#420: When You’re Running Hard But Getting Nowhere: A Year-End Reflection on Burnout, Self-Doubt, & God’s Silence

Kevin Lowe: Am I any better off here at the end of the year than I was at the beginning?

Kevin Lowe: My friend, if you've been wrestling with any of those questions, then this is the episode for you.

Kevin Lowe: Because today I'm sharing my own personal journey, wrestling with these very feelings.

Kevin Lowe: This idea of what's any of it worth?

Kevin Lowe: And do I want to continue doing what I'm doing, what I've been doing?

Kevin Lowe: Or should I maybe make a change? And how do I know if I should make a change when I keep praying and I feel like I'm not hearing from God?

Kevin Lowe: What do I do then? What does it say about me that I don't know?

Kevin Lowe: What does it say about me that I feel like I'm not hearing from God?

Kevin Lowe: I'm not having the clarity. All of that is what is inside of today's episode So my friend, if you need just a good, old, heartfelt, rambling conversation With a friend who gets you, who feels you Well then, my friend, you are exactly where you're meant to be This is episode 420 of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: What's up, my friend, and welcome back to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: I am your host, Kevin Lowe. And my friend, if we have not met, well, first and foremost, I am excited you are here.

Kevin Lowe: And you might be wondering, who the heck is Kevin Lowe? And why should I even be listening to him?

Kevin Lowe: Well, who am I? I am a speaker, an inspirational public speaker.

Kevin Lowe: I'm also, of course, the creator and host of this very podcast.

Kevin Lowe: But more than any of that, I'm just a guy on a mission to use what I've been through to hopefully be a benefit to somebody else.

Kevin Lowe: And today, I hope that somebody else is you.

Kevin Lowe: 22 years ago, I woke up to be left completely blind.

Kevin Lowe: Literally in the blink of an eye, everything in my world changed.

Kevin Lowe: And I was faced with the unthinkable, a life without sight.

Kevin Lowe: Now, I could have chosen to allow this to ruin my life, but instead, I chose to let it be a catalyst to send me into a new life, a new world.

Kevin Lowe: Not one that I chose, but one with a greater purpose, a mission, to use what I've been through to be a help to somebody else.

Kevin Lowe: And that is why I'm here. That is why I speak on stage.

Kevin Lowe: That is why I have this podcast.

Kevin Lowe: So now today, though, we're getting real about reflection.

Kevin Lowe: And there is one thing that is for sure, is that when the year is coming to a close, we tend to find ourselves reflecting back on the year that was.

Kevin Lowe: This just so happens to be the year that was 2025.

Kevin Lowe: Now, here's where it gets a little bit dicey. because as much as we would love to think that we get to look back on life, to look back on the year and think of all the amazing things that we accomplished, all the goals we achieved, all the dreams that came true, the plans that worked out, yep, scratch all of that because more times than not, the time of reflecting here at the end of the year, it leaves us depressed, disappointed, realizing, what the heck did I do this year?

Kevin Lowe: And that is where today is going. Because, my friend, I've done this very thing.

Kevin Lowe: I've done the reflecting.

Kevin Lowe: And it ain't been pretty, let me just say, that.

Kevin Lowe: Yes, I am no exception. I am not excluded from this horrible death circle of a trap we can go down about reflecting on the year that was.

Kevin Lowe: A year of a lot of things happening, but were they for any big reason? Did we go anywhere?

Kevin Lowe: And so the metaphor I want to use to represent how I've been feeling, and maybe you can relate, is the treadmill.

Kevin Lowe: Yes, my friend, the almighty treadmill, the one piece of exercise equipment we all know. We've all bought our own back in the day from Walmart.

Kevin Lowe: We've all jumped on board one at the gym.

Kevin Lowe: And you know how it goes. You get on the treadmill and you start walking.

Kevin Lowe: Maybe you crank up the dial. Maybe you get up to a little jog.

Kevin Lowe: Maybe you're in an all-out sprint. Like you are sprinting for the finish line.

