Episode 1: She Leads// Restoring Your Voice: Breaking Free from Spiritual Fatigue

https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/zion-s-voice-kingdom-conversations--884396/supportAre you feeling spiritually drained and weary?

In this episode of the She Leads Podcast, sponsored by Heart of Zion, we dive into the signs of spiritual fatigue and how to overcome it. Discover practical steps to prioritize rest, set boundaries, and reconnect with your calling. You’ll also learn ways to amplify your God-given voice in ministry, your home, and beyond. Join us as we explore biblical insights from Matthew 11:28-30 and Isaiah 40:31 to help you find renewal and strength for the journey ahead. Don’t miss this empowering conversation designed to restore your voice and reignite your passion for Kingdom work!"

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Machine Leads podcasts probably sponsored by Heart of Zion,
where Kingdom conversations expand our growth and empower us to
lead boldly in our calling. I'm your host, Iris, and
today's episode is for women who pour so much into ministry,
their families and others, but might feel like their own

(00:21):
voice has grown weary. If that sounds like you, then
this episode is just what you need.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to the Heart of Zion podcast where Kingdom conversations
expand our growth. Make sure to subscribe and explore resources
at Heartofzion dot org. Now let's dive into today's episode.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
So today's topic is titled Restoring your Voice, Breaking free
from spiritual Fatigue, and we will be focusing on scripture
reference Matthew Chapter eleven, twenty eight to thirty and Isaiah
forty to thirty one. You know, oftentimes we just need

(01:09):
to come out and be truthful to ourselves. We are
women who are or have the ability to expand ourselves
in so many ways, even camouflage ourselves in so many ways.
But truth is that often in life we are called

(01:32):
to be women of transparency, women who are accountable for
delivering truth. You know, we don't talk about spiritual fatigue enough.
Ministry fatigue is real, and ministry fatigue doesn't always have
to be just in ministry. Your ministry is your family,

(01:56):
your ministry to others, you are a ministry, and so
you can easily, you know, fall into a fatigue from
life in itself. You know, being fatigued, it's not a
sign of failure. It's a sign that we're human. So,
whether we're a pastor, a teacher, the worship leader, simply

(02:21):
pouring out to your family or your community, it's easy
to run dry when you're constantly giving and rarely refeeling.
That is why it is necessary to be poured back

(02:41):
into constantly in our journey in life. Women gatherings are
for that reason, women conferences, women retreat. Whatever we create
in an environment of a gathering is for that, it
is to be poured back into. Spiritual fatigue can come

(03:06):
in many forms. Emotional fatigue. This is from constantly carrying
the burdens of others. I cannot tell you how I
had not realized how I was being burnt out from
emotional fatigue. I was not realizing that I was taking

(03:28):
on burdens of others and making them my own. Causing
me to ourly project frustration when in reality, my root
of that frustration was because I wanted there to be
a solution for all their problems, or I wanted me

(03:53):
to be that solution for all their problems, right, And
so it took a lot of me, and I had
no idea that I was emotionally emotionally fatigue, and I
don't know if anyone around me even understood what was
happening to me, which made it even worse because I

(04:16):
really felt like, in that season, when these you know,
moments of frustration to come, that I was, you know,
really not the best person I wanted to be or
could have have been. And here I was already projecting
what I did not understand myself. And I wish I

(04:37):
would have had someone to say, hey, step back in
a moment, you might be emotionally fatigued. You might be
carrying burners that already yours. The second one is mental fatigue.
This is from overthinking decisions, situations, and even your calling. Now,

(05:02):
I am an overthinker, always constantly thinking about new things,
new ways. Maybe I'm a creator. Really what it is
I'm constant creating in my mind? But this can happen too,
where you're just mentally drained and you have nothing else
to give to anyone else. And when you're like even
constantly thinking about what you've been called to can also

(05:25):
cause you to have that mental fatigue as well. The
third one is physical fatigue. It's from over extending yourself
and neglecting rest. I'm gonna be guilty. I think I've
hit all four of these. I don't know about you,
but I'm gonna be honest here. I think I've hit

(05:47):
all four of these a few moments of life, especially
in ministry. It's crazy because, yeah, over extending yourself and
neglecting the rest. I know all about that.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Man.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
You know, when God was calling me to have fun,
I was calling to myself to overwork. You know, I
wanted to really what my intention was of that. It
was really just to be a good steward to God,
you know, to be a good servant leader and you know,
in the Lord, and even if if you're calling me
to go have fun, to have rest, I just didn't

