The OFRBG comment is the thing (we know the long term average departure rate must be less than or equal to the long term average arrival rate). But here is some more intuition:
Consider an $M/M/1$ queue with $0 < \lambda < \mu$. Define $\rho = \lambda /\mu$. The steady state distribution is $p_k = (1-\rho)\rho^k$ for $k \in \\{0, 1, 2, \ldots\\}$, where $p_k$ is the steady state probability of being in state $k$. Thus, $p_0=Pr[\mbox{idle}] = 1-\rho$. Now suppose we arrive at a time $t$ when the system is in steady state. Let $T$ be the remaining time to the next departure. Let's calculate $E[T]$ by conditioning on whether or not the system is busy at time $t$:
\begin{align} E[T] &= E[T|\mbox{busy}]\rho + ET|\mbox{idle}\\\ &= (1/\mu)\rho + (1/\lambda + 1/\mu)(1-\rho) \\\ &= 1/\lambda \end{align}