Kevin Lowe: And you're going. You're working it. You're building up a sweat.

Kevin Lowe: You got your headphones in. You're listening to your music. You're loving it.

Kevin Lowe: You know you are burning some calories.

Kevin Lowe: You're working on them leg muscles. You got it going on.

Kevin Lowe: And baby, before you know it, you've been on that treadmill for how long? 30 minutes, an hour.

Kevin Lowe: You have been kicking butt. But you know what's the really sad thing at the end of all that?

Kevin Lowe: Is all that running? Where did you go?

Kevin Lowe: You're still in the same place. You're in the exact place you were when you stepped on that treadmill.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, if that doesn't feel like life sometimes, I don't know what else does.

Kevin Lowe: Because for myself, I feel like life can be a treadmill.

Kevin Lowe: We are constantly running, sprinting, sometimes walking, sometimes power walking.

Kevin Lowe: Other times we get up to a jog and we're doing it and we're going through the motions. We're doing all the things.

Kevin Lowe: And yet, what do we have to show for it?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, maybe we've got some life experience. We've learned some things along the way. But have we gone anywhere?

Kevin Lowe: Am I anywhere different than I was at the beginning of the year?

Kevin Lowe: For myself, this is what I've been dealing with. And it's why I'm talking about this is because I've had to ask myself the difficult questions of why am I doing what I'm doing?

Kevin Lowe: What does any of it matter? The dreams that I have, the goals that I set, why did I have those goals?

Kevin Lowe: What makes me think that those dreams I had were going to come true?

Kevin Lowe: And what does it say about me that the dreams didn't come true?

Kevin Lowe: Is that that I'm a failure? Is there something wrong with me?

Kevin Lowe: And that is where I sit. Today, I don't pretend to have all the answers.

Kevin Lowe: More so, I want today to be an opportunity for me to hopefully connect with you.

Kevin Lowe: Somebody who maybe is feeling like this as well. Where you feel like you've been on a treadmill.

Kevin Lowe: For this past year, heck, for the past five years, 10 years, where you're putting in the work, you're doing all the things, but you feel like you don't have anything to show for it.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, if you feel like that, trust me when I say I am right there with you.

Kevin Lowe: I feel like I've been on the treadmill next to you this entire time.

Kevin Lowe: Now, yes, if we want to be all positive, which I try to be.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, we've learned a lot. We've gained a lot.

Kevin Lowe: But if we want to talk about tangible things, money in the bank, experiences had, what do we have to show for it?

Kevin Lowe: For myself, I don't feel like a whole lot.

Kevin Lowe: And it's been frustrating. And it's been discouraging.

Kevin Lowe: And it's been leading me to really think about life, of what exactly do I want?

Kevin Lowe: Because here's the thing. back to the treadmill, a lot of times we're on the treadmill and we're going through life and we just keep going because it's what we've been doing and it's normal. It's routine.

Kevin Lowe: We just fall in line. We get up each morning and we don't think about the actions we take.

Kevin Lowe: We just do it. We're on autopilot. But what if we decide to stop the treadmill, to turn off this normal routine?

Kevin Lowe: Because we start to wonder, why am I doing what I'm doing?

Kevin Lowe: What is any of it worth? Does any of it really matter to anyone?

Kevin Lowe: These are the questions I've been battling with everything that I've been pursuing.

Kevin Lowe: And I'm talking about even this very podcast.

Kevin Lowe: I've been doing this podcast for over five years.

Kevin Lowe: Five and a half years I've been going strong.

Kevin Lowe: And I've started to wonder, but is it for anything?

Kevin Lowe: Does it really matter to anyone? Yeah.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, I see the numbers on my dashboard. When I log in to view the analytics and I see that I have people tuning in and listening from all over the world, one of which is you, which, hey, thank you for being here.

Kevin Lowe: But I have to wonder, does it really matter?

Kevin Lowe: Is anything that I'm saying actually making a difference in anyone's life? I don't know.