(06:21):
see that because I just wanted the best for him,
and whatever that took for me to build, I had
to do it, even if it was alone. And I
think that when I felt overextended, I should have just
paused and took a place of rest and found something
enjoyable to kind of bring back my physical strength. The

(06:46):
fourth one is spiritual fatigue, which is deeper. You know,
this is from when your connection to God feels strained.
You know, you feel you feel distant, you're overshadowed by
the man's in ministry. You have to be really cautious
about this one because this one can lead you to
do things outside of His will. You know, Jesus understood

(07:10):
this in Matthew chapter eleven, verse twenty eight and thirty.
He said, come to me, all who are weary and birded,
and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you,
and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble
in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

(07:31):
His words are reminding us that we were meant to
We were not meant to carry the weight of ministry alone.
And it's interesting because ministry is lonely. They can get
really lonely. When I love about this season that God
is doing, I love that he's having an intentional anointing.

(07:52):
Should I say that it's falling upon his body where
we are starting to know that I don't want to
do this alone. I want to do it with others.
And this road is too lonely to walk. And when
there's others that we can walk together. You know, the

(08:13):
scripture says to find rest for your souls. All these
fatigues that are coming up in this time will cause
you to lose your voice. It will cause you to
lose yourself who you really are created to do and be,
and all of that, you would just begin to lose that,

(08:35):
and then one day you'll realize that you're looking in
the mirror and you're not gonna recognize that person anymore.
And all the things that God had placed in us
just seems to have drift and obey. The things we love,
the things that we used, you know, to worship Him
is just just on the back burner somewhere. And the
desire to get back to that, you know, is where

(09:00):
we have to catch ourselves. And that's where you'll find
that you will probably fall into one of these four categories.
So recognizing the signs and the sources of the spiritual fatigue,
you know, just looking at this a little bit deeper,
how spiritual fatigue is happening let's just be on the surface.

(09:21):
You know, it could come from the unbalanced ministry workload
where you're trying to do it all, serve, lead, teach
and support, you know, without the delegation or boundaries. It's
hard when you're building ministry and you probably don't have
enough people and you can become shorthanded and vol into
so many hats or you know, you distribute the work

(09:45):
and you still have to oversee it because it's not
you know, coming back with this full potential. There's many reasons.
You know. The second thing could be the lack of
personal spiritual nourishment, you know, pour it out cost without
spending time being poured back into by God. You know
so well the first things we stayed when we first
started the podcast. The third thing could be carrying the

(10:08):
wrong burdens, taking on responsibilities of roles that God didn't
assign you to. Yeah, that becomes heavy, That responsibility becomes
heavy because you haven't been graced with it. You know,
you haven't been given the butter that makes it easy,
you know, to carry that assignment. Number four, you know,

(10:31):
comparing yourself and the pressure, feeling the need to measure
up to others or maintain a perfect image in ministry.
You know, as women in ministry, we are still struggling
with the fact that we're being opposed at times that
we are a woman in ministry and all the factors
that they put pressure on being a woman in ministry.

(10:54):
You have to be x y Z, you have to
look like x y Z. Do you have these x
y disease And it's a lot of pressure for a
woman in ministry. We can have that affecting us as well.
And number five is neglecting rest and sabbath. Forgetting the
rest is not a luxury, it's a spiritual command. I

(11:15):
remember I would take the day of the Sabbath, which
would be a Saturday, and I would be intentional in
finding a way to make rest a priority. And at
some point in ministry I've kind of kind of lost that.
I've lost the moment of intentional for rest, you know,

(11:37):
and taking a break and kind of embracing you know,
your family and stuff like that, and you just don't
know when it goes, like when you lose grip of it,
it just happens. Asaiah forty thirty one reminds us that
both but those who hope in the Lord will renew
their strength and it will soar on the wings like eagles,

(11:58):
and they will run and not grow weird. They will
walk and not be fake. And the scripture calls us
to align to that focus. They seeing our hope in
God instead of our own strength. It's so important, especially
as women who are wearing multiple hats. So let's look
at how we're going to break free from the fatigue.

