Rest for the Spiritual Workaholic

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Welcome back into the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Will here joined as always by Jack and Joe Wilkie, as we are basically fully immersed into the best season of the year, the fall season. All things football. It's obviously hoodie weather. It's. Sorry, Jack. Spice weather. Yeah. Apple pie. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Great time of year. We know that everybody's got a lot going on, but if you're tuning in, we really appreciate it. Whether it's on Apple Podcasts or YouTube or however. Or Spotify, however you listen to your podcast would encourage you to subscribe, if you have not already, to leave us a rating. Leave us a review. Like all the things that normal podcasters talk about that we pretty much never do. So, yeah, subscribe. Like all those things. We really appreciate you listening. We're getting into a topic today that hopefully is going to be incredibly relevant for just about everybody who's listening. This is not something that is going to be like a. A hot news item. You know, last week we covered a somewhat viral tweet that had a lot of applications to our Christian life. This one, this episode is. Is going to be more just kind of an overarching concept that once again, should apply to everybody. And that is we're talking rest, rest, work. How to know, is it something that. An interesting question I want to get into is like, these days, do people need more rest or less rest? And kind of what. How does that look both in the home with your family and then also the, you know, just in the church and, like, service at the church. And so, Joe, I'm going to hand it to you first, actually, because this is an idea that you brought to the table. I'm really looking forward to getting into the kind of the practical side of things with this. And. Yeah. Any introductory thoughts that you have? [00:01:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So where this comes from, full disclosure, there are times where you just feel somewhat out of it. You know, we talk a lot on this podcast. We have a lot of takes on serving the church, helping the church, not being a consumer, you know, consumer Christianity, having people over, being busy at your church and just being involved. It's not always just signing up for every last program, but it's being involved and helping out and looking for ways to encourage people and showing up, you know, consistently with a, you know, an opportunity to serve and whatever way. And there are also just times where it's like, man, just showing up to church seems to be the most you can do. It seems to be the best you can do and full disclosure, like, yeah, this has hit at times in my life where. And that's kind of where this comes from, is more kind of processing through it, thinking through it, you know, way things that maybe we've learned in the past, things that we've come to now as to is there ever a time to sit back, you know, after church or after whatever it may be, and to not always have to go, go, go, go, go and do things and have everybody over versus, you know, looking forward to those things and being built up by those things. And so I wanted to really explore in this episode that maybe the fine line between resting from some of that and enjoying some of that, you know, finding maybe rest in some of those things and how we can still show up. It's basically, this was based on church work more than anything else. But we want to get into personal lives, what that may look like, but a lot of this is going to surround church work. How much do you engage a church all the time. Is there ever a time to. To rest, to sit back? And so we're going to look at some scriptures and things along those lines. So that's where that comes from is, no, I'm not always at my best. Sometimes it's the best you can do is show up to church. But if that's all you ever do and that's all you're ever at, you know, in three years, the best you can do is still show up to church. I'd say something's wrong. So that's also something we want to dig into, of how much is too much. You know, what. What are the signs to look for in terms of I'm getting much needed rest versus okay, now we're just lazy. Now we're just drifting away from people and God. So there's a lot of questions to get into, but. Jack, any introductory thoughts? [00:04:03] Speaker C: Yeah, some people just kind of have that DNA and this is something our family has, and a lot of people do that rest is hard. Continuing going, working is almost easier. It's just like, I'll just. I'll find something to do, I'll busy myself. And so you can kind of get addicted to that and not be good at resting. And it does burn you out. And, you know, you can get embittered by it. You just run down, but you keep going. And it's like if you do that to your body, like if you, you know, runners or lifting or things like that, fasting, you're going to hit a point where it's like, okay, this is Getting kind of tough. And if you just keep going because that's all you know what to do, it's going to cost you. And it's kind of the same thing for rest. I mean, God created rest. We're going to talk about some of those things here in a bit and what Jesus had to say. And if you can't ever find that in your life, if you're one of those people that just one of the things, you can't let other people do something for you. You can't let go of control of certain things. You. You don't feel worthwhile if you're not contributing in some way. Those are, I mean, that, that is a. It's not something that everybody has. Some people like, they kind of are maybe drift towards not doing enough and they need to kind of get a kick in the pants sometimes. Other times it's. You really do need to figure out a way to slow down and it's not healthy spiritually. I mean, it's the Martha, Mary, and again, a lot of the scriptures we're going to talk about here in a bit. But yeah, I'm glad you brought this topic up because, man, even vacation wise, I can't be gone for more than two days where I'm like, all right, where's my work? Give me my stuff. I got to be doing something. And that's really not great. [00:05:45] Speaker A: That's why I'm coming off vacation. And I had this thought and it's like, because vacation wasn't near the rest that I was hoping it would be for this reason. I don't do well resting. I'm not good at it. I don't like it. You know, it's always to the next thing, to the next thing, the next thing. But then again, I've hit burnout, you know, plenty of times. I don't know where I stand on burnout right now. But, you know, I've certainly hit this in the past. Like, this is a very personal. I guess that's what we're saying is this is a very personal thing for us. Kind of. If this is not your thing and you're not into this, you know, and you're like, hey, that's not a problem for me. That's great. If you are great at resting, stick around and maybe teach us, you know, a few things or whatever on your comments because we'd love to hear it. On the other hand, we realize maybe this isn't a struggle for everybody, but I think there's a lot here for most people in terms of what rest should look like. [00:06:28] Speaker B: Well, this episode is going to be for a very unique set of people in that one of the problems that I've had just in the past as far as like pet peeves and just kind of things that don't sit well with me is kind of the opposite of this. People that rest too much. Like, essentially, like, I'm pretty sure you could, you could put a little more effort in, you know, whether that be, you know, at church or, you know, you hear people say things like, you know, I just, you know, I don't. Well, people set boundaries or whatever and [00:06:56] Speaker A: like, you know, kind of protect your, you know, protect yourself, your time, protect [00:06:59] Speaker B: your weekends or, you know, just like. And so that's kind of one side of the coin. And it's the side of the coin that I generally tend to focus on making sure that, you know, I completely avoid, which is the person who, you know, man, I had a seven hour shift today at work. Like, man, poor you, I hate that for you type of thing, you know, like, and I know that's a dramatic example, but like, I don't know the, the, the people who I think rest too much. And so obviously that's not the focus of this episode is the opposite of that. The people who, you know, you know, those of us who feel like you never get a minute because here, here's the struggle. Joe and Jack as well. But Joe, I think you and I are kind of in a similar boat here right now. When you are filling your schedule, work is, is just an absolute load. Got a family to raise. On top of that, you got kids to disciple, you got podcasts to record, you got all these things. What is generally the number one area that gets sacrificed? Like, well, I just don't have much time for that. Generally. It is church stuff, right? It is going to be that I just can't make it to the men's Saturday breakfast. I can't make it to the door knocking night. I can't make it to. And that's not always the case, but I know for me right now like 55, 60, 65 hour weeks, you know, distributed amongst