← Focus on the Family with Jim Daly
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- [00:01]
A
And so at 14, my parents had to coach me in biblical stress management and taking every anxiety, every thought to the Lord, stepping back in prayer. And that's truly where the Lord began to lead me into this deeply restful lifestyle.
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B
Well, that's Erin Lynam, and she's our guest today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly stressing the importance of rest in our lives. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.
- [00:25]
C
John, you think about it, we're living a life, I think, in modern times that is so fast. I'm sure there was plenty to do back when, you know, plow the garden and do all the things that were done 100 years ago and they were busy, but it was kind of organic agricultural task. Right now, it's just like the pace of life is crazy. One of our board members, Buzz Baker, whom I love, the guy's such a great person. And to give an insight to the listeners, one of the best things that we do as a board together is to have devotional time. And the last Buzz brought out this fact and he wrote a number on the board and it was 1440. Does anybody know what this number is? 1440. It's the number of minutes you have in a day. And I thought, what an interesting thing. And just this morning he sent me a note with a little devotional saying, this is a 13 minute devotional. God gave you 1440 minutes today. Can you take 13 and watch this? I think it will help you and change your life. Isn't that awesome?
- [01:25]
B
Oh, wow.
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C
So today we want to do that with our guests. We want to talk about those 1440 minutes you have in a day and how you might be able to use them in a way that actually helps you become even more productive in all ways.
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B
Yeah. And Erin has been here before. She's a certified master naturalist and educator.
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C
Love that title, by the way.
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B
Yeah. She hosts a very popular podcast for families. It's called NAT Nature Lessons Rooted in the Bible. And she's written a number of books, has a new one out called the Nature of Rest, what the Bible and Creation Teach Us About Sabbath Living. And you can learn more about this terrific resource and our guest by clicking the links in the show notes.
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C
Aaron, welcome back to Focus on the family.
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A
Thank you. Thank you for having me back.
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C
This is quite a trend. Now, I know several friends of mine who are embracing the Sabbath, kind of reorienting themselves and their families around the Sabbath. So generally, is there kind of a movement within the Christian community to reawaken to God's sab and what it means.
- [02:30]
A
I believe there is. And I believe it goes much further than just the Christian realm because we're also seeing it in the secular realm. One thing I've been blown away by as I've dove into Sabbath with my family and in my work is I'm now having opportunities to go speak to corporate and business groups about Sabbath because they see the power of rest to really unlock their potential as leaders that we really know is just by God's design.
- [02:59]
C
Yeah, when you look at that, I mean, you heard what I said in the open there. Just the pace at which we're doing things, you know, the load, think of laundry. I mean, the way they did it 100 years ago, that took you probably eight hours right there. One day a week, you'd have to do the laundry. So things have had innovation where we could throw it in a machine and we just have to move it, pull it out, hang it, fold it, whatever. But there's 1400 things that we've been able to fill that space with now. So that pace that we're going at, how do we get ahold of it, do an inventory, say, okay, how do I spend my time?
- [03:33]
A
That's a really good point about innovation. And you know, we have all these technologies and things that we can do now that can help save time. But that can also be a bad thing because it means that, you know, when you think about when we harnessed electricity, we've really changed our ideas around time. We can work at any hour. So when you think about God engineered into us a circadian rhythm, that natural wake, sleep, rest, work cycle. When we harnessed time, we kind of did away with that circadian means around a day. We kind of like ballooned that to round. What can around a day mean? How can we pack it full? And so I think the first thing is just not packing our schedules so full that they're like a game of Tetris. You know, we've whittled down time. When you look at the biblical times and they view time in these big chunks, we've whittled that down to a 60 minute hour, 24 hour day, nanosecond. Down to the smallest measurement of time is called a zeptosecond. It's unthinkably small.
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C
I've never heard of that.
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A
I think only scientists use it to measure the speed of light.
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C
I like it though.
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A
Yeah, sounds fun. But to that point, we have so whittled time down to be like, how can we pack every moment? But what if we were to carve out some more margin and actually leave time for rest in our lives.
