Running on Empty

(The following article by Jesse Florea appeared in the May 2012 issue of Stand Firm, a men’s booklet published by LifeWay.)

Running the race of life makes you tired. It’s natural. Juggling a job, a family, your spiritual life, and other responsibilities takes a lot of effort.

“It’s not wrong to get tired because you’ve been running,” pastor Wayne Cordeiro says. “But it is wrong when you have to run while being tired because you can’t stop.”

Wayne knows a little something about running. He’s completed four full marathons and numerous half marathons and 10K races.

Professionally, Wayne has also kept a brisk pace. In 1984, he founded New Hope Christian Fellowship in Hawaii. Since that time, the church has seen more than 73,000 first-time decisions for Christ and weekly attendance of more than 14,500 people. Wayne has planted nearly 110 churches in Pacific Rim countries, written 10 books, and become one of the most sought-after conference speakers in the country. And two years ago, he took over as president and chancellor of his alma mater Eugene Bible College (Ore.), which has been renamed New Hope Christian College.

For nearly 30 years, Wayne’s drive for excellence propelled him. He preached most weekends in Hawaii, did counseling during the week, and made frequent trips to the mainland to speak at churches and conferences.

It was during one of those trips that Wayne found himself sitting on a curb in California and weeping uncontrollably. He’d gone out for a quick run before a speaking engagement in 2005 and ended up breaking down on the side of the road.

Somehow he made it through his talk and back home to Oahu. But things continued to decline. He experienced an erratic heartbeat, difficulty breathing, and insomnia.

Wayne saw a doctor, who did tests and found his heart was fine. He talked with a Christian psychologist who said, “Wayne, you’ve got to take a break. You need more frequent rest stops along your journey.”

But Wayne couldn’t stop. Who will pastor the church? he thought. Who will take care of this or that?

“I couldn’t stop running, so I kept running while I was tired,” Wayne says. “That is the gravest error and the greatest cause for burnout.”

Wayne finally hit bottom. Easy decisions paralyzed him. E-mails stacked up. He was burned out and needed to escape. He thought about retiring—chucking it all. But with the help of family and friends, he started a three-year journey of readjusting his lifestyle and goals. The insights he learned became part of his book Leading on Empty.

ENERGY CONSERVATION

One of Wayne’s first revelations related to energy. As he looked at his day, he realized that he had about five or six “pockets” of energy. These are times when he could creatively focus on a situation with his mind fully engaged. A meeting could require a pocket of energy. An important phone call might take another.

“As men we have the tendency to expend all of our energy at work or on activities,” Wayne says. “When we come home, we’re pretty much spent. We haven’t kept a pocket of energy for our family.”

After suffering through burnout and depression, Wayne realized he couldn’t use all of his energy at work. It’s a temptation that all men have to overcome, because it feels good to be a superstar in the workplace.

“You can advance yourself and make a bigger mark by giving more energy to your work,” Wayne admitted. “But you’re actually stealing it from what should belong to your family. You do that too long, and you’ll suffer at home. That’s when people become successful at business and a failure at home.”

To properly allocate his energy, Wayne looked at his tasks and came to a conclusion.

“Eighty-five percent of what you do, anybody can do—answering e-mails, attending meetings, etc.,” Wayne says. “Ten percent of what you do, someone with a modicum of training could do. But there’s five percent that only you can do. You have to write that down.”

Wayne’s list looked something like this:

1. Only I can be a husband to my wife Anna.

2. Only I can be a dad to my kids.

3. Only I can keep myself physically healthy and spiritually vibrant.

4. Only I can pray in such a way that keeps my soul healthy.

Wayne says every man should make a similar list when he’s thinking clearly and walking close to God.

“I can’t overstate how important it is to write down what God is saying to you,” Wayne says. “Like the Lord said in Habakkuk 2:2, ‘Write down this vision; clearly inscribe it on tablets so one may easily read it.’”

CREATE A CRISIS

By writing down your five percent, or what Wayne calls “a dashboard for life,” you can go back to that list when you feel lost and are on the brink of burnout.

“Most men make life decisions when they’re discouraged, depressed, mad, and ready to bail,” Wayne says. “If you don’t have something written down that you can correct back to, your decisions are going to be made in the worst state of mind.”

To avoid a desperate situation, Wayne tells men to “get to the end of your rope before you really get to the end of your rope.” In other words, when you see symptoms of burnout or cracks in relationships, make it a crisis in your mind.

“Don’t wait for the crisis to actually happen,” Wayne says. “When you make it a crisis, it presses you to change right away. Then you can make changes before they’re demanded of you.”

And before you find yourself worn out and broken down on the side of the road.

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MARRIAGE GOLD

The stresses of the work-a-day world don’t feel too bad when your emotional reservoir is full. But when emotional reservoirs are depleted, that’s when men start making unwise decisions, saying things they wish they could take back and damaging their marriage relationship.

“Emotional reservoirs not getting filled back up is the number one cause of breakdown,” Wayne Cordeiro says. “So identify what fills your tank and what drains your tank, and write those down.

For Wayne, watching sports, reading, exercising, golfing, and getting out into the ocean fills his tank. His wife, Anna, gets filled up by shopping, golfing, and cleaning late at night.

“There are times when Anna and I do things together that fills both our tanks—like golfing—and that’s really a golden nugget,” Wayne says. “We have to make sure that we golf together.”

Going out to a quiet dinner is another golden nugget. Wayne encourages couples to identify four or five golden nuggets where their tanks are filled at the same time. “Those are treasures,” Wayne says. “Protect those in your marriage like Fort Knox.”

Genesis 2:18-25

God’s creation of humanity is first mentioned at the end of Genesis, chapter 1. Here the Genesis account offers more details about God’s creation of the first people and about their relationship with Him and each other.