When Life Is "Too Much" Discern What Is Yours

This past Sunday, Pastor Alison wrapped up our sermon series on "Cultivating Fruits of the Spirit," by preaching about Self-Control.

Alison reflected on what it means that the list of fruits is bookended by Love (the first fruit listed) and Self-Control (the last fruit listed). Alison explored how — as followers of the Way of Jesus — Love must be what guides us, motivates us, and empowers us. We are nothing without unconditional love! (1 Corinthians 13:2) At the same time, we need Self-Control to actually be able to embody all of the other Fruits of the Spirit.

Self-Control is incredibly important. However, our approaches to Self-Control often miss the mark. Alison explained:
"We miss the mark when our pursuit of Self-Control becomes more about proving our purity, holiness, discipline, or devotion — than it is about helping us to love ourselves, others, and God more deeply. We miss the mark when shame becomes the motivator for transformation, rather than God’s unconditional love for us. And we miss the mark when the only advice we have for how to pursue Self-Control is to just try harder."

Drawing insights from the story of the prophet Elijah, Alison explored the ways that Self-Control and Self-Care are deeply interconnected. Alison shared:
"A pastor friend of mine recently reminded me that sometimes the most important spiritual disciplines are simply getting enough food and enough sleep. We don’t always think about eating and sleeping this way — but it’s so true. When we are hungry or tired, it’s really hard to be kind or patient or gentle or joyful. I wonder how it might change things for us if we viewed Self-Care — in its many forms — not as a luxury but as an essential spiritual practice?"

When we think about Self-Care, it is important to consider the concept of bandwidth. How much capacity do we have in any given moment? What impacts this capacity? How much were our bodies, minds, and spirits actually designed to handle?

During her sermon, Alison quoted from a newsletter by Nadia Bolz-Weber (a Lutheran minister and public theologian) that explores many of these questions. The newsletter — titled “If you can't take it anymore, there's a reason: an essay on circuit breakers, empty buckets, and the shame-show of social media” — was written in August 2021, while we were still finding our way through the global pandemic. However, much of what it says still resonates with the world we find ourselves in today in 2025 — in particular, the way that baseline levels of anxiety and grief are collectively higher for everyone. We encourage you to give it a read!

In the newsletter, Bolz-Weber wrote:
“I used to live in a very old apartment building with super sketchy electrical wiring. Were I to audaciously assume my hair drier could run while my stereo was on, I would once again find myself opening the grey metal fuse box next to the refrigerator and flipping the breaker. My apartment had been built at a time when there were no electric hair driers, and the system shut down when modernity asked too much of it. I think of that fuse box often these days, because friends, I just do not think our psyches were developed to hold, feel and respond to everything coming at them right now; every tragedy, injustice, sorrow and natural disaster happening to every human across the entire planet, in real time every minute of every day.  The human heart and spirit were developed to be able to hold, feel and respond to any tragedy, injustice, sorrow or natural disaster that was happening IN OUR VILLAGE. So my emotional circuit breaker keeps overloading because the hardware was built for an older time.”

If this is true — that we were designed for the needs of our village, not the 24-hour global news cycle — then this means that we need to be intentional about honoring our limitations, about setting boundaries, about being selective around how we spend our time and energy.

This sounds great! But how do we actually go about doing this? How can we discern what is ours and what we can release to others and to God?

A helpful tool that Bolz-Weber shares in the newsletter comes from Suzanne Stabile — a highly sought-after speaker, teacher, and internationally recognized Enneagram master teacher, having conducted over five hundred workshops. Bolz-Weber picked up three discernment questions from Stabile, and returns to them every day. They are:

1. What’s MINE to do, and what’s NOT mine to do?
   
2. What’s MINE to say and what’s NOT mine to say?
   
3. What’s MINE to care about and what’s NOT mine to care about?

Bolz-Weber noted that many folks misunderstand the third question. She explained:
"To be clear – that is not to say that it is not worthy to be cared about by SOMEONE, only that my effectiveness in the world cannot extend to every worthy to be cared about event and situation.  It’s not an issue of values, it’s an issue of MATH. . . . It’s ok to do what is YOURS to do. Say what’s yours to say. Care about what’s yours to care about. That’s enough. . . . ​I’m not saying we should put our heads in the sand, I’m saying that if your circuits are overwhelmed there’s a reason and the reason isn’t because you are heartless, it’s because there is not a human heart on this planet that can bear all of what is happening right now. So thank you for being a person who cares about and responds to animals, or the environment, or immigration, or domestic violence or any of the other worthy-to-be-cared-about shit-shows we are in the midst of right now. Just, thank you."

So, this week, we encourage you to schedule some time to sit with these discernment questions. Spend some time in prayer or journaling. Ask God to help you get clear on what is yours and what is not yours. Identify some concrete actions steps you can take in the areas you are called to. And then, try to release everything else to others and to God.

Doing this is not easy — it's an act of faith and trust! But remember that to care for others, we must care for ourselves, and that means honoring our human limitations.