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C
What keeps us from that? I mean, it sounds so right, but why do we not do it?
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A
A lot of hustle and hurry boils down to the fear of missing out.
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C
Okay.
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A
We have every opportunity in this society to pursue so many different ventures and build so much. And God put that into us. Work came before the curse, before the fall. God designed us with this purposeful desire to create and to build and to progress. But we really let that get out of hand and we start pursuing it for our own means. It's really another way of worshiping creation rather than the Creator only we're worshiping ourselves as the Creator. And so we're trying to pack everything full and we say, oh, if there's five minutes there, I have to fill it. If I'm going to get ahead, if I'm going to get that opportunity, or if I don't know what to fill it with, well, I'm going to pick up my phone and look busy. Because we're so uncomfortable with leaving time empty.
- [06:01]
C
Yeah, I think some of this too, is rooted in how we have devalued rest, that it's anti Western culture, that if you rest, you're sinning. I knew a pastor, HB London, who worked here at Focus, and he was older at this point, still working, but probably 70, but he still wanted to work. He ended up with pneumonia and was in the hospital. And I remember going to see him out in California, and he said, you know, Jim, I just, you know, I prayed to the Lord and said, lord, if you get me out of this and heal me, I will work harder for you. And I was like, h, I don't think HB is what we called him. H. I said, h, I don't think that's the equation the Lord wants from you right now. Have you thought about, if you heal me from this, I'll take more time to take care of your temple and take care of your body, meaning his body. But speak to that thing that we buy, that, you know, there's so much time a day, and we got to get so much done. Even in a secular context, a sales guy, you know, I've got to work 12 hours a day to outdo the competition or 14 hours a day. Meanwhile, his marriage, his family's crumbling. And how do you assess this in a healthier way?
- [07:14]
A
It really goes back to changing our mindset and seeing this as God's design for. For our thriving. This is actually a gift from God. When you look back at creation, God gave us this beautiful pattern because God created for six days and then he rested, not because he needed to. Isaiah tells us God does not grow tired or weary. But I believe it was for two reasons. The first was to stop and delight. The word Sabbath comes from the Hebrew Shabbat, which can mean to stop or to delight. So God just simply wanted to take in everything that he had just made and then to give us a pattern. Because while God does not need to rest, we do. And so we see that God created and then rested. But Adam was created on the sixth day. So Adam's first full day was a day dedicated to rest. We were always meant to start from rest and from there. That rest truly fuels every endeavor. And what my family saw when we began resting just over three years ago, it felt like such a risk. I had major doubts. How are we going to get everything done in just six days? We became more productive, more effective, more creative. Like, I'll give you a case study with my husband. He runs a contracting company. And before we began resting, he was exhausted. He was a one man show. We were hardly paying the bills. He had been at this for, I believe, six years at the time. And then we take this big risk on rest. And three years later, he's grown to a team of 10. He's an incredible leader. He has built all these strategies and systems and grown his revenue by 500%, all while taking a day of rest every single week with his family. And it's not a prosperity gospel. It's not do this and God will do this. But it shows God's plan. His design for rest is, is not lazy, it is not idle, it's fruitful.
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C
Well, and it's helpful. And we sometimes don't recognize that. What are some of the obstacles that keep us from rest and then connect that to declutter. Oh yeah, just as an example.
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A
Well, you just said it. Clutter is certainly an obstacle. Clutter in our homes, clutter in our minds, clutter in our hearts. Schedules, schedules. Absolutely clutter there. Yeah, let's talk to the mind. We live in a world where we have at our disposal whatever information we want. We have media coming at us all day long. And so if we are going to rest, we have to start filtering that information. And in the book, I use the example of a bird with a crazy name, the great frigate bird. And this bird can fly for up to two months at a time without landing.
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C
Two months. I've never heard of this.
