Eat, Sleep, Breathe
When I walked through my season of burnout a few years ago, I found myself unable to function at the level I expected of myself. By the time I hit crisis, I could barely think, let alone do anything meaningful. For someone who had built his life on thinking clearly and acting decisively, this was deeply distressing.
After emergency treatment, I began a long and humbling recovery—one that required redefining what success even meant. My “job” became caring for myself. Success looked like sleeping enough, eating properly, and breathing. If I got up, got dressed, and had a meal, that was a good and godly day. A far cry from the expectations I had layered onto myself as a disaster responder, executive leader, caregiver, father, and husband.
There is something sacred about eating, sleeping, and breathing. These are actions we usually perform without thinking, buried beneath fears, anxieties, and expectations. But when we slow down—when we become still enough to notice God in these practices—I believe our spirits are renewed and our strength restored.
Elijah reached his own breaking point in 1 Kings 19:4–8. Exhausted and depressed, he asked God to take his life. God’s response was not correction or rebuke, but compassion. An angel brought him food and water and told him to sleep. Sometimes we search for spiritual solutions to exhaustion or depression when the most godly response is simply to stop. Stop and breathe. Stop and eat. Stop and sleep.
These are gifts from God—yet we rarely name them as such.
When was the last time you placed a hand on your chest, took a deep breath, and acknowledged the sustaining power of God as oxygen filled your lungs? Or paused to give thanks for good food—designed not only to nourish us, but to be enjoyed? Or considered sleep as an act of faith: every night we close our eyes in our most vulnerable state, trusting that God will sustain us until morning.
If the weight of the world feels a little too heavy right now, perhaps God is inviting you back to His most basic gifts.
Eat.
Sleep.
Breathe.
Could those be the most godly things you do this week?
