I’m overwhelmed. I roll my eyes at the most popular phrase of my life, scribbled in spiral notebooks, pounded in capitalized ink. My prayer journal’s title since turning double digits could be something like “Obviously Overwhelmed” or “Here We Go Again: Overwhelmed in Every Season.” I’m a jukebox with a single jingle.
Today was no different. After scrubbing a borrowed home and thrifting borrowed clothes that didn’t fit in our borrowed trunk, our family of eight drove to our fourth missionary house in just a few months. I sat on the passenger side, perched on a stack of homeschool books, legs curled in a fetal position, trying not to crunch the half-eaten boxes of breakfast cereal at my feet. I frowned at the bulbous sacks of nonstick pans and clothes under my elbows. We looked as homeless as I felt. My husband spotted the familiar glazed-over stare and assured me, “We’re doing good.”
“I’m overwhelmed” wears different shirts, but we all own one. When life is a labyrinth, or when we feel underwater, unable to touch bottom, how do we respond? Do we silently weather the panic attack? Do we hide from life through sleep? Do we run obsessively, scrub our house like it has been through the Black Plague, or shop for things no one needs?
As sinful people in an aching, breaking world, we’re often wide-eyed and terrified. Are we sinning when we’re overwhelmed? Where is God when, after many years, our prayer journals are like SOS signs dug into the sands of a thousand deserted islands? What can we expect as we grow in Christ?
Tales of the Greatly Burdened
Some people are obsessed with French cooking, others with Pokémon cards. God has an apparent affinity for people in crisis, men and women flailing at the end of their ropes. He’s drawn to the weak and frazzled. No one roots for the overwhelmed like our Father. Scripture spills over with stories of God intercepting his people at the height of their sighing.
ELISHA’S SERVANT
Overwhelmed at the hordes of enemies surrounding them in battle, Elisha’s servant cries, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” (2 Kings 6:15). Elisha intercedes for his servant, and God gifts the young man with heavenly spectacles to see invisible horses and chariots of fire.
God might use the prayers of a seasoned saint to work on our behalf, growing our spiritual sight and boldness in battle. We don’t always see straight in mounting chaos and threat. Fear intends to make blind bats of us all. God intends just the opposite: He gives sight in a topsy-turvy way. There is more to our overwhelming situations than meets the eye.
ELIJAH
Overwhelmed by the roller coaster ride of ministry, Elijah asks to die. Having just celebrated God’s victory over Baal, he’s now running for his life. Elijah pleads in the wilderness, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4). Not once, but twice, Elijah falls asleep (like overwhelmed people do), and God awakens him both times with lunch rather than lectures or rebukes — cakes baked on hot stones and a jug of water.
Like an attentive mother, God cares for our physical bodies’ cry for sleep, nutrients, oxygen, and sunshine. He may use a walk through emerald woods or that ooey-gooey slice of peach pie to remind you of his parental pleasure to sustain your dusty constitution.
MARTHA
Overwhelmed by her sister, Mary, sitting and enjoying Jesus while she spins around the room like a dreidel, Martha tattles (Luke 10:39–40). Jesus could have diffused Martha’s indignation by thanking her for hosting, but he doesn’t. Jesus sees her burdens with X-ray vision. He identifies anxiety where faith should have been.
God never coddles our idols, even the most decent ones. He wants more for us than we want for ourselves. His scalpel might dissect our distracted lives and fragmented loves in order to give us the better portion Mary stopped and stayed for.
PETER
Overwhelmed at denying Christ three times when he swore to defend him until the bloody end, Peter weeps (Matthew 26:75). He thinks he might weep into eternity — until Jesus appears to him on the beach. It is not lost on Peter that this fishing scene mirrors the happy day when Jesus first called him, saying, “Follow me” (Luke 5:1–11). Peter’s world mutes as Jesus questions him. Three times, Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, each question more pointed than the last, sharper than any fishing lure to his heart (John 21:15–17).
While our sin may handicap our hope, it doesn’t overwhelm the Lord Jesus. He recommissioned Peter once again by the sea, reminding him of who he was and what God would do through his life and death. Jesus might be calling us out of debilitating shame into service and sonship, saying to all who’ve failed like Peter, “Follow me.”
JESUS
Overwhelmed by the cup of suffering pressed against his lips, Jesus prays face down in Gethsemane’s dust. The dirt of the world’s sin will soon suffocate him. “I’m in agony,” he might have confided to his friends, if they weren’t fast asleep. His human body, stressed to the max, sirens alarm and sweats blood. The unblemished Lamb asks for another way yet never doubts his Father knows best. “Not my will, but yours, be done,” he weeps, awaiting the midnight mob and Judas’s kiss (Luke 22:42).
Overwhelmed by Him
Elisha’s servant, Elijah, Martha, and Peter are good company, but Jesus overwhelmed changes everything. Our Lord was overwhelmed unto death, but he was not mastered by it. This teaches us a few things.
First, if we follow in Jesus’s steps, we shouldn’t be surprised when we’re similarly laid flat in prayer, inadequate for the task in front of us.
Second, we’re not automatically sinning when we experience strong pressure and stress. Like Jesus, we mourn at the death of a friend (Matthew 14:12–13), require refreshment after testing (Matthew 4:11), and need to say unpopular words to popular people (Matthew 23), all of which could feel overwhelming.
Third, if we’re to survive the endless overwhelming situations that fill our prayers and our journals, God must be supremely overwhelming to us. Temporal troubles want to leave us face down in despair. God wants to lay us flat, too — in humble, happy submission to his will. When we’re overwhelmed by God in place of our problems, his steadfast love and faithfulness will shine as a prized pendant around our necks (Proverbs 3:3). We will walk with a proper limp from our godly wrestling (Genesis 32:22–32). No matter the mess, we will look up to the mountains and declare over every ounce of overwhelming circumstances, “My help comes from the Lord” (Psalm 121:1–2). And we will be like our Lord: The Son in Gethsemane deferred to his Father when it cost everything because he knew his Father to be just that good.
We have witnessed this phenomenon. The blind write hymns that give spiritual sight to generations, the widowed forgive their spouses’ assassins, the disabled exhibit special stamina, and the wounded counsel others from a wealthy storehouse of heavenly comforts. Overwhelming floodwaters don’t sweep the God-overwhelmed away. The waves are menacing, but these saints’ attention is elsewhere, as the attention of star-crossed lovers often is. Christ overwhelms them with glory and makes them to stand.
Desiring God