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A
Yeah, it's a crazy bird. It can stay in flight that long because it does something called unihemispheric sleep. It turns off part of its brain so that it is alert enough to stay safe, to avoid obstacles and predators, but it is filtering out any unnecessary information so that it can take power naps while flying. We need to be like the great frigate bird. We need to learn how to filter out unnecessary information, choose wisely about what emails we subscribe to, what social media platforms we use and follow the people that we follow and what they're saying. Really, all this media, looking specifically at them and asking ourselves, is this life giving? Does this lead my thoughts to the Lord? Does it bring joy and delight? Or when I'm done using this media outlet, is this just adding stress? Anxiety, overwhelm, sin? Like truly filtering out all the information so that we can declutter our minds to be in a space where we can rest.
- [11:04]
C
It sounds good. Some wives might suggest football season does this to their husband. They can turn off half their brain for months at a time. So. But anyway, I get the point, and it's a good one. Addison's disease is part of your story. Maybe you can describe what that is and how you have managed that and the fact that you had to manage it.
- [11:26]
A
Yeah, I often say that my family's journey into rest began about three years ago when we began Sabbathing. But truly, mine started over 20 years ago and I was 13 years old and I. Sorry, I just turned 14 years old and I was preparing to go overseas for the first time. I had never before stepped foot on an airplane. And now I was going to fly to Ethiopia and spend two months in Africa. And before you go on a trip like that, it was a missions trip with a team and adult leaders. You have to get a regular checkup and vaccines for travel recommendations. And so my parents took me into the doctor and I had no strange health history. We had no reason to believe that anything was off or wrong. But when the nurse took my blood pressure that day, it was 56 over 48.
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C
Okay.
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A
Extremely low. And when a vital like that is off, you know that something is very wrong. And it was in my case. And so they start doing more testing and it soon led to a diagnosis of Addison's disease, or adrenal insufficiency. And what that is is your adrenal glands. Addison's disease is where your adrenal glands no longer function at all. And your adrenal glands produce, of course, adrenaline.
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C
Right.
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A
But also other important hormones, including cortisol. That's your Stress hormone. So if you are encountering any kind of stress, whether it be physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, any stress, your body is going to produce more cortisol to cope with that. Mine does not. And so at that young age, stress became deadly. To me, the worst case scenario is that someone with Addison's disease encounters so much stress that their body is trying to cope with it and can't. So I take a regular daily hormone replacement for it. But encountering so much stress that your body can't cope with it, it leads to a coma and is fatal.
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C
Wow, that's amazing.
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A
And so at 14, my parents had to coach me in biblical stress management and taking every anxiety, every thought to the Lord, stepping back in prayer. And that's truly where the Lord began to lead me into this deeply restful lifestyle. But Addison's disease is very rare. So many people nowadays have adrenal fatigue where they have encountered so much stress, or they just go, go, go, go, that their adrenal glands are no longer functioning the way that God meant for them to. And so stress really is dangerous to all of us. And rest is one of the best designs that God has given us to help us combat that sickness.
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C
Yeah, it's so amazing. It shows you the intricacy of the human body and what God has designed. I mean, that's a system within your body that if it's not there, it could lead to coma and death. I mean, it's phenomenal how God has crafted us. And then, thankfully, where science has come along to be able to augment those things that we lack, like adrenaline in your case. But to me, it's just a fascinating thing. But describe the nature of each and every day for you. It's not that you're incapacitated. I mean, you're a homeschool mom of four. You've got things going on. You're having to manage a lot of things and a lot of plate spinning. So how does that feel like to be overwhelmed with what you're dealing with?
- [14:52]
A
I'm very grateful that 20 years later, after this diagnosis, it really is just these restful rhythms that God has used to uphold me physically and in every way. For a long time. I was very sick. A lot of people with Addison's disease are unfortunately bedridden, on disability. They didn't know if I would be able to have children. And now, like, I get to live a very full and abundant life.
- [15:16]
C
But why? Let me ask you for that listener who's thinking, why did you succeed? And they didn't.
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A
There's a lot of different reasons. Addison's disease is a autoimmune disorder. So a lot of times people will have other autoimmune disorders on top of it. But I truly, truly believe that one of the key points for me being able to live a full life and do all these things that God has allowed me to do is through rest, being able to identify actually, that's too much and learn. I need to say no to that. And look at our calendar and realize this is too full. We're going to need to prune things back in order to rest.
