No pain, no gain (or “No gain without pain”) is an exercise mantra made famous in the early 1980’s by Jane Fonda who used the motto to promote her personal fitness videos. It is an expression that has found its way into many circles including the church; sitting right up alongside classics like “I’d rather burnout than rust out.” It was as a reaction to that kind of unhelpful advice that caused me to teach about spiritual burnout as a thing to be avoided.

In the past eight years since my approach has changed radically. I have come to realize that actually the truth is that death (that is death to self-effort) is in fact the very thing that triggers life in Christ and for many it is burnout that is a major cause of death-to-self. Having come out on the other side of a burnout, I have come to see that burnout proved to be my friend and no longer my foe.
Real freedom is not accessible to the strong or even the weak for to claim that one is weak is to admit that one has a modicum of strength. It is for the “dead”! For many, this death to self-effort comes in the form of burnout which Freudenberger defined as “a person being in a state of fatigue or disillusionment brought about by a dedication to a way of life which failed to bring the expected reward.” There will be those who wonder whether the burnout phase is inevitable. I would dearly like to believe that it is not inevitable but I am yet to have any evidence to encourage such a view. Ultimately, everybody must have their own personal moment(s) of “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” [Rom. 7:24]. Everybody must first exhaust their own resources before such moment(s) can be experienced;