Ep 924 ｜ Is Busyness Ever Glorifying to God？ ｜ Guest： Dr. James Spencer
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Summary
In this episode, we talk with Dr. James Spencer about his new book, Christian Resistance: Learning to Defy the World and Follow Christ. Dr. Spencer's book is about resisting the urge to always be in a hurry, to be busy, and to simply rest in the presence of God.
Transcript
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Technology is always vying for our attention, in addition to the million other responsibilities
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However, Christians are supposed to live differently.
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We are supposed to have a different focus, different priorities.
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We are supposed to be resting in the presence of Christ and drawing strength from his word.
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It's very difficult to do that, though, when our mind and heart are pulled in so many
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Here today is Dr. James Spencer, and he wrote the book, Christian Resistance, Learning to
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It's about resisting the urge to always be distracted, to always be in a hurry, to always
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be busy, and to simply rest in the presence of God and the strength that we can draw from
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He's got a lot of biblical insight for us, but also a lot of practical tips that I know
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that you're really going to gain encouragement from.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Before we get started, can you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you
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Moody Center, which is an independent nonprofit organization out in Northfield, Massachusetts,
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and we're dedicated to preserving some of the historic properties and letters and papers
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Moody actually lived most of his life in Northfield, Massachusetts, and there are several older
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historic buildings, including where he was born, where he lived when he moved from Chicago
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back to Northfield, and then a 2,300-seat auditorium that he built to host summer conferences and
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various sort of Bible study gatherings on that Northfield campus.
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And so we're in the process of preserving those and opening them to the public, and our digital
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archives project is actually already up on our website.
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We also run a campaign called Go Dark, Shine Bright that encourages Christians to hop off
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social media for several days and really focus in on God's Word and prayer, sort of disconnect
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from stories that are denying God and reconnect with the stories that affirm Him.
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And so we're involved in a lot of discipleship ministry, as well as just preserving the property
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Moody, 19th century evangelist, and who really emphasized discipleship and pioneered discipleship
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Moody Center, the Go Dark, Shine Bright, there's a connection from that to your book.
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And your book is called Christian Resistance, Learning to Defy the World and Follow Christ.
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And a big part of your book is about distraction.
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And something that I always think of when I think of distraction is that quote in screw
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tape letters that, I'll butcher it, but basically that the demons are talking about making the
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So we are constantly distracted from the things that matter.
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So tell us a little bit about that, why you wrote this book, and why you decided to write
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When we first started the Go Dark, Shine Bright campaign, what we were really trying to solve
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was, how do we get God's people to read the scriptures and engage in prayer more often?
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And so what we ultimately came to was this idea that prayer and Bible study are really
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in competition with scrolling on social media, shopping on Amazon, you know, surfing the internet,
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And so what we decided was that we needed to sort of get people to stop doing those things,
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We're not really anti-technology, but we do recognize that oftentimes we can get a little
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bit too inundated with the information that's coming through all those different channels.
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And so what we encourage people to do was just to take a fast, essentially, from social
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This year, it's actually, we're broadening it out to any media that you may feel is hindering
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And as they take that break, we ask them to read through the scriptures, to have a specific
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And then ultimately, the Shine Bright aspect of the project is going back out onto social
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media or into your networks, your social networks, whether they're digital or in person,
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and really proclaiming Christ by explaining to people how he met you as you gave these things
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up and really started to re-engage with his word.
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And so distraction has become something of a topic that I've been thinking about since
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As you start to look around the world, what you really see is not just on digital or social
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And there are a lot of good things that can distract us.
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And so I eventually found my way to the story of Mary and Martha.
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And when you look at what Martha is doing as she is caring for Jesus in her home, she doesn't
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She's just busying herself with the expectations of the day, making sure that the hospitality is
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cared for, making sure that things are getting done, and she becomes frustrated because Mary's
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But it's the one time in Scripture where you really see the word distracted used.
