SuffeRing — Week 3

Using Tolkien's The Hobbit —Bilbo's "there and back again" and the longing to find rest—this message in the Suffering series confronts burnout directly: physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion with lowered motivation and negative attitudes. Anchored in Proverbs 4:20-23, watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life , the teaching frames transition as a messy neutral zone between an ending and a beginning, and names three church reflexes—don't talk, don't feel, don't trust—that isolate the struggling. Moses, David, Paul, and Naomi show burnout among the faithful. Elijah's broom tree—a nap and a snack, met by God rather than punished—models how rest, not shame, restores us to purpose.