different things really makes it to where it's really, I mean, hospitality is another one we talk about all the time on this podcast that usually goes out the windows. One of the first things goes out the window. And so just to kind of contextualize exactly why this is such a big deal. And again, this is maybe a bit of a vulnerable, vulnerable episode because this is hitting us right now. Jack certainly you as well, with the recent additions to your family, going from four kids to six, church service, hospitality, involvement in church, that's usually one of the first things to go because you can't lose. You can't use it, lose your job, so that doesn't go. You better not lose your family, so that doesn't go. It's the, you know, the hobbies, the free time, the, you know, those things that probably should go. But oftentimes it is the church stuff. So that's kind of, I guess my main interest. Introductory thoughts is kind of. That's why I think this is such a necessary episode, is like, how do you overcome that? How do you not make that be the. The first thing that goes? And is it. Is it okay that that is the first thing that goes during certain stretches of life? [00:09:17] Speaker A: I think that might be the key question to kind of kick us off. Is there ever a time where you can put church work on the back burner? And I don't know, that's saying it feels wrong, saying it's like, whoa, hey, you know, it's putting God on the back burner. I think there may be a difference between God and church work at times. For instance, you got a trunk or treat coming out. You know what? That's. I'm sorry, I'm not going to put that on the, you know, my relationship with God per se. But it is something that the church is putting on. There is a difference. [00:09:46] Speaker B: It's a church involvement thing. [00:09:47] Speaker A: It's a church involvement thing. We talk all the time on this podcast about making sure that. That we are showing up and not the one that's missing every last thing. As we said, like, we've talked plenty on the problems of church programs and everything else, but at the end of the day, yeah, by and large, we try to be there when the doors are open. We try to do the things that church is doing. We try to be involved in ministries. To your point, Will, Jack, I think you actually do better than me and Will on this in terms of, you know, engaging on the church work and stepping into these? Because I'm not. I have not been fantastic in this area and it has become a struggle. Is there a time where that's legitimate and scripturally speaking, I mean, we could. That's kind of what I want to dig into is like, can we point to scripture and show there's a time where we can put some of those things on the back burner for a time? Or do we subtly slowly fall into an Ephesians 2:4, you've lost your first love, you know, and where is the line on those things? That's kind of what I want to get into. [00:10:40] Speaker C: That came to mind was Mark 6. Jesus had sent the apostles out. They had gone and done some ministering. And it says in verse 30, they reported to him all they had done and taught. Verse 31, he said to them, come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while. For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves. And I think that sets a really good precedent there of. You don't. You're not the guy who's like, man, I haven't done a lot, but I could sure use some rest. Like, they just went and worked really hard, and there's a lot of demand on them. And Jesus said, all right, you guys need some rest. That's good. Hey, get away from everybody. Pull back. Nobody's gonna. We're gonna make it to where nobody can ask of anything from you right now. And even Jesus himself tried to do that at times and, you know, to varying degrees of success. But getting away from somebody demanding something of him, somebody needs something of something he needs to do for somebody else. And I think that's a good example in this discussion. [00:11:40] Speaker B: This is Joe, to answer your question directly, you know, kind of the. Is there ever time some of this we understand naturally, right? Jack, your wife just had. Just had twins. Special announcement. I don't think we posted on Facebook yet. My wife's pregnant. There are going to be, you know, obviously, when. When a woman has a baby, like, there's not a lot expected from a. Hey, you got. You got to get up and be productive. Let's go. You know, got to have people over, gotta do all this stuff. Right? That's kind of naturally understood. There's other times as well. I'm trying to think, you know, my. My family right now is dealing with some. My grandfather's got some pretty severe health issues, and so my dad is just being a saint and kind of taking care of him. It's. It's not even his dad, it's my wife's dad. And just. He's taking a lot of time off and helping with that. Understandable. Right. Like, those are certain. You know, those are times in life where it's like, yeah, we're not going to demand you get up and be productive or being involved in, you know, or, you know, do a lot of production for the church, necessarily. Here's the question. And I'll turn it back around to you. How far does that extend? So, you know, got. Got a young kid, you know, woman has a baby. Man. In some instances, toddlers are more challenging than a newborn. So does the lack of involvement extend all the way through to when, by the time they're done being toddlers? Well, okay. And then you're getting into, you know, maybe, you know, seven, eight, nine year olds. That's challenging. They got stuff going on. And then when teenagers are hard. And so what you could get into is like, you know what? I just don't really have a lot of time for church involvement until my kids are graduated. Like, well, that's 18 plus years. And so, like, we know it doesn't extend that long. That's just kind of the best. I'm sure there's other examples of, like, man, I just got a lot going on at work. Like, yeah, when does pe. When do people not have a lot going on at work? Like, I would love to find the job where it's like, yeah, I actually don't have a lot going on at work. Everybody always has a lot going on at work. And so that's kind of what. And I know I'm kind of now diverting back to the thing that I said. I have a problem with people the most at first is kind of. It's the Brian Wilkie line. Everybody's looking for a good excuse. Everybody's kind of looking for a good excuse to rest. But that's. I think the. The challenging question is when I think there are natural times in life where, yes, Joe, to answer your question, those things can take a back burner and probably should take a back burner when you've got young kids that you're working with. My wife's starting to homeschool this year. Like, I'm okay with her maybe not having three people over a month because she's homeschooling Jackson. How far does that line go? That's the challenge. Sorry, go ahead. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Right. Well, no, I think. I think you're right. The. A couple things come to mind. You got to think about what's driving the rest and what's the reason for the rest. So if the rest is driven by, let's say, you know, you've been through church trauma or whatever, and you're just bitter about everything. I'm not doing anything. You know, there's anger, there's contempt, there's protests. There's. There's, you know, this bitterness of, no, the church doesn't deserve My help. Okay, well that's, you know, that's not rest as much as that's just again, a protest. But some people may look at that as I'm taking a step back from all church activity. And if they check their heart, really what's driving it is, is a strong negativity about the church and about people and grudges and things along those lines versus a short time of I'm really snowed under. What is the purpose? What's the reason for this rest? The reason should be for me to process through, get through to a different place, ask for the help in the times that I need it to say, maybe this is my time in life. I think about like having kids, right, Getting married, some big life events that take place. That's not your time to necessarily step in and, you know, run the ladies day and everything else that may be a time for you to receive. So what's the purpose of the rest? For me to get what I need so I can go then, you know, be able to return and help others. Is there a time period on that? No, but it certainly has a definite outcome in mind. Whereas the indefinite rest of like, I'm just always snowed under, at some point you have to look up and go, if I'm always snowed under, that probably says something about me and am I asking help? You know, asking for help, bear one another's burdens, thereby fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:1. Do people know your burdens are in. And here's another big thing, and we talked about this before, but most people aren't willing to get help. And a big part of rest is to recognize I need help. I need people to be able to step in and take some things for me. I can't run the ladies days the same. I can't do all the things maybe that I used to or for the guys, I can't get up and lead, you know, DeVos all the time. Like, I