“Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning.” – Dallas Willard
If you look for an excuse, you will find it every time. I know, because I’m an expert in making excuses!
I find myself thinking about excuses often. Sometimes it comes up in conversation with people walking through real pain. Sometimes it surfaces when a student is feeling every piece of their course load and the demands of life, and they reach out to me for advice. I recognize it in meetings where we talk in circles around issues instead of naming them directly. And as I said, I hear it most clearly when I’m talking to myself, when comfort, people pleasing, or fatigue tempt me to settle for less than what faithfulness requires.
If you look for an excuse, you will find it every time.
Now, let me be clear. I am not arguing that the solution to life is to work yourself to the bone in an unhealthy manner. I am deeply aware of the damage caused by hustle culture. I wrote a dissertation-turned-book on leadership fatigue. I have seen burnout up close in my own life (when I was a Lead Pastor) and in the lives of leaders I love and respect. So, before we talk about hard work, we need to talk honestly about what happens when work becomes unsustainable.
Burnout is not just a buzzword. Researchers and international health authorities describe it as a psychological syndrome that develops in response to prolonged, unmanaged workplace stress and emotional strain, often involving exhaustion, detachment, and a sense of diminished effectiveness. What makes this especially painful is that the very environments we rely on to survive financially are often the same environments that drain us emotionally and spiritually.
This is especially true for people in helping professions. Pastors, healthcare workers, military service members, law enforcement officers, educators, and social workers often carry a burden that goes far beyond task completion. They absorb trauma. They hold stories. They live in proximity to pain. This can lead to what researchers call compassion fatigue, a condition closely related to burnout that develops through sustained exposure to others’ trauma and suffering.
Church leaders are especially vulnerable. Research suggests that clergy are often unaware of their risk for secondary trauma. Many report cognitive and emotional disruption while simultaneously failing to connect their stress directly to their faith or spiritual resources. That alone should give us pause.
Here is the uncomfortable truth. When carried out without support, “over caring” may be just as dangerous as being overworked.
So, what do we do with that tension. If relentless hustle leads to burnout, but disengagement leads to apathy, how do we accomplish anything of significance?
I think the answer is simpler than what we make.
Smart work is still hard work.
For years we have been told to work smarter, not harder. I think that framing creates a false choice. When we treat work as an either or, we tend to swing wildly between extremes. On one end is an unrelenting hustle. On the other is an almost romanticized rejection of effort, that most certainly allows laziness to thrive.
Rest is not the absence of work. And hard work is not the enemy of health.
Rest functions best as a rhythm within work, not a total disengagement from meaningful activity. Burnout is driven less by effort itself and more by lack of control, lack of meaning, and lack of recovery.
What concerns me right now is an overcorrection that assumes warning against burnout automatically justifies laziness, ease, or disengagement. More efficient tools do not eliminate the need for effort. They simply change where that effort is applied.
The reality is that meaningful work usually requires sustained, focused exertion.
Which brings me to something we often forget.
We are tougher than we think we are.
The human body is capable of extraordinary resilience. Pound for pound, the human bone has remarkable compressive strength, and our muscles can generate forces that often surprise us. I have always been fascinated by feats of strength, from vintage strongman competitions to modern athletes lifting weights that seem impossible. What makes those feats impressive is not the absence of struggle, but the willingness to push through all the excuses that get in the way of training and recovery.
Formation rarely happens without some measure of strain.
That does not mean we ignore limits. It means we learn to discern between healthy strain and destructive overload. It means we stop confusing rest with avoidance and hard work with abuse. It means we honor the rhythms God designed for us while refusing to abandon the responsibility He has given us.
Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (ESV, Mt 11:28–30).
Leading in the name of Jesus does not eliminate burdens. He never said it would. What He promises is that their weight will change. The load may still be full (leadership is hard), but it no longer crushes.
Holy rest is not quitting. It is recovering so that we can return to the work renewed rather than resentful.
If you look for an excuse, you will find it every time.
But if you look for the way of Jesus in your work, you just will find the strength you need to keep going.
Dr. Carlo A. Serrano, President