Kevin Lowe: It's kind of hard when I'm just here talking into a microphone, putting something out onto the World Wide Web, onto your Apple podcast.

Kevin Lowe: That's as far as I get to go. I don't get to talk to you unless you're somebody who actually reaches out and emails me, who sends me a message.

Kevin Lowe: I have no idea who I'm talking to. I have no idea if any of this matters.

Kevin Lowe: And so I've been wrestling with the idea of, do I continue doing what I've been doing?

Kevin Lowe: Do I continue running on the same treadmill in the hopes that it's going to turn into something?

Kevin Lowe: It's going to mean something to me or to somebody else? Or do I think about changing tactics?

Kevin Lowe: Do I think about jumping from the treadmill over to the elliptical machine?

Kevin Lowe: Do I skip cardio altogether and just go straight in to start pumping some weights? I don't know.

Kevin Lowe: It's the reflections at the end of the year, the stuff we all encounter.

Kevin Lowe: And this brings me to the next little point that I want to make here is that sometimes as a Christian, I hope that I could hear from God.

Kevin Lowe: Because the fact is true is that at the point I'm at in my life right now, even though there's a lot of things that I want and I dream about, to be honest, I'm tired of chasing after my own dreams and goals.

Kevin Lowe: Because for me personally, it feels like everything that I keep chasing after doesn't work out.

Kevin Lowe: I don't end up achieving what I wanted to achieve.

Kevin Lowe: I feel like more doors are closed than open.

Kevin Lowe: I feel like opportunities are lacking.

Kevin Lowe: And sometimes I just wonder, God, what do you want for me? What do you want me to do?

Kevin Lowe: And to be honest, that's what matters to me at this point in my life, is I just want to do what God wants me to do.

Kevin Lowe: Because at the end of the day, my friend, at this point in my life, having gone through what I have, the only thing that matters to me right now.

Kevin Lowe: Is that when my life is over and I go to heaven, I just want God to be proud of me.

Kevin Lowe: That I did exactly what he hoped I would do.

Kevin Lowe: That's what I want for my life. But that brings me to the issue that I've been battling with.

Kevin Lowe: Is when we want to know what God has in store for us, but we can't hear him.

Kevin Lowe: People say with the best of intentions for us to just get quiet and to listen to God. and to follow His lead.

Kevin Lowe: But my friend, that can be such frustrating advice because I don't know about you, but God does not have an on-off switch.

Kevin Lowe: Yes, they say that you have to take time to get quiet, to just sit and listen to God.

Kevin Lowe: But I don't know if you've ever felt like you've heard God's voice before, But for me, it's never, ever come when I've been silent, when I've been really wanting to hear from God.

Kevin Lowe: No, it's never happened like that.

Kevin Lowe: Instead, it happens in just the normal day-to-day chaos of life.

Kevin Lowe: Matter of fact, there was one day in particular, one situation.

Kevin Lowe: It was just a normal day, middle of the afternoon.

Kevin Lowe: I'm standing in my kitchen, cutting up a grapefruit.

Kevin Lowe: And all of a sudden, God spoke to me like I'd never had God speak to me before.

Kevin Lowe: The Holy Spirit just completely took over my body.

Kevin Lowe: I was saying something out loud that I swore I would never say.

Kevin Lowe: This particular situation was forgiving someone who had done harm to my family, who I swore I would never forgive.

Kevin Lowe: And yet right there in my kitchen, cutting up a grapefruit, I forgave them.

Kevin Lowe: It wasn't me even speaking.

Kevin Lowe: It was God speaking through me, the Holy Spirit.

Kevin Lowe: I've been witness to God performing what I would call miracles.

Kevin Lowe: I've been witness to literally my sister being in a hospital, us thinking that she was about to die to literally watching her before our very eyes sit up in bed and be ready to go home.

Kevin Lowe: I know God is real. And I know that God performs amazing things in our lives.

Kevin Lowe: And I know that God can speak to us.

Kevin Lowe: But it can be so frustrating sometimes when people can act like it's so easy.