got a lot on my plate. I am going to take a step back for a second and rest. But I also need people to step in into help from time to time. When you have kids, you need a lot of help, especially twins like Jack. I mean, you know, need a lot of help with that is that's not the time to go in and lead the charge on everything in church, but it's first set time so you can get life back under control and back into rhythm. So to me, I feel like the reason for it and what drives it speaks a lot to the Duration, the length of, of how long this rest is going to. Does that make sense? [00:16:21] Speaker C: It does. And I think this is one of these that again, you got the example in Jesus. Another one that comes to mind is Leviticus, I mean, Deuteronomy, where newly married men are exempted from military service for a year. So it says they can go home and be happy with their wife is what it says. I mean, like that's your time of rest. It's not time for you to. And so God acknowledges that. I think even if you look at nature, the days are getting shorter, it's darker outside. It's things like that. It's a time to be inside, to be cozy. You're not going to get as much done. Like there's, it's, I mean, the hibernation kind of thing. We don't hibernate as humans, but there is a, an element of that, of like sometimes you dial it back, the holidays are coming up, it's colder. It's things like that, the way your body responds to less sunlight. And I mean, like those are real things. And that God instituted that, that God instituted the week. I think it's a very healthy thing to realize. You think about the week itself. 6 out of 7 shout out to Gen Alpha. 6 out of 7 days are given toward work. And so most of your life should be work. But a full seventh of it, which is a decent chunk, is rest, is pulling back. We did an episode on kind of not so much a Sabbath, but a day of rest kind of thing. And the good that that is. So if it's part of your week, if there's part of the seasons of the year, it should also be seasons of your life. And I think all of this indicates God very much intended for us to do this. And we're not helping ourselves when we, you know, power through and go, no, I got it, I got it, I'll be fine. Hey folks, I wanted to tell you about our new Christian book combo. It's two books [email protected] the first is Sunday School Catch Up. It's 150 Bible basics for those that maybe didn't grow up in the church or feel like they're lacking in the fundamentals of the Bible. And then starting line by Dr. Brad Harrop and of course by Will on that one as well, on the basics of the Christian life, of what it means to be a Christian, to be part of the church, why the church does what it does, some doctrinal basics and things like that. And so with Those two books, we've got them at a discount on our site when you buy them together. A great starter pack for anyone who wants to know more about the Christian faith. So check that out [email protected] [00:18:40] Speaker A: I think that's a great point. You go back to even the land resting, you know, they couldn't rest. They can't do the crops every single year. It's like the land needs a year to rest. Is it every seven years, you know where there'd be that. [00:18:51] Speaker B: The seventh year. [00:18:52] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. Seventh year, you know, a seventh. I think there's that. I think the. Historically speaking, most of human history, people stored up for the winter in winter was staying inside their house and staying warm, you know, and reading books and things along those lines for, for the Vikings and whatnot. You know, I mean, like, you're inside your house, there's not a whole lot you're going to be doing in the. In the middle of winter because crops don't grow. And so you literally would be resting for months on end, just staying warm and trying to keep everybody alive and rationing food. Maybe going out hunting. If you were in the area, that could do it. That's it. Until the light bulb gets invented and then it's go, go, go, go, go, go. We could stay up till. However we still have till three in the morning. Doesn't matter. You know, just keep it burning type of thing. People didn't function that way for thousands of years. This has been within the Industrial Revolution, really, since the 1800s, that we've started to think that we can just work all the time. We're not better off for it. Our lack of rest, the be still and know that I am God or cease striving, as some translations say. That concept does not exist in our culture. And I think that's where a lot of the burnout comes from. That's where a lot of the spiritual burnout, quote unquote, as people talk about an exhaustion. I think it comes from that concept. [00:19:59] Speaker C: You're trying to even talk about the Unabomber again. Joe, [00:20:03] Speaker B: we talked about this in our this the Sabbath or day of rest episode several months back. Now, about the Chick Fil A model and how, you know, they are losing untold hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars by closing on Sunday. And yet that is, they are kind of heralded for that reason. I used to work, you know, fresh out of. Fresh into my marriage. Worked at a. At a place where it was 18 hours a day, seven days a week. You know, I didn't work all that, but like our, our operation ran seven days a week for 18 hours a day. And as somebody who was heavily involved in the operation, like it was, it was taxing. And so when I, you know, became a minister and you know, kind of obviously you still kind of working on Sundays, even as a minister. When I started Chick Fil A, it's like, oh man, we are just completely off. There is nothing to do on, on Sundays. Nothing to do. Like, there is an element of. It is a. Just a wonderful reset. Obviously, for us Christians, we're worshiping God, but like, man, it is such a, it's so cool that a business like that. And there's others. I know Hobby Lobby does that and they're, you know, obviously a lot of the smaller kind of mom and pop places will close on Sundays. But the, the reason for that is the need for the human body to rest and to reset. And you know, the problem that you get into is you can, the church can kind of over program itself to where, okay, Sunday's the day of rest. But we've got three events on Sunday. We got something that Sunday afternoon at 2 o', clock, we've got a 4 o' clock meeting and then we got a potluck. It's, you know, 30 after evening worship. And it's like, well, there went the whole day of rest. And so that's the challenge because none of us here are saying that you should not be or want to be involved. It's your local congregation. Jack wrote a whole book on that, for goodness sakes, about the, the dangers of consumer Christianity and just, hey, what's in it for me? And I don't really want to try. I don't want to put into the system at all. I don't want to give. I don't want to do anything like that. Like, that's not scriptural at all. But I would argue that in this current age that we're living, Joe, that you're speaking of in spurred on by the Industrial revolution, but like the, hey, whatever we could do to make another buck being open seven days a week. Businesses that are, you know, don't take holidays. I know I mentioned in the last episode, but I, I was went through Starbucks like the week before Christmas or something like that. And just chatting with the, the person's like, oh, you know, because they know I work at you for like, you guys offer Christmas Eve? Like, yeah, we'll be off at 4. How about you guys? And he was like, full hours, full hours, Christmas Eve, full hours. Thanksgiving Day. And it's like, why? But it's just that never ending pursuit. I've got to be more productive, got to make more, got to generate more. And so I would argue, I guess my point that I'm getting at, and then I'll stop rambling is I would argue for the American Christian rest and understanding how to rest is even more of a need now than it was decades ago. And that might sound crazy because we don't do as much manual labor. We don't like, we're not as necessarily physically hard workers as Americans were 100 and 150 years ago, guys working in factories. But once again, it was not the 247 endless, you know, productivity cycle back then. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Well, and you also. They talk about slack. I've never been on slack. But you know, all of the work forums where you're getting a million messages when you look at something like that. It used to be a singular model. Hey, go shoot the animal, skin it, you know, pack it away. Pretty simple. It's step by step by step. My goal is get out here, stay quiet, shoot the animal, you know, and field dress it. Now it's like, okay, I got, I'm pulled in 20 different directions. I got this text going on, I got to put out this fire. I'm getting a phone call from my wife and kids. You know, I'm. Social media is blowing up because I posted something that's going nuts, you know, you know what I mean? Like so many distractions and things. And this leads me to think is kind of processing through this, you know, within church. How many Christians do you think if we were to kind of define burnout, I suppose as over, overly exhausted, just with life in general. How many burnt out Christians do you think are out there? And I wonder? We talk so much about the consumers and things along those lines and I think that is a problem. I think laziness can be a huge problem and all of us to some degree I'm sure can, can get there. I also do wonder if all of this kind of sits heavy on everybody. I was talking, I was talking the other day with mom and dad about this and I'm going to sound crazy for this. I feel like there was almost a [00:24:21] Speaker B: timeline hot take with Joe or. [00:24:22] Speaker A: No, it's a weird. [00:24:23] Speaker B: It's an off the wall idea. [00:24:24] Speaker A: It's an off the wall idea. I feel like it Covid. There was almost a break in reality. Have you guys ever seen the Community episode with the multiple timelines? Basically, you know, there's all these different timelines. So the. The everybody knows the gif of Troy walking in with the pizzas and everything's on fire. It's from that episode. And it's. The bad timeline is really what it is. And it's almost like at Covid, there's a timeline shift where nobody remembers. It's really bizarre. Nobody remembers how to be busy and still enjoy life. I grew up. We grew up. [00:24:56] Speaker B: So you think Covid was the line of demarcation. [00:24:59] Speaker A: I feel like Covid almost was this. We all grew up. I look back at my childhood unbelievably busy, and yet you didn't think a thing about it. It's just what you. It's what you did. We still had time for rest. We still watched movies together as a family. We still had a million and one things we can say. Social media and things like that have done it. I'm hardly on social media, and I feel busier than ever. And I look back at my childhood and it's like we were twice as busy in our childhood and I never felt it once. Everybody I talked to now, everybody I talk to now feels unbelievably busy. And we have no idea how we used to do it. [00:25:30] Speaker C: Things interesting because we got locked in our homes. I remember we had a lot of [00:25:34] Speaker A: people did rest for weeks. [00:25:36] Speaker C: Yeah, we had family zoom chats right where our sister in Oklahoma. I was in Texas. You were in Colorado. Mom and dad. Rachel. Like, everybody was. We would just, hey, everyone, get your dinner and sit down and let's all zoom together like once every couple of weeks or whatever. That obviously isn't happening anymore. But it was that we went out, we took walks around the neighborhood and the neighbors were out taking walks and we'd say hi to them and all that kind of stuff. That you had time to do that for the first time ever, then that went away and you went back to this more frenzied than ever before kind of thing because you were making up for lost time or whatever. And now it's the constant connection, whatever it may be. I think there's something to that. I think it was like we actually got a taste of rest and recreation and just reset and then didn't ever. You're never gonna see that again. I mean, in good ways. I mean, the lockdown thing was ridiculous, but there are things like that people remember. Like people were making sourdough bread like crazy and planting gardens and things that, like, you maybe the things you always wanted. [00:26:35] Speaker B: So why did it. Why did it shift? Like, I guess what I'm getting is like what was it specifically Joe that made. Because what you're talking about is like mental switch. Like essentially kind of just a complete paradigm shift is what I'm looking for. [00:26:49] Speaker A: What Jack's hitting on I think is accurate in the fact that. And I don't know if you guys feel this way because it happened before. It's almost like it could happen again. Get while the getting's good. Everybody feels something's coming. Everybody knows the world is going in bad places. Everybody knows and sorry this is off the wall on the sepsis. No, we're thinking out loud. [00:27:05] Speaker C: Interesting stuff. [00:27:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Everybody knows the world is in a negative place. [00:27:09] Speaker B: We're. [00:27:09] Speaker A: We're you know over bombing Iran type of thing and they could bomb us. And he's talking about, you know, California, California get nuked. And it's craziness. And to me I think everybody feels this whole thing is unsustainable. Where the dollar's fallen off a cliff. You know we're like 40 plus trillion dollars in debt, nobody can afford a house. Things are looking poor. The election didn't go like it just. Nothing has happened the way that it was supposed to go basically since 2020. Even the good things that you know when. When I think everybody thought that this last election was going to really make some changes and it just hasn't. And so it's kind of like. Like people are losing hope and that got ripped away in a heartbeat like all of our lives and everything we had. And so it's almost like people are working from this. It could happen again. And we're all trying to like get to the finish line before something really bad happens. That's how I feel. I don't know how everybody else feels. And it weighs on you. It's just like this weight that I don't even know. It's an existential dread of sorts of like I don't know how long this whole thing's gonna last. And so you get while it gettin's good. [00:28:07] Speaker B: Did both you guys quarantine for Covid like no work for weeks on end. [00:28:13] Speaker A: Yeah see people for dad was essential. So you know we. I go out to job sites and such because you know doing underground water and sewer people still need sure those things. So I did some of that reason [00:28:23] Speaker B: I asked because I didn't quarantine at all. I was an Amazon and we our business shot through the roof. Like just everybody went home and just ordered stuff. So I didn't quarantine at all. But I'm curious Like, just to kind of carry out your kind of hypothesis here, Joe. Like. Like, was it hard then to rest? Like, was it hard then to, you know, take the two weeks or month or however long you guys took and, you know, the just hours on end of, you know, all the stuff that people were getting into puzzles and people were binging, you know, the last dance came out right around then, I think, you know, and so, like, you know, people were just watching so many different things and just finding, as you guys spoke, to connecting with nature more. Like, was it strange then? And then it's. After you, you know, people went back to work, like, just to. To kind of carry out the hypothesis a little bit more. Like, what was that like from an anecdotal side of things for y'? [00:29:08] Speaker A: All? It was bizarre. You know, it took a little while to get into it because nobody knew how long it was going to last. And so it's like, do I really want to invest in xyz? You know, Alyssa and I did a lot of color coup, you know, the sudoku with the board. I remember we bought one of those and it was like, we did that and we colored a lot. We always had something going. And so it was like, I don't know, it's what you would do for self care now, but it was one of those, I don't know how long we're going to be able to do this, but we might as well, you know, and then you kind of settle in a little more of, oh, we're going to be in our apartment for a little while longer. You know, this, we're going to have to settle in. And that's where the zoom calls come in. So it was a slow dawning of, oh, this isn't a one week thing. And so you slowly settled into it. But self care is harder than ever. Like right now, self care is really, really difficult to do. With four kids and the podcasts and, you know, obviously tons of clients and everything else, it's really difficult. It was naturally built in at that point, but it feels like life has sped up to an insane level for a lot of people. I talk with clients every day. I got, you know, pushing 40 clients a week that I talk to. A vast majority of them feel that life is spinning at a ridiculous rate. Things are happening boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, one after the other. I think that weighs on people when they walk through the doors of the church and when the church is throwing program after program thing after thing. This is where the rest idea comes in of like, maybe what people really need is the, the ability to just rest. Now, what that looks like may be maybe different. I don't know. I think some of the community church decided, hey, let's turn the, you know, the foyer into a Starbucks, basically. And we're going to have these couches where people can just come in and chill. And that's kind of a restful. I don't know. I don't know what that looks like fully as to how churches would help with it. But I also wonder if the burnout is part of the consumer Christianity problem. People don't have the bandwidth to show up and show out, as they say, and do all of these things at church. Everybody's looking best. [00:31:04] Speaker B: So let me, let me. Sorry, Jack, I don't know if you got thoughts here. [00:31:07] Speaker C: No, no, let me, let me. [00:31:09] Speaker B: To carry that out a little bit more. Go to the other side of the coin, which I know I've hit on a few times. I