There are days when I sit down at the keyboard and just stare. Nothing comes. My mind is blank. My heart feels quiet—almost too quiet. I know there is something I ought to say, something I ought to give, but I feel as though there is nothing left in the cup.

Anyone who has spent much time in ministry may understand that feeling.

A pastor can stand in the pulpit Sunday after Sunday, prepare sermons, visit the sick, counsel troubled marriages, answer phone calls, pray with hurting people, and still go home feeling spiritually empty. A Sunday school teacher can faithfully prepare lessons while wondering why the Word that once stirred his own heart seems strangely quiet. A person can spend years encouraging others and suddenly discover that he is the one who needs encouragement.

Sometimes we become so accustomed to pouring out that we forget we also need to be filled.

I have been there myself. I have been doing the work, showing up, writing, teaching, sharing truth, and trying to encourage others. Yet somewhere in the middle of all that giving, it is possible to stop receiving. We may still be doing good things. We may still be serving sincerely. But little by little we begin trying to pour from an empty cup.

God never asked us to be the well.

He is the well.

Jeremiah records the Lord saying, “For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living waters, to carve out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that do not hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

That picture is especially important for anyone involved in ministry. We can become so occupied carrying water to everyone else that we neglect the fountain ourselves. Sermon preparation can take the place of personal time with God. Bible study can become something we do only because we need something to teach. Prayer can slowly become a list of needs belonging to everyone except ourselves.

We may still be talking about God while no longer sitting quietly before God.

But spiritual exhaustion does not always mean someone has been careless or unfaithful. Sometimes a person is simply tired. Ministry can be emotionally, spiritually, and physically draining. Jesus understood that. After His disciples had been ministering and people were continually coming and going, He told them, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a little while” (Mark 6:31).

Notice that Jesus did not rebuke them for being tired. He told them to rest.

There are times when the most spiritual thing a weary servant of God can do is admit, “I am tired. I need to sit down. I need to pray without preparing anything for anybody else. I need to open the Bible without looking for my next sermon. I need time with the Lord because I need Him, not because someone else needs something from me.”

Elijah learned something similar in 1 Kings 19. After the tremendous victory on Mount Carmel, he reached a point where he was exhausted, discouraged, and ready to give up. God did not begin by giving Elijah another assignment. He allowed him to sleep. He provided food. He strengthened him for the journey. Only afterward did God deal with what Elijah needed to hear.

There is a lesson in that for those who spend their lives serving others.

We are human beings before we are pastors, teachers, writers, missionaries, deacons, elders, or ministry leaders. We have limits. God knows those limits even when we refuse to admit them.

Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

A branch does not struggle to manufacture life. It receives life from the vine. The fruit comes because the branch remains connected to its source.

Ministry works the same way.

We can run programs, prepare lessons, preach sermons, write articles, organize meetings, visit people, and fill calendars. Some of those things may be necessary and good. But none of them can replace abiding in Christ. Activity is not the same thing as spiritual life, and being needed by people is not the same thing as being close to God.

Isaiah 55:1 says, “You there! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.”

There is no shame in being thirsty. Thirst is what brings us back to the fountain.

Perhaps that is where someone reading this is today. You have been carrying people for a long time. You have listened to their problems, prayed over their burdens, preached through your own pain, smiled when you were weary, and kept going because you believed people were depending upon you.

But your cup is empty.

You do not need to pretend otherwise. God is not impressed by an empty cup painted to look full.

The answer is not necessarily to work harder. It is not to manufacture enthusiasm or force yourself to feel something you do not feel. It may simply be time to come back to the One from whom everything worthwhile in ministry must come.

David prayed, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit” (Psalm 51:12).

That is a prayer a weary pastor can pray. It is a prayer a tired teacher can pray. It is a prayer any believer who has spent too long pouring out can pray.

“Lord, restore me. Fill what has become empty. Remind me that I belong to You before I belong to any ministry. Let me serve from what You provide rather than trying to manufacture something from myself.”

The sheep need a shepherd, but the shepherd also needs the Shepherd.

And perhaps the servant who has spent years telling everyone else to come to the fountain needs to hear the invitation again himself:

Come and drink.