Leaders: What If Your Exhaustion Is A Formation Problem

Your life can feel rushed even when your schedule looks “reasonable” because the real problem isn’t the calendar, it’s the pace that’s been shaping your inner world. I walk through a framework that helped me finally make sense of leadership burnout: two systems running side by side every day, Babylon’s pace and the kingdom pace. One trains urgency, comparison, and endless production. The other forms depth, faithfulness, presence, and rest that holds steady even when life stays full.

We get specific about what Babylon’s pace sounds like in real life and why it’s so hard to escape. It tells you faster is always better, bigger is always better, and now is always better than later. It never lets you arrive, and it quietly rewires how you think and react until stillness feels uncomfortable. I share a personal story from a season where I tried to rest, yet couldn’t stop producing, and why that revealed something deeper than “being busy.”

Then we look at the pace of Jesus as the clearest picture of kingdom living: unhurried in crisis, calm in storms, committed to quiet prayer in the middle of demand. We unpack Scripture that points to repentance, rest, quietness, and trust as real strength, and we talk through the signs you might be carrying the wrong yoke, especially if guilt and low-grade shame show up when you slow down.

If you’re a pastor, entrepreneur, or weary leader craving sustainable leadership, spiritual formation, and a healthier inner life, this conversation will give you language and next steps. Share this with a friend who’s burning out, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, and leave a review with one line about what pace you’re choosing now.

Transcript

The Rush Is Not Your Schedule

SPEAKER_00 0:05

You don't feel rushed because your schedule's full. You feel rushed because your life's been shaped by pace. Your soul was never designed to live at this hustle culture pace that we've learned. And the problem isn't just what you're doing, it's what it's what's informing you. I want you to think about it. You've tried slowing down before, you've taken the vacation, you've had the Sabbath, you've blocked the time off, and within days, sometimes hours, you're right back in the rush. Back to urgency, back to pressure, back to the feeling that you're behind. Why? Because the problem isn't your schedule. The problem is the system that's been shaping your interior world. And until you name that system and confront it, you will keep defaulting back to it, no matter how many times you try to slow down. And friend, that's what we're going to talk about today. Guys, I want to welcome you back to the shepherd's tent with Mark Casto. This is a place for weary leaders to remember who they are. Guys, this is our third episode going deep into the story that um has become the Shepherd's Tent, which is a book that I wrote years ago. And I want to tell you why this episode matters. And if episode one was the moment you felt seen, if episode two gave you the language for what you've been experiencing, then episode three is where we're going to pull back the curtain because we're not just talking about your burnout today. We're talking about the system producing it, the environment that has been quietly shaping you long before you ever realized it. Guys, this is the episode where you understand, um, where I believe your understanding begins to shift, where you stop blaming yourself for being tired and you start seeing the bigger picture. So let's just jump right into it. Guys, less the the last episode that we talked about was the vineyard within. The idea that every leader has an inner life, a garden within themselves that requires just as much attention as everything they're building on the outside. And we talked about how most leaders become experts at tending everyone else's vineyard while neglecting their own. But today I want to go one level deeper because here's the question that I kept asking myself. Once I started, um, this is this is the question that I begin to ask myself. Um, once I started to see my neglect clearly, why? Why is this so common? Why does every leader I know struggle with the same thing? Why does every church leader, business owner, entrepreneur, pastor that I talk to have the same look in their eyes when they bring this up? And that look says, yes, that's me, but I don't know what to do about it. The answer is your inner life doesn't just deteriorate randomly. It's being shaped, formed by something bigger than any individual decision you've made by a system. And that system has a name. Guys, I want to introduce you to something today. I keep calling these things frameworks, but I don't want you to see them as like uh magic tricks, or if you do this, you're gonna get this result. This is a journey. And I think once you see this today, you won't be able to unsee it. And there are two different ways of living in this world: two different paces, two different systems. And they are operating simultaneously every single day of your life. The first system is Babylon, okay? It's Babylon's pace. The second is the kingdom and the kingdom's pace. And most of us, even those of us who love God, lead