made the comment to my wife the other day, we were talking about some monthly study or something, and I told her, if you as a parent, and we're parents, so this would, this would, this would qualify. If you as a parent or you as a person can't. If there's a once a month event and you're like, I just don't have time for a once a month event, you might have too much stuff going on. Like, you know, and I think the context was like, there's like a Bible study or something for young people. And it was like, you know, man, are you guys able to make it like once a month? If that's something that you can't commit to, like, that. To me, that's a pretty clear occasion. Like, that's too much going on. If you can't say, hey, we're gonna make sure and set aside one Friday morning or one Friday night a month for a fanboy. And I know that might seem like it's kind of, kind of harsh, kind of like one time a month for three hours. Like there's a lot of hours in a month. There are a lot of hours in a month. And so that's what I wanted to get to kind of next with this church involvement thing. If the church is having a monthly, monthly men's Bible study, man, I just don't think I can make it really now when I, you know, when I say, when I say that, like my congregation is listening, has a men's monthly Bible study on Saturday mornings that I can't make because I'm literally working like I have to, I have to work basically every Saturday morning. I'm talking about like the, hey, I'm available. Like, I'm not working. I just, man, I got, I, I can't do it this week. I got, you know, whatever. So how do, how do you, how do we handle that? How do we handle that side of the coin once again of the, like, how much of what you're talking about, Joe? The world spinning out of control is self induced. And I'm preaching to myself here like, I plan too much. I just, you know, started my education back. Was that the smartest thing to do when I'm already working 50 hours a week? Probably not. Like, how much of that is self induced? You know what I mean? So that's, that's, that's where I think the answer might step on our toes a little bit more than we want it to. [00:33:13] Speaker C: It all depends on what is on the calendar. I mean, is it good stuff, family obligations, maybe other church things or whatever? Or is it just like, well, I feel busy, but I can't really put a finger on it, therefore I can't. Or I'm putting a lot of time into things that are kind of. People really maximize the me time kind of thing. And it's like, okay, well, hang on, that's. It's okay to have your own hobbies and some things here and there, but if that's all the time and you never have time for anyone else, that's not good. And so I think for some people, it legitimately does feel. And maybe is that busy where it's like, no, I really don't want to add one more thing a month. I just, I feel so stressed out and to the point where that just, even the thought of that is too much. But again, it's case by case. It's very hard to say for any particular person what it's going to look like. But yeah, and I don't know why it feels that way as Joe's talking about. It didn't always feel that way growing up. It didn't feel that way. People didn't talk this way. I don't feel like. And so finding a way to rest and work from your rest, well, you have to be getting rest. And as Joe said, not everyone's on social media. I think something for those of us that are, that's a big thing you gotta rest from because it's taking up mental bandwidth, things like that, that are taking up mental bandwidth. That way when you're resting, you're not actually resting. You Might be sitting on your couch at home, but you're not actually getting any rest because you're looking at stuff, you're processing things, you're engaging with people, things like that. So yeah, it's very much. What is everyone doing with their time? [00:34:52] Speaker B: There are two things I want to bring up here, Jack. You hit the first one, which is social media, I definitely think. Because the other thing is, man, you get 20 minutes to yourself and you spend 15 of it scrolling social media. You didn't really rest. You didn't, you didn't mentally rest. Here's a. Take that Joe. I'm curious your thoughts on Jack. Really you as well, because you probably embody this more than. Certainly more than either one of us, I think. And I know it's not always possible. It's certainly not possible with me right now. I think if most families, men for [00:35:23] Speaker C: work [00:35:25] Speaker B: kept their evenings open and free, I think a lot of this would, I think they'd feel more rested. I don't think the world would be spinning as fast. And I'm speaking as somebody who works two to three nights a week, every single week, plus church. So that's like five night, four or five nights that are just booked up. And I think for me that's part of the, you know, lack of feeling of rest is man, you know, get home 8, 9, 10, some cases 11 o', clock, it's like, all right, on to the next day. Like I didn't get any time to rest, you know. And you know, I understand that not everybody can work a nine to five. That, you know, a lot of people say a nine to five is a prison. Like I would take a nine to five. Like, you know, it's one of those things. I think that what I'm getting at is the nighttime where you don't have, you know, not, not even just work, but four soccer practices a week or I mean you gotta, you're gonna have every XYZ event every night. This is one of yalls arguments you've made in kind of to argue against Sunday night worship is. It's another night of the week. And you know, not to take away an hour but like hey, add to the morning, make Sunday morning three hours instead of, instead of two or whatever it is. And so that's kind of a take that I have for this. And maybe I'm just, you know, extrapolating based off of my. Or projecting based off of my life currently is that I think if, if, if most dads were home from work between five and six and Spent the next three or four hours. And it doesn't mean you gotta have family movie night every night, but it means, hey, you're setting your phone down, you're not scrolling Facebook for an hour. You are connecting with your family, cooking dinner with each other, cleaning up together, sitting on the couch, reading. Like that's restful. That is restful. Getting home late, you got practice, soccer practice till 8 o', clock, you got a work assignment to catch up on. Like that's not rest. And so no wonder we don't feel rest. So that's again, I don't want to project just based off of, you know, my life. I know a lot of people have to work nights. I think that's, that's a huge part of this problem. [00:37:20] Speaker A: I do too. I do too. I think nights are. They take it out of you where it should be. It's the same as Jack's point about winter. It's dark, you know, it's getting cooler. It's a, it's a time to just relax. It's a time to read. It's a time to be around your family. We've been reading through the Hardy Boys with the boys, you know, like it's a fun family time to be able to do that at night when I can. When I can, you know, and that's a, A lot of my nights, at least four nights of the week are late for me. Not great. That's something that I've been doing a lot of thinking about, of making sure that that's not the case. I think an underrated point here in terms of the once a month, can I make it? Will I make it? You know, am I too busy? People will make room for the things they want to make room for. [00:38:06] Speaker B: That's correct. [00:38:08] Speaker A: Why are we not wanting to make room for things at church? That, that is a, an unexplored question, I think, and we've explored it on here before. But for a lot of people, I think it's unexplored in their life. Why is this not more of a priority? Well, the difficulty is in order to get something to be a priority, you have to genuinely invest in it and want it. [00:38:22] Speaker B: Well. [00:38:22] Speaker A: In order to genuinely invest, you got to spend a lot more time. A lot of people don't want to have to spend a lot more time because that kind of violates the very first principle, which is I didn't want to spend, you know, three hours a month. So in order to really desire the three hours a month, I probably need to be spending a Lot more time just in general, so as to get closer to people, to want the relationships. And then that way, when I show up those three hours a month on that one Friday night study, I feel really connected to everybody there. If I didn't feel connected to begin with and putting the time in, then that becomes one of those. It's like, could I make it Theoretically, but do I really want to make it? Am I close to these people? Do I feel so everybody feels fractured to some degree. And being a church family is what would solve this, in my opinion. Where it's like, oh, man, of course I want to be there. I'll make it happen. I'll move heaven and earth to make sure that we can get there, because those are my guys. But if you're doing that, it's probably more than once a month. You know what I mean? You're probably doing that more consistently. How do we get to that point? Well, now we're back around to the. Are there times of rest? People