Kevin Lowe: And it can make you feel like there's something wrong with you, that there's something wrong with your faith, with your relationship with your creator, that you're not hearing God.

Kevin Lowe: They say to just listen to God and do what God says you should do.

Kevin Lowe: But my friend, it's not that easy.

Kevin Lowe: And what I want to do right now is to be sure that you understand that if you've been in the same situation as me, where you want to hear from God, but you're not.

Kevin Lowe: You're not hearing from Him. You don't know what you're supposed to do.

Kevin Lowe: Every decision you've made in your life feels like it's always been the wrong decision.

Kevin Lowe: Even the ones that you think.

Kevin Lowe: God is leading you in that direction, and yet they still don't work out.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, I just want you to know that I understand exactly how you feel.

Kevin Lowe: When you feel like you're just being led astray, and you pray, and you ask God to give you direction, to speak truth to you, to let you understand what to do, and yet it just feels like God is silent.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, I understand how that feels.

Kevin Lowe: And I don't really have an answer for you or me.

Kevin Lowe: Other than the fact that what I've learned in my own life, in my own faith journey, is that God does speak to us.

Kevin Lowe: But rarely ever does it come across like people make it seem to be.

Kevin Lowe: We're in the perfect situation while you're quietly just sitting in your living room.

Kevin Lowe: Sipping your morning cup of coffee, meditating, reading the Bible.

Kevin Lowe: No, instead, it just comes out of nowhere in the middle of an afternoon with the TV on, you standing in your kitchen cutting up a grapefruit.

Kevin Lowe: Or driving down the highway in the middle of your normal everyday life.

Kevin Lowe: Maybe it's a song that comes on, a song that you've heard a hundred times before, but all of a sudden this time you hear the song differently.

Kevin Lowe: The lyrics that are spoken are as if they're being sung by you.

Kevin Lowe: It's like God came through in that song, in those lyrics.

Kevin Lowe: God came through in the sunrise. We're all of a sudden, the same sunrise you've seen every day of your life. It just hits differently.

Kevin Lowe: You have a whole new outlook on life. It's like you're seeing your future for the first time.

Kevin Lowe: Those are the little moments when God speaks to us. And we need to not discount them, that they're God.

Kevin Lowe: They are God, 110%. So my friend, I guess what I want for you to get out of today's episode is the understanding that if you're feeling like this year has been a big fat failure, if you're feeling like you've been stuck on a treadmill for the past five years, if you're feeling like you just wish that God heard you, you're not alone in any of those feelings.

Kevin Lowe: And all I can say is what I've been telling myself, is that right now, you just need to have hope, for a better tomorrow. Don't lose hope. Hope in a better year. We're almost into 2026.

Kevin Lowe: Now, what does a turn of a calendar really mean?

Kevin Lowe: I don't know, but we put a lot of weight on it. So we're just going to go with it.

Kevin Lowe: It's a new year. It's a new day, a new opportunity.

Kevin Lowe: And so to you and to me, let's not give up on life.

Kevin Lowe: Let's not give up on the chance to make those dreams come true.

Kevin Lowe: Let's just keep fighting the fight, doing the thing, and let's see where we get in the end.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, if at any point you would love to connect with me, maybe something I said today resonated, something you'd love to talk with me about, please check out today's show notes where you can find links and information on how you can contact me.

Kevin Lowe: You can also just go to my website, which is gritgraceinspiration.com.

Kevin Lowe: Pretty easy. Just the name of the podcast.

Kevin Lowe: Gritgraceinspiration.com. That is a easy way for you to be able to get in touch with me.

Kevin Lowe: And lastly, but not least, My friend, make 2025 a year to remember by just focusing on this month. We got one month left to go.

Kevin Lowe: Spend it with the people you love. Do some fun things.

Kevin Lowe: And remember to keep tuning in to this podcast as episodes are going to continue to drop all the way up through the end of the year and beyond.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and this, of course, is Grit, Grace and Inspiration.