well, and genuinely want to live differently, are far more formed by Babylon's pace than we realize. Now, I want to be really clear about something before we go further, okay? This isn't a conversation about being in the world, but not of it. This isn't about politics or culture wars. This is about the invisible current that you've been swimming in that has been shaping the pace of your inner life. And it's been doing it quietly, without your permission and without you even noticing. So let me describe Babylon's pace. And as I describe it, I want you to honestly ask yourself, does this sound like my life? Okay. Babylon's pace says faster is always better. More is always better, bigger is always better. Now is always better than later. It's driven by urgency, by comparison, by pressure, by constant movement. Babylon's pace never lets you arrive. Because the moment you reach one milestone, there's already a new one pulling you forward. There's already um like as soon as as soon as we like celebrate one thing, we're now being pulled to the next thing. And it never lets you be enough because the moment that you start to produce something, the expectation immediately expands. And that spirit, that culture, it never lets you rest because rest to Babylon is just deferred production. Now, here's what makes this so insiduous, okay? This isn't just out there in the secular world. It has deeply infiltrated the church, the ministry world, the Christian leadership space. We've baptized Babylon's pace with spiritual language. And now our urgency feels like anointing. Our hustle or our hustling feels like calling. Our depletion, we see it as sacrifice in devotion. And we can't tell the difference anymore. Guys, I wrote about this in my book, The Shepherd's Tent. I traced the spirit of Babylon all the way back to Genesis 11, where mankind first built a tower to reach the sky. We know it as the Tower of Babel. And what was at, and you have to ask yourself, what was at the heart of that project? A cry for fame, a gathering of people to themselves, the pride of human achievement, the belief that if they just built big enough that they could make a name for themselves that would last forever. Guys, that spirit never died. It just changed clothes. Now it wears a hoodie and a podcast mic. Now it speaks in terms of reach and influence and impact. But the engine underneath it is the same. Build big, move fast, make a name. And God's word to Babylon has never changed. Come out of her. Okay. Now, here's the part that I really want you to sit with. Okay, because this is where it gets personal. You don't just live in this system, you get formed by it. Formation is different from influence. Okay. Influence touches you from the outside. Formation reshapes you from the inside. And what Babylon's pace does over time is it rewires how you think, feel, and operate in the world. You begin to think faster, your patience shortens, you're you lose the ability to tolerate slow seasons. Long processes feel like failure, quiet periods feel like punishment, and stillness feels deeply uncomfortable. You move faster, your decisions become reactive. You start defaulting to urgency in situations that don't require it. Everything starts to feel like it needs to be handled right now, right this second. You expect faster results. You lose the ability to trust a process that takes time. Slow growth starts to feel like no growth. And you start making decisions that prioritize speed over depth. And eventually, and this is the one that breaks people, you lose your ability to be still. Guys, I remember when I resigned from ministry 2015, I canceled my itinerary, and I thought I would feel immediate relief. But instead, instead, I sat in my house and I twiddling my thumbs, deeply uncomfortable. I try to read the word and my mind was still looking for a sermon, try to pray and fall asleep. I try to be still and I felt the urgent pull to find something productive to do. So what did I do? I go to Ace Hardware, buy a bunch of tools, and rearrange my entire backyard. I bought lawn equipment, I tackled every inch of overgrowth to the root, man. We were digging up root balls that were they looked like as big or bigger than potatoes. Because even in the middle of a season designed for rest, I couldn't stop producing. And that's how Babylon's pace had formed me, not ministry, me, my addiction to busyness. And the Lord said something to me in that season that changed everything. I didn't ask you, Mark, to come off of a treadmill to get on another one. It's time for rest. Now, let me pause here for a second because some of you are builders. You're in the middle of building a message, a business, a platform, and the thing I just um described, I feel it in your, you you like feel it in your building, the urgency, the comparison, the pressure to move faster, to grow quicker, to be further along. And what I want to say to you is if you build at the wrong pace, it will cost you more than you think. That's why I created Long Path Creator Academy. Okay. Long Path is where I help leaders like yourself build their message, their platform, and their income at a pace that actually sustains you. Okay. Not the Babylonian pace, the long game pace. So if