have filled their calendar so much. Do you take everything off? Do I tell my boys, you're not playing soccer anymore? Because, hey, we need this time for church time? Well, no, not going to do that either. So it's a juggle of family's really important, the boys playing soccer is really important right now to them. You know, Eleanor's got her own stuff going on, and Harrison's in piano and things along those lines. So I think it's a closeness and it's a warmth and it's an openness to. I do want to be there, but I also recognize that is not always the case for everybody. This does go to church hurt, church trauma. This goes to the church exhaustion. You know, the spiritual exhaustion to some degree of we go and go and go and go, and you got to read your Bible, you got to pray, you got to do all those things. And then when. When the wheels fall off and you're not doing that, you feel like a terrible person. So you're just trying to claw your way back in. We don't do great on the going back to the point I made at the very beginning. I don't think the church does great on how do we build somebody up who's barely making it there to get back to. You can plug in and be a integral part here. It's like we have those that. It's the 20, 80, 20 approach. We have those that do everything and man their house of fire. They're always going to show up. They're always going to get it done. And so we rely on them and everybody else is barely making it. What is the conduit to go from the 80% to the 20%. And then we start actually balancing out where it becomes maybe a 50, 50 and then a 64. You know what I mean? Like, that, to me, is where the church can really begin to understand or help people understand their own lives. And it's not a, you need to throw everything away and just make infinite amount of time for the church. I think it's a, okay, we see you're getting here, we appreciate you getting here, and we slowly build them up to that point. But if you ask somebody the moment they get there, like, hey, I'm going to need you to help with this, this, this, this, this. People aren't going to do it. They don't have time. They're burnt out, they're tired. Maybe they've been hurt in church and they're not in a place to do it. And they need a time to just rest and to know it' to show up today and to worship. The best I can do is just engage with people, to say hi to, stick around a little bit and have some conversations. No, I didn't get up and lead worship today, but I'm here and that matters. And then to have once again the conduit from I'm here and that matters to we love that you're here. You know, what do you feel you can use? What do you feel we can, you know, we can plug you into. Are you willing to take this on or can you do this? I'm really, really busy. Okay, well, we'd love to be able to get something on the calendar with you. What would that look like? And so to me, we always talk about the elders. I do feel like it comes back around to the elders being able to understand who's barely making it. And how do we get them out of this and start giving them a little more responsibility within the church? And that gets them a little closer to people and they're miraculously going to open up their schedule once a month to do it. Because it matters to them, because they feel useful within the church and they feel like it's a family and something that they want. But when everybody's burnt out and they're not super close to everybody. Yeah, it's really difficult to make that extra time. [00:42:16] Speaker C: Hey, folks, I wanted to tell you about a book from our friends over at Cobb Publishing, the Ivory Domino. The Ivory Domino is the true story of a young, dedicated Catholic who lost a bet and had to go to a friend's church the next Sunday. This led to a chain of events which turned his life upside down and for the first time made him question his Catholic faith. This is Gary Henson's story of the intense struggle it took for him to follow the truth. The Ivory Domino is available in English and Spanish and has been instrumental in leading many people out of the darkness of Catholicism and into the light of the church we read about in the Bible. If you liked muscle and a shovel, you'll love the Ivory Domino. Available on Amazon and on Cobb publishing.com c o b b Publishing Dobb. I think a couple things churches need to make sure. Not as much as is possible. Don't waste people's time. I've been to churches where there's the men's meetings or whatever, and you go and it's two or three hours and you get out of it and it's like, we didn't do anything. [00:43:12] Speaker B: What did we accomplish? [00:43:13] Speaker C: Yeah, there's nothing's going to change from this. We talked about how great it would be if there was a new sign or if there was whatever and that. You know, the funny thing is that's been two of the last three churches I've been at just hours and hours of men's meetings, new sign. One of them finally did get a new sign. So shout out to the guy that helped make that happen. The other one, it's still sitting there. I mean, I haven't even been there for a long time and they were talking about it then. I'm sure they're still talking about it now. Why would I invest? Like, why it got to the point of, like, why do I have to come to these? What are we even trying to do here? What is the point? And so when you're. You're asking people's time and they look at it like, what are we doing? I'm just showing up and checking a box. That's no good. And then, you know, like, letting them know what's expected of them. But also, hey, here's what you're getting out of it. You know, it's a good Bible study. It's a good fellowship time. It's a good time together. We're really gonna. We're gonna make these things count. Because we know people don't have infinite hours to give to us. We view your time as valuable. So we're gonna treat it as such when you come, it's gonna be organized, it's gonna be structured. We're going to be doing the thing that We. We told you you're coming for. Whether it's a men's meeting, whether it's a fellowship, whether it's a Bible study, whatever the case may be, it has to have some of that clarity to people so they know what they're committing to and they know what they're signing up for. That maybe is one of the biggest things in this time of rest, of people not wanting to give their time to things is what are you asking of me? So I've been wanting to get involved in local political stuff and party stuff around the county here. They just had the meeting last night. I wanted to go. I didn't. Because it's like just going every month doesn't do that much. I mean, it kind of does. You're a face. You start to get to know people. They want you to volunteer. I don't have time for that. They're going to ask, you know, you come to this one. We need you come to this thing. We need to come to this thing. We need you to do this thing. We need you to chip in some money to this thing. It's like, I'm not on board. I can't do any of that right now. There's a time and a place in my life I'm going to want to, and I hope I get there, but right now that's just not viable. And so if as the church, you're asking that of people, yeah, they're going to turn you down. They're not going to engage. [00:45:25] Speaker B: This is a great point, as you think about. So I was a youth evangelist for a while down in Decatur, Alabama, and I wonder how many ministers specifically. Obviously, those who. When you're. I don't want to speak for anybody. When you're a pulpit minister, you got things to keep you busy, right? You're studying for sermons, you're visiting people. You are kind of doing the main preacher stuff. Some of these extra ministers. And this. I say this not to offend anybody. Like, I was one of these for a couple years. Youth minister, outreach minister, connections minister, you know, a dozen different things. Now I feel like sometimes these guys almost feel a pressure to, like, create events or create, you know, projects and work for people to do that feels just like busy work. Like, yeah, we don't have. We don't have enough things on the calendar. Let's put more things on. It's like, Jack, I think that's such a good, great point that we need to ask ourselves, you know, and again, it's something I fell into, like, what's the purpose? Or am I doing things just to be honest? To validate the fact that, you know, to validate the salary that they're paying me to work 40 hours. To validate. Hey, guys, I'm productive because I planned this event type of thing. It's like, it wasn't that, you know, it wasn't that well planned. It didn't do what it was supposed to do. And so I would love to see, you know, events or things where it's like a lot of thought has gone into what would help families and what would actually help people, not just what's another thing to do to get us together. Being together is great, you know, fellowship, awesome. Big, big, big supporter of that. But what, you know, doing things with intention, almost doing strategy is kind of a strange word to use, but, like, doing things strategically, doing things like, hey, we know it's a lot to give up a Thursday night. Here's what it's going to be for, you know, we want to, you know. And again, I