessarily.

Maybe a retreat would help, but it's a relationship. That's where you're going to find the answer to burnout. Spend time with the Lord, read his word prayerfully, reflectively, and ask the Lord to speak to you and to nurture you and to feed you right now. Give up. Give up to the Lord. Stop fighting and give this to Jesus. Maybe there's a reason that you, uh, maybe there's.

there's a reason that you're listening today that the Lord is stopping you. And maybe on the way home today you might want to stop at a parish and spend a little time waiting on the Lord, get your Bible, read, ask God to speak to you, and then avoid the pattern that got you where you're at. You know, as they say, be smart, man. Be smart. Don't do it again. So let me pray for you, okay? I love you. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Jesus, I love you so much. And I thank you, Lord, from my friend who's with me right now and I lift them up to you and I ask you to touch their heart. Lord, show them where they have gone off the rails. Show them the areas where they're not trusting in you but taking all the responsibility upon

themselves. Lord, thank you for renewing us as we lock our wings in the face of this beautiful breeze coming our way and we can sail up and above. the storms of life. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. Love you, my friend. I really do. And I pray that God will get you out of this burnout that you might be facing. Talk to you next week.