- [15:54]
C
You know, when I look at so much of nature, you see a rhythm that God has. The universe. There's a rhythm. There's a way that God has set things up. And it's not just the four seasons. There's so much rhythm to this life and to this universe that, you know, God is in this. And I think it's going to be interesting if you get to heaven and there's just this secret little thing that God put in place, and it has to do with the rhythm of universe, the rhythm of the soul. I mean, all of it that God said, yep, that's the secret sauce that I created everything with. How do we change our lives in such a way to recognize it? We may not be diagnosed with Addison's disease disease, but how do we capture this craziness in our life and say, okay, I want to be more like Aaron.
- [16:44]
A
We have to be willing to do something very countercultural. Rest is very countercultural. We live in this hustle society. And so it starts with just identifying, okay, I'm going to do that bold thing. My family's worse that I want to claim this gift that God has given us, that he set up at creation for us to thrive through so many of us. My own family for so long just kept going without claiming that gift. And that was the thing was, you know, we often view rest as a burden. Sabbath can seem like a burden, or we can't do it, or that we can't do it. Exactly.
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C
You know, it's uncomfortable.
- [17:28]
A
Yeah. I air quote failed Sabbath so many times before we really figured it out. And the key to figuring it out was to view it not as this burdensome command, but as a gift. I call it celebrating Sabbath. So we need to switch our mindset. And whether you begin celebrating Sabbath or if it's through daily rhythms of rest, whatever rest you decide to adopt and practice, it takes that bold step of faith.
- [17:57]
C
And.
- [17:58]
A
And then look at your calendar. Do the things on your calendar. Whether they're events, whether they're responsibilities, commitments, do they align with your family's values? You might need to answer that question first. What does my family value? What is the most important thing to us? We have seen in our family that rest acts just like faith, because they're very intertwined. Rest acts as a foundation for all of our other values. Our family, our marriage, our children, our health, our work. Everything benefits when we rest.
- [18:33]
B
And Aaron, Jesus took time. He was so busy. I mean, I'm reading in the Gospels right now. And the crowds would come to him from hither and yon, and they just came great distances. And there was this crush of activity, but he also got away. So what do you suppose it looked like when he did get away and rested?
- [18:51]
A
I've never heard it put that way. A crush of activity, that's so good and it's so right. You look at Mark, chapter one, and it's this whirlwind of activity. So Jesus is starting his ministry and he is calling his first disciples. So really starting a movement, the most successful and long standing movement that still continues to today. Jesus was a startup. He's starting to heal people of illnesses, cast out demons, preach on the Sabbath, which really marks him as a radical. So all these things going on, anyone today would look at someone like Jesus, like a budding minister and say, he can't keep that up. He's going to have a moral failing. He must have a vice. He's going to burn out. But eternal light never burns out. Jesus never had a moral failing or a vice. And what upheld him because he chose to enter into the very humanity that we experience, he experienced fatigue. And what upheld him was this practice of going away into a quiet place. The Greek word is eremos and it means quiet, solitary. Most often it's translated as wilderness, which I think is beautiful. He would go away into the quiet place to commune with the Father, and that's what upheld him. And he issued the same invitation to his disciples in Mark 6:31. Come away by yourselves to a quiet place and rest.
- [20:22]
C
Aaron, let's turn this toward the viewer and the listener. The person that's going, I want that rest. But they don't know what to do. They're stuck in this situation, this cycle that's unhealthy. What are some things that they could do to begin that Sabbath approach? What do you need to do? What did you do?
