Running on Empty - Finding Rest When You’re Worn Out

How the Gospel Frees Us from the Idolatry of Busyness and the Exhaustion of Self-Made Identity

It’s late July 2025, and many of us are tired.

Summer often promises rest but instead delivers a strange kind of weariness. Even when we manage a vacation or clear some space on our calendars, our souls often return more exhausted than when we began. In a culture that never powers down, true rest doesn’t come easily. Our bodies may slow, but our hearts remain hurried. We lie down at night not just physically tired, but internally depleted.

This fatigue isn't just a personal issue - it's a symptom of our time. We live in a society that idolizes busyness and wears burnout like a badge of honor. Ask someone how they’re doing, and you’ll likely hear, “Busy,” as if productivity equals worth. We’re told to hustle, achieve, and build our identities from the ground up. We become our own makers, our own validators.

As Tim Keller once said, "In the ancient world, identity was conferred - by family, tribe, religion. But in the modern world, identity is achieved. We must construct it ourselves, prove it through success and performance. And that’s exhausting."

No wonder we’re tired.

Even our rest becomes performative. You finish the work week, but your mind is still buzzing with unfinished tasks and future deadlines. Even leisure becomes one more thing to manage. And when we do pause, the guilt creeps in: "Am I doing enough? Accomplishing enough?"

Just like our God, our inner critic neither slumbers nor sleeps. Life's ultimate question then becomes which of these two voices we will listen to, and which will we dismiss?

One example comes from journalist Judith Shulevitz, who grew up in a religious home. In an article for the New York Times, she recounted how she once rebelled against the Sabbath. Yet over time, she realized something crucial:

“I had a religious Jewish upbringing, but I rebelled against Sabbath. As time went on, I found that... rest was fundamental to our human condition.”

She came to see that Sabbath wasn’t about legalism - it was about recovery. It helped her discover a different pace of life, where identity wasn’t tied to output and rest became an act of resistance against a culture of overwork. It wasn’t a quick fix, but a slow, freeing reorientation of heart and habit. Sabbath, she came to see, was where her place in the world as a human being created in the image of God (versus a human-doing who devalues rest) was most fully honored.

As Anne Lamott famously said, "Almost everything will work again if you unplug it, including you."

---

This publication is free to all and sustained through reader support. If you wish to support Scott Sauls Weekly and receive bonus content:

---

Even Jesus rested. He took time away from the crowds to be alone with the Father (Luke 5:15-16). And if Jesus, fully God and fully man, needed that rhythm, how much more do we?

God built rest into the fabric of creation. He didn’t need a Sabbath, but we do. And He gave it to us not as a rule to follow, but a gift to receive. Sabbath reminds us that we are more than what we do. It’s not weakness or laziness to stop, to be still, and to contemplate truth, beauty, and the meaning of it all - it’s what we call faith.

One arresting image of rest comes from the wilderness story in Exodus. God provided manna each day for the Israelites - just enough. On the sixth day, He gave a double portion so they wouldn’t gather on the seventh. It was God’s way of teaching them dependence. He was saying, "I will provide. You can rest."

And still today He says, "I will provide. You can rest."

Psalm 127 echoes this: "It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil - for he gives to his beloved sleep."

You are His beloved.

In his tender and piercing way, Henri Nouwen once wrote:

"When we lose a quiet center, we lose our way. We begin to cling to results and performance. But solitude with God helps unmask the illusion that we are what we do, and calls us back to the truth: we are not what we conquer, but what is given to us."

That's a quote worth keeping. It reminds us that our worth isn’t up for grabs every Monday morning. It’s already settled by grace and the finished work of Christ and his life, death, burial, and resurrection.

This is how the gospel plays out: that we are not human doings, but human beings - beloved and accepted in Christ just as much when we aren't producing as He does when we are. He will love us as much when we are old, retired, and frail as He does in our more "productive" years (Luke 10:38-42). Jesus didn’t come to give us more to do; He came to give us more to become, which includes becoming the types of people who work hard, serve faithfully, play whimsically, and rest deeply.

He completed the ultimate work - our redemption - so that we could stop striving and say to Jesus, "I believe You. I trust You more than I trust my own hustle." It's a radical kind of trust. It’s countercultural. But it’s also something we all need deeply, because it's woven into the very fabric of being human. As we practice pausing - as we "make every effort to enter [His] rest" - we make space for joy, clarity, and peace to return to us (Hebrews 4:11).

Late summer is the perfect time to reset. Before the demands and schedules of fall kick in, we have an opportunity to remember who and Whose we are. Maybe that means turning your phone off in the evening, or carving out a weekly Sabbath. Maybe it’s letting yourself nap without shame or embarrassment. More than any of that, it’s about re-centering your heart in the truth:

You are loved, not because of what you do, but because of who God is, and of who and Whose you are in Christ. "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength" (Isaiah 30:15).

Let that be your strength this season. Jesus won't scold you for being tired. But He also wants your cooperation to help Him do something about it.

How Can I Encourage You?

For speaking inquiries, leadership coaching, or team enrichment, visit scottsauls.com.