don't. I'm at a church right now that doesn't do a lot of programs, stuff like that. So I can't even really rattle off things off the top of my head that I can even think of that would kind of fit into this category. But what I'm getting at, just to piggyback off of Jack's point is, yeah, enough of the busy work type stuff. Enough of the, you know, stuff where it's like, man, that was kind of a waste of two hours. We didn't really get, you know, get all. Get a lot of anything done. And so, yeah, Joe, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. I know you guys went to Bear Valley, so you have kind of some experience at the bigger congregations. You're at one right now, actually, I think that's bigger and has some more of those events and stuff like that. But, yeah, Jack, I think your point is great, that, you know, really consider for people, like, what is going to not benefit them from the sense of, like, them as a consumer. Like, man, what. How can we market to them? But no, like, what is the reason if I'm gonna go out to. To eat at a restaurant? Like, I need to have a pretty good, you know, they need to provide my restaurant experience with a certain level of value. And I think if we're going to do like a, you know, projects or events and things like that, like, well, sure, what are we doing it for? Like, what's the value that's going to come from It. And I think sometimes a lot of these events are lacking in that. [00:48:21] Speaker A: I think this is where the church just has to have leadership that's plugged into the people, has to know we got a lot of busy folks around here. That does not mean we take everything off the calendar. It means to your guys point, let's make it count. Let's make it worth it. What is it that people need most right now? Maybe there are a lot of people that are just looking to rest, that are just happy to show up and punch their ticket. How do we engage them in a worship that is meaningful, a worship that is. We're not looking for a, you know, we're not community church and the smoke shows and the craziness, I'm not talking any of those things, but a worship that moves people, that is, you know, that when they show up, they recognize me and we take things seriously here. And it's a really good thing to show up here and to feel really involved and really invested and everybody's got a part to play and things along those lines, this is our church is great where we're going, but they are. You know, it's difficult in a big church because you look across, it's like, man, I don't even know these people. And so that family feel sometimes can get a little more challenging in the big churches. It does take a lot more work. That's where the rest kind of, you know, where we have to think about it from this. We have to redefine rest. Because I think for a lot of people, rest is like completely checkout. Don't do anything. You know, show up, go home. And that's restaurant. It's like, well, you didn't. What were you doing there? You know, yeah, I worshiped God. Okay, but did you engage with anybody? On the other hand, there's a difference between that and then signing up for every last program possible. Like, you got to be there. You got to be amongst the people. You got to try to be meeting people. And sometimes, once again, it's more than anything just kind of pushing yourself to some degree. There are times where in rest, it genuinely is rest. You're not pushing yourself. But when it comes to church work, in my opinion, I think there's. There's. You continue to show up. Some people would say, well, hey, take some time off at church. You just don't need to show up. If it's really, you know, especially after church hurt, that's the worst thing you could do is to stop showing up to church. You keep Showing up to church, push yourself a tad bit more. Go say hi to somebody. Go. Go greet a visitor. Go say hi to somebody across the auditorium. You're not used to seeing. Go, you know, stick around for 15 minutes and just see what's going on. Like, it doesn't take much, but it's a little bit more, A little bit more, a little bit more until you can get back in the swing of things where you feel a little more ingratiated with the church, feel more integrated in a lot of ways. That to me is what's going to help people kind of pull out of the. The rut of constantly staying in a state of I need to rest. On the other hand, yeah, I think to your guys's point, church leadership could really help by being very intentional and thoughtful about what is it that is going to best help our people here. What is it that these families need the most? Maybe it's not another crazy event on the calendar. Maybe it is a, you know, maybe it's a class on time management and we do that on Sunday mornings or a class on parenting or class, you know, something that's going to help people be able to, I don't know, connect a little bit more in certain ways. So. [00:51:07] Speaker B: And it's hard because there's not a, there's not a one size fits all. Like, there's some families that need, you know, man, I want a personal evangelism class. [00:51:15] Speaker A: Great. [00:51:15] Speaker B: There's other families. Like, man, I really just want to be able to take my wife out on a date for the first time in two months type of thing. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's challenging. Like, I feel really. I feel for the leaders who are like, man, we're just trying to do what we can for people just because it's. Yeah, there's no one size fits all approach for everything. But I think it's the intentionality and the thoughtfulness that we're getting at here. [00:51:35] Speaker A: Curious where this, what your guys thoughts are. Where does this jive with Galatians 6, 9. Do not grow weary in doing good. Like, do you feel that there's a level of. I feel like that's easy. It's easy to look at rest and as I mentioned, at the top, it's easy to become, you know, the Ephesian church in Revelation 2. Like, you lost your first love and you lose the lampstand type of thing because you did a lot of great things, but you're kind of rest on your laurels and you got complacent is really what takes place. You lose your first love. Then there's the Galatians 6, 9. I think some people do grow weary in doing good. And so the rest, the restfulness, the barely showing up to church, those type of things. There's a time and place, I suppose, where that's just going to happen. You're really down and out. The psalmist really struggles, he wonders where God is. But you're still showing up, you're still trying to. On the other hand, what are your guys thoughts on that? Where does that fit in of maybe leaning a little too much in the do not grow weary and doing good. And is that maybe relevant to this context as we're talking about it? [00:52:31] Speaker C: It can, but I would go back to what I brought up earlier about Jesus telling the apostles, all right, you've gone and done a lot of work. Time to go back off from everybody, get some rest, eat some food, just decompress a little bit. And I think there's a time and a place for that. And, and you know, I. So the do not grow weary in doing good. I think you can think of like older Christians who are like, well, I put in my time and now, you know, what's the church going to do for me? I think you also look at the instructions given to different people in different stages of life. There's not rest right now for our wives especially, and for us in that role as fathers, as wives, as moms, you know, things like that, there's just not rest at that phase of life. And that is a big part of your Christian duty. And I think one of the things that is a negative thing that we do is making people just giving people this sense of like, all right, so on top of that, now we need you to be doing this, this, this, this and this. [00:53:29] Speaker B: It's like we guilt trip them into stuff. [00:53:31] Speaker C: Yeah, like you need, well, if you're not going on a mission trip, you're not really a super Christian. And people who kind of grew up with that in their youth group or their college and singles group and then they get married and it's like, oh man, I'm not doing something for the church. Like, man, you're raising a family. That is what you're supposed to do for the church and the older women, what they're supposed to do for the church is to teach you to love your family and fulfill those roles and those kinds of things. That's part of your work. And so when we're talking about rest from the church schedule and all that, if we were more domestic in that side of things and of day to day life rather than events at the building. If we were more fellowship oriented, if the people who can be hospitable, whether that's elders, older Christians, people who maybe got their feet under them a little better, were hospitable. When we had the twins, I don't think. And my mom was still doing it, but it wasn't just her, it was neighbors and church people. Six straight weeks we didn't have to cook a meal. I mean, it was unbelievable. And it's kind of the same thing when people are hospitable. You don't have to cook the meal that night. You're going over to their house. That is a blessing. That's somebody bearing your burden. In that same