This is part of my year-long series exploring human-centered alternatives to the spiritual promises in Oswald Chambers’ classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest. Today’s entry, “The Service of Passionate Devotion”, promises that passionate personal devotion to Jesus provides supernatural endurance for service, preventing exhaustion and enabling disciples to transform landscapes through unobtrusive spiritual influence.
Here’s what passionate devotion actually delivered:
“Love Jesus personally and passionately,” his seminary professor had insisted, “and you’ll never burn out in ministry. That supernatural devotion will sustain you when human compassion falters.”
Pastor Michael planted his inner-city church believing this completely. Hours of worship and prayer each morning, cultivating what felt like intimate relationship with Jesus. This would be his secret weapon against the notorious burnout rate in urban ministry.
For two years, it seemed to work. Eighteen-hour days with homeless individuals, addicts, families in crisis—Michael felt carried by spiritual passion. When people screamed at him, stole from the church, relapsed after months of progress, he drew strength from his devotional connection to Christ.
Then the wheels came off.
The promised supernatural endurance evaporated. Michael hit the wall—severe depression, crushing cynicism, complete emotional exhaustion. His “passionate devotion” felt like talking to himself when faced with intractable poverty and untreated mental illness.
He begged Jesus for renewed spiritual fire. Prayed desperately for that sustaining presence to return.
Nothing. Absolute silence.
No divine renewal of passion. No supernatural love refreshing his compassion for increasingly difficult people. The very person he’d devoted his life to serving had apparently abandoned him when he needed that relationship most.
His friend Elena watched this spiritual collapse with familiar recognition. As a secular social worker in the same neighborhood, she’d seen plenty of religious burnout. But Elena had never expected supernatural sustenance from personal devotion to Jesus.
Instead, Elena worked within systems. She connected people to mental health services, housing assistance, job training. She maintained professional boundaries and took actual time off. When clients were hostile or relapsed, Elena didn’t interpret it as spiritual failure or relationship crisis with God.
Elena’s “transformation” wasn’t mystical kernels of wheat dying and sprouting. It was measurable: housing placements, completed treatment programs, successful job referrals. Her impact came through professional competence and sustainable practices, not passionate devotion to an invisible figure.
When Michael finally sought therapy for his depression, his counselor didn’t explore his relationship with Jesus. She helped him recognize burnout symptoms, establish healthy boundaries, develop realistic expectations for helping people with complex trauma.
The breakthrough came when Michael stopped waiting for divine renewal and started implementing actual self-care strategies. His effective ministry began not when he loved Jesus more deeply, but when he learned to work sustainably within human limitations.
The neighborhood transformation happened through policy advocacy, community organizing, evidence-based programs—not through unobtrusive devoted disciples mysteriously changing landscapes.
The passionate devotion that was supposed to sustain him? It had been devotion to silence all along.
Reflection Question: When has professional competence and sustainable practices been more effective than passionate devotion in serving others long-term?
This story is part of my upcoming book “The Undevoted: Daily Departures from Divine Dependence,” which offers 365 human-centered alternatives to the spiritual certainties in Chambers’ devotional. Each day explores how reason, community, and human resilience can address life’s challenges without requiring divine intervention.
God or Delusion? 