- [20:45]
A
A big obstacle I find for many people is this sense of I cannot give a full day to rest. It doesn't seem realistic or relevant in our society? I believe it is realistic and relevant. But one of the first things I tell people is if you can't find a full day, find 4 hours. If you can't find 4 hours, you need to prune your calendar. That's hard, but that's true. Find four hours. It might be a Wednesday evening. Set that time aside for rest. You don't have to commit to that for the next 12 months. Just start and then write two lists. First, write a list of everything that's heavy, everything during your week that is stressful, that might be notifications, emails, text messages. Write a list of those things that are heavy and that's what you want to step away from during that time of rest. You can do that for four hours and then write a second list of things that fill you up, things that delight you. Again, this whole idea of stop, stop those things, delight in these things. It's often those things that we think through the week, oh, I'd really like to do that. I'd really like to get to that. And we don't make time for it. It might be creating, painting, making music, walking outside, gardening. People ask me, isn't gardening work? Do on Sabbath what delights your soul? Maybe throughout the week you work with a computer and you're just sitting there and that's really taxing. You might want to go outside into creation on the Sabbath, do what delights your soul, Make a list of those things and start enjoying them. And just watch how God begins to bring you full circle back into his gift of rest.
- [22:29]
C
Let me ask you, nowadays with modernity, screen time is every parent's nightmare. And the irony, it's our nightmare too as parents, right? No one's immune to that seemingly. How do you manage with our kids who probably see that as filling up their time looking at screens, playing games or social media or whatever it might be. How do you as a parent manage that? Help your child to better understand Sabbath in that context of screen time?
- [23:03]
A
I mean, we have to acknowledge that there's going to be pushback in many families. And with my family, what we found is that three years in our kids long for Sabbath. They love it.
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C
So they've connected.
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A
They've connected. So in fact, there was a season in our family where we suffered a loss and for three weeks we're traveling and grieving and memorial service and we missed three Sabbaths. And our 11 year old son came to us after the third, missed Sabbath and he said, mom, can we please Sabbath this weekend? He feels it deep inside of him, because it's God's design. And so just that note of encouragement first, that your children, when you do this, they will. It might take time, but they will connect with that design, that gift of God. And what I often encourage parents is try not to take away something your child really enjoys without giving them something better. So on Sabbath, we are playing board games together as a family. We're out playing in the yard. We're reading books. Your children long for that kind of connection. And Sabbath becomes this sweet space where we can be a family together around these shared activities. And then we'll often watch a family movie to wrap up Sabbath. So kind of this, hey, we're gonna step away from screens so we can do some other fun activities together. And then afterwards, we're gonna make some popcorn and enjoy a movie together. And that can help easily ease children into this.
- [24:29]
C
Yeah, I think it's excellent. Let's end here. I mean, this has been great. Very illuminating, really. But you've come up with a key question that you found helpful in discovering whether you're truly abiding in Christ. Now, every Christian should be leaning in right now, going, okay, that's a pretty big statement. What's the question?
- [24:50]
A
Am I growing in truth and love? Yeah.
- [24:54]
C
And you can measure that and know that you are by how?
- [24:59]
A
By resting. Because what rest does is it opens up this space for truth to root down in our souls. You know, when we are, go, go, go. Hustle, hustle, hustle. Hurry, hurry, hurry. We don't have time to truly process what the Lord is doing inside of us when we rest. Science proves this. When we rest, our minds operate to their fullest potential as God meant them to. When we rest, we grow in truth, because his truth goes forth and does not return void. But like Isaiah 55, it brings forth the water and the rain. They bring forth life, and God's Word brings forth life in our souls. We access that more fully through his gift of rest. And we grow in love because we're able to have these connections with our family, with our children, with our spouse. My relationship with my husband and with my children has grown in deep and profound ways because of our practices of rest.
- [26:00]
C
Boy, there's a promise right there. This is amazing, Aaron, and you've really hit it. The nature of rest, the spiritual application of all that, and the benefits to us physically, emotionally, spiritually. I hope people say, yeah, we're not living in that space and we need to. So get ahold of us. And start by reading this wonderful resource that Aaron has written and the nature of rest, what the Bible and nature teach us about Sabbath living. I'm intrigued. I mean I really am. And I hope you are as well. If you can make a gift of any amount, if you could do it monthly, that's great. A one time gift too. But we'll send you a copy of the book as our way of saying thank you for helping other families through your support of Focus on the Family and John. You can give them details how to get in touch with us.
- [26:48]
B
Donate generously as you can, either a monthly pledge or one time gift. Details are in the show notes or you can give us a call. 800 the letter A in the word family. Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
- [27:22]
D
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