Life beyond burnout: how Christians can grow in the desert seasons.
(Photo: Getty/iStock)In her latest book, What Grows in Weary Lands, author and Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren explores spiritual exhaustion, resilience and the quiet work of faith in the difficult seasons of life.
She draws from personal experience and ancient Christian wisdom - specifically that of mystics and monks - to examine the realities of modern burnout and how periods of weariness and doubt can become places for deep faith and hope to grow.
Christian Today spoke with Tish to hear about how Christian resilience differs from the modern cultural idea of grit, what the Church can do to address spiritual weariness, and how Christians can weave their identity in Christ into all areas of their lives.
The subtitle of your book focuses on Christian resilience. How is Christian resilience different from cultural ideas of grit or self-sufficiency?
Grit gets us part of the way toward understanding resilience. There is something valuable in our culture’s emphasis on perseverance, on sticking with things, practising patience, and developing discipline. But Christian resilience is different from sheer willpower or stoicism.
The key difference is why and how we endure. Cultural grit often focuses on personal strength, pushing through because we have no other choice, or because we want to prove something about ourselves. Christian resilience, by contrast, is rooted in hope. We persevere not simply to survive, but because we know that God is at work and will ultimately set things right.
A helpful example is the prodigal son’s older brother. He stayed, he was dutiful, he endured, but his heart was distant. He was resentful and joyless. That isn’t Christian resilience.
Christian resilience means remaining not out of resignation, but out of trust. The desert fathers and mothers spoke about “staying in the cell” not as an act of grit alone, but as a place of encounter with God. In staying, we are formed. We believe God is present and working in us.
So resilience is not an end in itself. It’s not about gritting our teeth through life. It’s about sustaining a relationship with God through every season.
As someone who writes about faith, how do you personally guard against burnout?
I don’t try to eliminate weariness entirely, because I think it’s an inevitable part of the life of faith, and often a place where we encounter God.
Part of what I’m trying to reframe is the idea that weariness, doubt, or disorientation are purely negative. These can actually be places of growth if we lean into them rather than avoid them.
That said, I do try to be intentional about renewal. Silence is important for me, especially because I work with words so much. I practise silent prayer to create space to be filled again.
I also try to keep the Sabbath, one day a week without work, shopping, or screens. It’s not perfect, and it’s not a quick fix. Even with years of practising the Sabbath, I’ve still experienced deep weariness. Life stages, like raising children or caring for ageing parents, can make true rest difficult.
Another thing I’m increasingly aware of is the importance of community. Much of our culture’s burnout comes not just from busyness, but from isolation. So one of the ways I’m trying to guard against burnout is by inviting others more deeply into my life.
What role should the Church play in addressing collective weariness today?
I think the Church needs to distinguish between different kinds of weariness.
Some weariness comes from overwork, constant striving, or disordered priorities, chasing success, productivity, or control. In those cases, the Church should name those patterns and call people back to rest, limits, and a healthier vision of life shaped by delight and beauty.
But there is also a kind of weariness that is simply part of being human, and part of spiritual growth. Seasons of dryness, difficulty, or fatigue are not failures. They are normal.
So the Church’s role is both pastoral and prophetic. Pastorally, it should help people discern whether their weariness is a sign of imbalance or a natural part of growth. Prophetically, it should challenge a culture that resists limits and idolises productivity.
At the same time, the Church shouldn’t treat all weariness as a problem to fix. Like sadness, it is part of life. Doing good in the world is often hard, and that effort can make us weary. The goal is not to avoid weariness entirely, but to respond to it with patience, trust, and faith.
How can we take the peace, joy, and identity we have in Christ into our other roles, such as workers, parents, friends?
I think it starts with being the same person everywhere. Not one person at church and another at work or at home, but someone rooted in Christ wherever they are.
That means bringing our faith into the real moments of life, not treating it as something abstract. It’s easy to say we have hope in Jesus in a general sense, but do we have hope when we’re failing at work, struggling in relationships, or feeling like we’ve let our children down?
Christian hope has to be lived in those specific moments. It has to be embodied in our daily lives.
But this also works in the other direction. Being “one person” means bringing our real selves into church. If we’re struggling with doubt or weariness, we should be honest about that. Church isn’t a place to pretend we’re fine; it’s a place to come as we are, in need of God.
You write that culture and the Church tends to ‘lack stories of a long, steady continuation in faith.’ Why do you think that is?
I write in the book about Thomas Aquinas's idea of "arduous goods" - the idea that many of the best things, the "goods" in our life, are difficult and add friction to our days. I don't think, in Hollywood or in global capitalism - in the West in general - we have much of an understanding of arduous goods. We are told to seek our happiness and follow our bliss. But a life of merely doing that ends up a life without meaning.
What do you hope readers will take from this book?
Firstly, I hope weary and discouraged readers find encouragement. I also hope to introduce the idea of stability. In an unstable world, the Christian life involves remaining committed to God, to people, to place, and to the practices of faith, even when we don’t feel like it.
I want readers to engage with the wisdom of the ancient church, the desert fathers and mothers and other early voices, because they offer a deeper and sometimes unfamiliar perspective on faith.
But most of all, I hope readers experience grace. We often live as though the spiritual life depends entirely on us, our effort, our discipline, our strength. But when we reach the end of ourselves, we begin to see God’s sufficiency more clearly.
So I hope readers learn to rest, not in passivity, but in trust. That their efforts become participation in what God is already doing, rather than an attempt to control or perfect their own lives.
CT.