your message matters, it deserves to be built in a way that lasts. So I want you to go to markcasto.co backslash inner dash circle. That's markcasto.co backslash um inner dash circle. And I'd love to help you build something that actually supports your life. Okay. Now, I want to um I want to to contrast this, okay, because it's not enough just to name the problem. We need to see the alternative. So, so what does the kingdom pace look like? Okay. And so there's no other model to look at, in my opinion, than we start with Jesus, because Jesus is the clearest picture we have of what kingdom pace actually looks like. So I want you to think about how Jesus operated, okay? He was never in a hurry. In John 11, when Lazarus was sick and dying, Jesus didn't rush. He waited two days. He allowed Lazarus to die. And so from a Babylonian standpoint, that looks like failure. But from a kingdom standpoint, it's positioning. So even if we look in Mark 4 during a violent storm, while the disciples were panicking and screaming for their lives, Jesus is tucked away asleep in the boat, not anxious, not urgently problem-solving, asleep. Because the kingdom's pace produces a rest in your soul that external circumstances cannot disturb. In Mark chapter 1, verse 35, in the middle of the most intense ministry season of Jesus' entire life, Jesus woke up before dawn, slipped away from everyone, and went to a quiet place to pray. Not because the needs had slowed down, not because the crowds had gone home, but because his pace was set from a different source, a source that Babylon cannot touch. The kingdom's pace values something entirely different than Babylon does. It values depth over speed, faithfulness over visibility, presence over production, roots over results. It grows like a seed, quietly, slowly, consistently. And guys, underneath the surface, before it's visible to anyone, that's how the kingdom works. And Jesus described the kingdom as a mustard seed. Jesus describes it as one of the smallest seeds that exist, but it grows into the largest of trees. Guys, not because of speed, but because of the root, friend, the kingdom is not in a hurry, and neither should you be. So let me take you to a few passages that I think will unlock this. The first one is um the book of Isaiah, chapter 30, verse 15, God is speaking to Israel, and here's what he says in repentance and rest is your salvation. In quietness and trust is your strength. And then he says, But you would have none of it. You would have none of it. In other words, the way to strength was available. The invitation was clear. Quietness, trust, rest. But Israel refused because it was too slow. Because Babylon's pace was louder and more urgent, because resting felt like losing ground. Guys, that's us. That is us. Now, if we look at Mark or Matthew 11, verse 28, many of you could quote this. Jesus says, Come to me, all you who are wearied and burdened, and I will give you rest. Notice he doesn't say, I'll make your schedule lighter. He doesn't say, I'll remove your responsibilities. He says, I will give you rest. The rest that Jesus is offering is not circumstantial. It's not dependent on your calendar clearing up. It's a different kind of rest entirely, an interior rest, a rest of the soul, a rest that can coexist with a full life. And then he says in verse 29, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I'm gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. See, friend, the yoke of Jesus is easy. That means if what you're carrying feels crushing, you might be wearing the wrong yoke. Because Babylon's yoke is heavy. Okay. Performance is heavy, comparison is heavy, urgency is heavy. But the kingdom's yoke, the pace of Jesus is actually light. Not because life is easier, but because you're no longer carrying it alone. And you're no longer carrying it at a wrong speed. So now I've been referencing the book in the last couple of episodes, and I want to take a moment here to really explain to you why, because what we're doing in this podcast is pulling threads from something that I spent years writing down. So I've got a book called The Shepherd's Tent, How to Embrace Rest in God Amid a Chaotic World. And the reason this Babylon versus Kingdom framework resonates so deeply is because it didn't come from a library or a seminary. It came from a crisis in my life. It came from me sitting in South Carolina after walking away from everything that I knew and built and asking God a very honest question. How did I get here? How does a man who loves you, who preaches your word, who gave everything to your house, end up in a cardiologist's office at 25 years old? And what I'm learning and what I learned, the answer God gave me is what fills those pages. He showed me Babylon. He showed me how the system had shaped me without my permission. He showed me how I had confused performance with calling and productivity with faithfulness. And then slowly, patiently, he showed me a different way. And so in the book, I go deep into the Song of Solomon, the Babylon, the Babylon chapters of Daniel, the story of Noah, and Hebrews 4 invitation into what the Bible calls the realm of confident rest. Now, I'm going to say this right up front. It's not a quick fix, it's