One morning, as I was walking in the Catskill Mountains in New York, I witnessed an unforgettable sight. I was resting, sitting on a rock by an algae-covered pool. Lazily, while mosquitoes engaged in a never-ending dance close to the surface, I watched the dragon flies dance close to the reeds. A frog sunned himself on a partially submerged rock out in the center of the pool. Suddenly, I was wide awake. Something was happening to the frog. Before my eyes, it collapsed... not falling over, but deflating like a balloon with a slow leak. It finally lay in a dreadful crumpled head of frog skin; its insides were completely gone!
It was only then that I saw the killer. A giant water bug had bitten the frog, injecting it with a substance that dissolved its insides. Then he had proceeded to suck out the inside of the frog, leaving the skin like an empty grocery back on the rock.
Many believers are like this frog... there is something sucking the life and vitality out of them. They are spiritually drained, their thoughts have become negative and cynical. Bitter and resentful, God seems very far away. They are spiritually burned out. - Malcolm Smith, Spiritual Burnout, p. 16