text there. Galatians 6 as you've got on the outline here, that someone's doing that for you. It's a chance to rest a little bit. It's a chance to learn and grow. And like we do these things for each other and that's all been chopped off generationally. That's another reason we don't have time for this is people retire later and later and later. So they're not having time to just relax a little bit and focus on putting that time into other people and. And it's. Restoring all that is going to take a long time. But I think it would be a way for us to get rest in the middle of doing work. And I think that's. There's never going to be a time in life again, Lord willing, like Covid, where you just have two weeks of sitting at home and not doing anything. You know, that. That wasn't a great thing when it happened. But like you're never going to get that kind of rest. Finding rest in the midst of real life is good and things like that can help you do it, but we don't really do those things. And that's the unfortunate part. [00:55:38] Speaker A: I think your point on the older helping the younger is really valid. You are a little more rested. You are retired. Have them over. You know, when we talk about hospitality, we hit a lot of the young people, have people over, which is great, something to work on. This also may be a time we got four kids. You know, our washer had some issues and had to pull up a ton of flooring. And so our floor is half concrete right now. Doesn't look great. Not that we can't have people over, but you know, there's some challenges and things like that. That's where I Think some older folks can step in and go, hey, come on over. We've had some people at our church that have done that and it's just such a blessing. We can still connect, but it's really difficult with the four kids to get the house ready and have people over and everything else. And so that can be somewhat of a challenge. So just that stages of life I think is an interesting point. I wanted to come back around real fast before I look to wrap is I had mentioned the reasons earlier and why people may when to rest and why people may look to rest. So I just put this on the outline. I'm going to go through this real fast. I think when you're bogged down by bit busyness that that may be a reason to rest for a time. The reason for that rest is figure out your priorities in life and, and work toward. [00:56:45] Speaker B: Get yourself a good spot. [00:56:46] Speaker A: Get yourself in a good spot. After big life events, the new baby, the marriage, the things along those lines, let others help you need to learn to let others help you to accept love, to receive those things start to big life events. I think that's key. When there's grief, you know, reasons to rest. When there's grief, it's just to grieve the loss or to grieve whatever's been going on in your life, to let that process, you know, naturally kind of come. Not rushing grief per se, just letting it naturally kind of to go where it needs to go. And so when there's, when there's grief there, after church hurt, there's been church trauma, church hurt, whatever it may be. I think you need time to just learn to love the brethren again and to trust people. That takes some time. It absolutely takes some time. It's not one of those. Let me just jump right back into it. Like sometimes you have problems, you know, you have struggles, you continue to show up, you continue to build that trust and to love the brethren. If you've messed up, I don't think it's. If you've done something where, you know, there's been a. I don't know, you see these people that come forward for affairs or whatever may not be the best time for you to be leading the charge. That next week on hey, I'm gonna, you know, I'm taking this time to rest, to figure out what's going on, to humble yourself to, to learn what you need to learn, you know, to learn those needed lessons. So maybe after that it's time to just sit back, step back and rest. During spiritual burnout exhaustion. It's to love and to trust God again and to know that, that it's okay sometimes be burnt out. But if you're struggling with that man, work on the prayer life, work on the. As they talk about the fundamentals, no, maybe you are not in the place to go lead specific ministries. Maybe the best thing you can do is work on a daily prayer life and learn to just love God again, to love his word, to, you know, read a chapter a day, to get into a psalm, to meditate on those things and to work your way back. So with each of those things, you may be pulling away in church for those reasons. It has to be for a reason. And if you can process through the reasons, I think you'll get back to loving church again. You'll get back to wanting to help. And the time of rest will have accomplished its purpose. When you go to sleep at night, it's not to rest indefinitely and to stay asleep for the next bazillion hours. It's to rest so you can get up and do something better the next day. And everybody realizes sometimes you need the 10 hours, sometimes you're operating on five hours. And it's not great. We need to get to that 8 to 10 type of thing. When you do get up and keep moving and so have a reason for why the rest matters to you. I just want to circle back around that. [00:59:03] Speaker B: Ecclesiastes 3 comes to mind. I mean, there's not a specific time to rest and a time to work in that section, but, you know, time to plant, time to pluck what is planted, time to break down, time to build up. There's kind of the dual nature of a lot of things. And so I guess my closing thoughts are this is, this is just, this is a challenge in the 21st century United States of America. Hustle, bustle again. Seven days a week operation. Most companies like, it's difficult, it's a challenge. And so the question that we have to ask ourselves once again, what is going to hit the chopping block? For some people, it's their sleep. Joe. I know I'm preaching to you on that one. Like, you know, which obviously turns into your health, hitting the chopping block. Essentially. For some people it is, you know, hobbies and free time. For some people it's, you know, unfortunately, it turns into the spirit, the spiritual stuff. I just don't have time for, for Bible reading. I don't have time to study. I don't have time to, to make it to. Once again, the, the church thing. Church involvement. And so I don't know what you're going to title this episode, Jack, as far as, like, a scintillating title, but it's. To me, this is such a relevant, important topic for Christians to discuss. And. And we haven't talked much about it because we did an episode on it. That day of rest Sabbath thing, Jack, that I know you practice. You don't practice the Sabbath, but you take a day of rest on Sundays and you put your phone away and don't do any work and that kind of thing. Like, there's power behind that. And so those are, I guess, my closing thoughts. [01:00:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, now you got me thinking about what the title's gonna be. So. Arrested Development. [01:00:41] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. [01:00:42] Speaker B: Nice. Nice. [01:00:44] Speaker C: Something for the rest of us. No, I don't know. I don't got anything. If anybody. Well, I was gonna say if anybody has a better title, but I will have already had to title it by the time you see this, so it's a little bit too late. But hey, if you got a correction, if you've got a better suggestion, we would certainly love to hear it, but no, good stuff, Joe. Yeah, don't be a lazy Christian, but also, don't burn yourself out. Don't be the kind of person who can't ever take rest and like us, work on it. Find a time and place. [01:01:15] Speaker A: So we're thinking our way through it. We're thinking our way through it. You know, you could tell this is kind of an episode in progress. Like, we don't have all the answers. We're not. We're not the gurus and, you know, and every. [01:01:24] Speaker C: We usually do have all the answers. [01:01:25] Speaker A: That's right. We usually do. [01:01:26] Speaker C: Maybe took a rest from having all the answers. [01:01:30] Speaker A: Practicing what we preach, of course, but no. And so to that end, we love your comments. We love to know YouTube, obviously, on the deep end, you know, for. For our Deep end segment on Patreon, make sure to join that focus plus, folks, press. Get your comments in. We'd love to know what you guys think about this. Is this a struggle for you? What have you done? What have you found effective? You know, what does rest look like for you? The tips, the tricks, whatever it may be like. We'd love to learn from you guys, too. This is one of those episodes where a lot of times we're giving out the information. This is one of those. We're asking a lot of questions. Hopefully we're answering a few. But on the other hand, we know there's some. Some questions left unanswered and so we'd love to know your guys thoughts. [01:02:07] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in. As always been Think Deeper podcast from Focus Press and we'll talk to you on the next one. Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's FocusPress Donate. Thanks again for listening.