not a life hack, it's a genuine invitation to live differently. One pastor that read it described it as a lighthouse from Babylon's never-ending wheel of performance. Another said it's prophetic, personal, and practical. Guys, if you've been resonating with what we've been discussing in these past episodes, the book is where you go next. Okay. So it's available right now on Amazon. Just shirt, just uh type into the search engine, The Shepherd's Sent by Mark Casto. Um, or you can uh I can put it in the link directly in the show notes, but get it, read it slowly, guys, and let it do what it was written to do. Okay. Now, here's where I want to be real honest with you, okay? Because I don't want to make this sound simple. This is where leaders genuinely struggle. You're trying to live a kingdom life inside of a world moving at Babylon's pace. And guys, the tension is real, okay? Because Babylon's pace is louder, it's more visible, it's more rewarded. The person moving fast gets celebrated. The person who is quiet and faithful and slow, they get overlooked at least for a while. And most leaders, if they're honest, are terrified of being overlooked. Because we live in a system that rewards visibility. And so we default to the faster pace. Not because we chose Babylon, but because Babylon was louder than the kingdom in that moment. And here's what I want you to understand: you will not drift toward the kingdom space. You have to choose it actively, intentionally, repeatedly, in the face of comparison, in the face of pressure, in the face of urgency, every single day. Because if you don't choose it, you will always default to the faster system every single time. So let me make this super practical. How do you know if Babylon's pace has been forming you? And so I want to give you some signs. And again, I want you to be honest as I walk through these. First, you feel a constant sense of urgency that doesn't match your actual circumstances. Okay. Nothing's on fire, but internally everything feels like an emergency. Okay. Second, you are unable to slow down even when you try. The vacation doesn't actually refresh you. The day off doesn't feel restorative. Okay. You come back from rest feeling like you need to catch up. Third, you feel guilt when you're not producing. Not a gentle conviction. You have a low grade shame. Like rest is something you haven't earned. Fourth, you measure your worth by your output. A good day is a productive day. A slow day feels like a lost day. And your emotion, your emotional state tracks directly with your results. Fifth, you struggle to trust slow seasons. When things go quiet, when things stall, when nothing seems to be happening, you interpret it as something being wrong rather than something being worked. So if you recognize yourself in any of those, you're not broken. You've been formed. And the good news, what has been formed, can be reformed. So let me say this clearly. I say this as someone who has lived on both sides of this and had to learn this lesson more than once. If your life is perpetually rushed, you're not living aligned. Not aligned to the pace of Jesus, not aligned to the design of your soul. And a life that is misaligned will eventually express that misalignment in your body, in your relationships, in your leadership, in your joy, because a rushed life cannot sustain a peaceful soul. They're incompatible. You cannot run at Babylon's speed and carry kingdom fruits simultaneously, not long term, anyways. Um, you may be able to fake it for a season. I know I did for years, but the fruit of the spirit is not produced under pressure. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, these are not the byproducts of a rush life. They are the fruit of a life rooted in the kingdom's pace. And the world around you guys is desperate for leaders who carry that fruit. Not leaders who can perform, but leaders who are actually at peace. And friend, that's rare. And it's rare because the pace required to produce is countercultural. But I've got good news. It's possible, and it starts with a decision. So what do you actually do? Here's what I want to say. Okay, to the question. So, what do you actually do? You don't abandon your calling, you don't quit your job or burn down what you've built. Maybe not yet. You change your pace, you begin to slow down intentionally, not as a passive thing, but as an act of defiance against the system. You begin to create space, margins in your day, silence before noise, stillness before movement. You begin to remove unnecessary urgency. Um, I would recommend you learning to ask, is this actually an emergency, or has Babylon trained me to treat it like one? So, what you need to be doing in this season is retrain your inner life to move at a different speed. And you do it with community because this is not a solo journey in the song. Of Psalms, the shepherd king says, Come to the place near the sanctuary of my shepherds. Okay, that's plural. He he leads his lovers together. You need people around you who are committed to the same pace, who will call you out of urgency, who will remind you when Babylon gets loud, what you're actually like, like you need people around you who will remind you. When again, when Babylon