(12:20):
And now that we've see that, we've identified the causes.
So how are we going to break free from this?
How do we break free from something bad we've become?
You know, the only practical steps that I could have,
you know, research, was to break the cycle the burnout
and to restore that spiritual strength by number one, embracing

(12:43):
the true rest in God. You know, this is beyond
the physical rest. It's about the spiritual renewal. It's about
spending time in that worship that just re energizes you
and gives your back that restoration, giving yourself that moment
of silence with nothing, just sitting, you know, reflecting, letting

(13:05):
God minister to our hearts. True rest isn't an activity,
it's an intentional connection with Him. And that is what
I was slowly drifting from to be intentionally connected to
him and to embrace the things he surrounded me with.

(13:27):
And that was that, you believe it or not, just happened,
you know, slowly but surely. I woke up with Dane
realized you have faded from the joys of things, and
that was like a big reality check for me personally,

(13:49):
which I know other people have gone through it, they
just don't speak much about it. But I'm transparent. I
really don't mind what people know I've been through because
I am not perfect. The world is not perfect, and
we if we pretend to be perfect people, we are
really masquerading what the Gospel is all about. We are

(14:12):
not perfect individuals and we are living in Him to
become more of His image. And I don't think we're
called to be perfect, but to be perfected in our ways.
And we have to remember that grace for others as
well as for ourselves. And the second thing I did

(14:35):
not do well was set healthy boundaries. I am not
going to sit here and tell you that I've read
a thousand books about healthy boundaries and these are the
xyzs you need to know and pretend that I know
it all because I won't. I won't. I want to teach, preach,
or give from a place of experience, from a place

(14:58):
that I have out of and not from something I
read from. And so when I talk about healthy boundaries,
it was not a thing I understood. And as I
walked on the journey, I realized that it is important.
It is important to set a boundary on access. How

(15:19):
can you access me? How can I access you? What
am I allowed to access? That's all really what it is.
Ministry is important, but so are your limits. You know,
also learned to say no to task that's outside of
God's designment for you, Delicate where possible, and trust that

(15:41):
God will equip others to share the load. This is
really important. One of the I guess we can say
common issues that maybe most of us can have common
ground on is that we have a heart time saying
no to a task and we have to realize whether this

(16:03):
is part of our assignment. The third is the c
community and account But I always recommend this you're not
alarmed to do this. Surround yourself with people like prayer partners, mentors,
or a small group who will pray for you, encourage you,

(16:25):
and hold you accountable. That you remain true to your voice.
And lastly, if you visit you're calling, take time to
reflect on what God has truly called you to do
in this season. Have you taken the extra burdens that
are in yours to carry more than surrender those to him.

(16:45):
Let's get into amplifying your voice and the ways to
do that. Once you begin to experience the rest and
that renewal, it's time to amplify your voice again. But
here's the key. Ask God where he wants your voice
to be heard. Your voice may not only be for
the pulpit. It can be amplified in different places, such

(17:06):
as in your home, as you disciple your children, to
support your family, in your workplace, where your actions and
your words to fly like Christ's love, in your community,
through the mentoring of younger women and leading small groups,
and writing, whether it's devotional blocks or a book on
social media media, sharing your testimony, encouragement and teachings. Remember

(17:31):
that amplifying your voice doesn't mean shouting louder. It just
means speaking where God has positioned you and letting His
truth flow through you. Restoring your voice. Now, I just, ladies,
I need to encourage you. God has not forgotten any
one of us. Our voices are still needed. You're calling,

(17:58):
It's still valid. No matter matter what disappointments you have
gone through in your season, you are still valid. But
you cannot pour out from an empty cup. So take
time to rest in him, revisit your calling, allow him
to restore your strength. Asaiah forty to thirty one says

(18:21):
that those who hope in the Lord, hope in the
Lord your hope. So if you have hope deferred, let's
break off that sickness and put it backward. Belongs in
the Lord, so that our strength may be renewed. As
we place that hope in Him. Every renew that strength,
our voice will be restored in a different level of frequency,

(18:46):
catching the ears of different hearts, impacting with this amplified
version of you. I'm glad you enjoined me today. I'm
Voice of Science podcast in this episode. If it blessed you,
make sure you subscribe, share it with someone who might
need encouragement. Visit Heartazion dot org for resources even to

(19:10):
support our journey until the next nine Stay grounded in
the Word and be sent by the Spirit