gets super loud, they remind you what you're actually building toward. And here's the promise on the other side of this choice. Isaiah 40, verse 31 says, Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They'll mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Um, guys, not those who hustle hardest, but those who wait. And the kingdom's pace produces an endurance, okay, that Babylon's pace cannot manufacture. And that endurance is what you actually need to do everything you're called to do. That's why we call it the long path. Now, I want to say this to you before we close. If this message is helping you, I want to invite you to do something, okay? The shepherd's tent exists to create space for leaders to rediscover a sustainable way of living. Leaders who are ready to choose the kingdom's pace, even when Babylon is screaming. So if you believe in that mission, guys, if you believe in what we're doing with pastors and leaders, you can partner with us at marcasto.co backslash donate. Guys, you can help us reach more leaders who need to hear this. What we're doing in this season right now, guys, is we are investing in leaders on a private level. A lot of these leaders I'm calling and checking on in private. We're about to build a community to host that online, which is going to be amazing. We're also um traveling and ministering. One of the things that I really feel called to do is I don't want to be the evangelist that just goes to a pastor's church and tries to pitch my product and partnership and whatever. I'm going in to minister and pour into that church to help build the vision of the pastor who God has set in that house. And um, so we're traveling, pouring into churches, helping pastors lead well. Um, we're also, I'm back into writing. So I'm writing uh, I've got like three books lined up that I'm gonna be actually writing. And um, your partnership supports us in our ministry to pastors, it supports us in our traveling ministry to churches, and it supports me to be able to make more content like this and to write the books that can help change people's lives. So, guys, again, if you want to partner with us, oh yeah, I don't want you to forget, we've got camp ascend that we do every single year, guys. And because we don't have a camp facility, we're not allowed to open that up right now. So it's a lot of the uh houses that are connected to Apostle Damon and his spiritual sons right now, uh, just because of the facility and what and how many we can put in it. But every year we have like 300 kids that come. If you want to help sponsor a kid, I ask you to go on our website, markcasto.co backslash donate, give$125. You give$125, you will take care of supporting one kid to go to camp. They that pays for everything uh for them to come to camp and their food and their meals. So, guys, if you want to support students coming from sixth to 12th grade, coming and having four days of absolute encounter with the Lord, you want to help make that possible, go to markcasto.co backslash donate. And every donation for$125, we are going to put that into camp fund to help support these kids. And man, if we can get 300 people to give$125 a piece, um, we will reimburse every student that comes because it'll be paid for. So wouldn't that be amazing to literally be able to turn and write a check to all of these kids before um or the leaders before they leave and go, man, camp's free, it's on us. Uh, give it back to the kids. Our partners can do that. So thank you. And again, if you're wanting to help us reach more leaders, do more things like what we're talking about, become a partner today at markcasto.co backslash donate. Now, let me leave you with this. We're gonna close this episode, okay? You don't need to move faster, you need to move differently because the life you're looking for, the peace you've been searching for, the fruit you actually want to produce will never be found at the pace that is destroying you. Babylon will keep telling you that you're behind, but the kingdom says you're being formed. Babylon says uh Babylon says the answer is more urgency. The kingdom says the answer is deeper roots. Babylon says your worth is tied to your output. The kingdom says you are dearly loved before you produce anything. Guys, so here's the question I want to leave you with today. Okay. What pace is shaping your life right now? Not what pace you're aiming for, what pace is actually forming you day by day? And then I want you to ask yourself, is this pace sustainable? Because if the answer is no, I want you to know there is another way. And we're building this space to help you find it, guys. So I want to encourage you, grab the book, The Shepherd Sent by Mark Castro. It's available right now on Amazon. Link is in the show notes. And if this episode hit you, don't just move on. Reach out, guys. I love to hear from you. Message me on Facebook, email me at mark at markcasto.co, or you can find me on Instagram at Marccasto underscore. Guys, I want to hear from you. And let's just keep building this pace and this lifestyle of the kingdom together. Friend, this is the Shepherd's Tent, a place for weary leaders to remember who they are. And we'll catch you on the next episode. God bless you guys.