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And Jesus, you know, it basically says she's distracted with all these other things.
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But when she comes to Jesus, he says, no, Mary's chosen a good portion and it will not be taken
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And so I think there's something deep in this that there are many things that can pull us away
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There are many things that can distract us from following him and really moving forward
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And so we need to resist those things and really focus in on imitating Christ and making sure
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that our lives are conformed as much as possible and increasingly so to his image.
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And I just want to read a portion of that passage for people who may be unfamiliar or you just
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I might not read the entire thing, but now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a
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village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.
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And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.
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And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve
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But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, which I just read is so compassionate and
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You are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.
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Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken from her.
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So as you mentioned so well, Martha is not doing something in itself that is bad.
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In fact, she probably has the right heart or maybe correct intentions in that she's thinking,
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And you said we can be distracted by good things sometimes.
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Doing the things that God has called us to is good.
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So how do we distinguish reading this passage and even just looking at our lives?
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Like what is a good godly, I don't even want to call it distraction, I guess, form of
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busyness and action versus something that is actually distracting us from what God has called
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Yeah, I think we have to think about it in terms of what time we're actually spending with
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Jesus as opposed to, you know, is what we're doing good or bad, right?
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This passage almost gives us a better litmus test to gauge some of our activities.
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And when those activities begin to distract us or pull us away from really following Jesus,
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when we're here's the way I think of it, when I find myself on autopilot, where I'm really
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not engaging in prayer, discerning the Holy Spirit, or thinking about whether or not what
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You know, if I'm not asking the question, I love this quote from Juergen Moltmann, he talks
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about sin as being unwilling to be what God requires.
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And so when I'm not willing to be what God requires, and I'm not really seeking that part
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out, and I'm just running on autopilot, I'm meeting all of the expectations that people
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would generally put on me, I'm being generally moral, you know, I'm sort of just going with
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And I'm not really putting any intentional thought into, am I actually following Christ at
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this moment, once I go for some time like that, I find myself sort of missing the mark
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in a lot of ways, I'm missing opportunities for Christ to really form me and change me
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And so I think we have to be careful not to begin running on autopilot, because that suggests
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a level of self-sufficiency that we really don't have.
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And I think that's what's going on here in the Mary and Martha story, is that Martha
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is very much going about the business of the day.
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These are expectations that anyone who's providing hospitality would be, you know, sort of expected
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But what she's missing is this element of centering life around Jesus.
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And so the way, one of the ways that I often think about this is that God is the most relevant
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And so if we're not orienting ourselves to Him, it's a good chance that we're being distracted,
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our attention is being drawn away from Him to other things.
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And it takes, you know, I think a lot of small efforts to make sure that we are cultivating
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a sense of God's presence in our lives, such that in any situation now, we are really more
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capable or accustomed to responding to God as opposed to responding to the situation.
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So tell me about some of the specific topics that are covered in this book.
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You talk about resistance, imitation, time, response, attention, coordination, preservation,
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discernment, effort, testimony, inclusion, and accountability.
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And obviously, we don't have time to go through all of them.
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People should go out and read your book to know what you mean by all of these things.
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When you're talking about imitation and when you're talking about response, what do you mean
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by that in relation to distraction and focusing on the right things?
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So when I think about imitation, much of the imitation chapter is really rooted in the work
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And he suggested that our human activities are really in relation to other humans.
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So in other words, we're not really pursuing objects of desire.
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We start to, you know, sort of adopt their way of thinking and their way of being in the world.
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And he argued that ultimately that creates a level of conflict.
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And so you can imagine that if, you know, you're emulating someone, you're imitating someone,
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and you're picking up what, you know, you're saying, okay, I want to desire what they desire,
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that ultimately you're going to be in competition for what you both desire.
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Now, with Christ, it's a little different, because as we imitate Christ and we adopt his
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desires, as we allow him to determine what we should care about and what we shouldn't care
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about, there isn't a competition there, because there's no, there's an endless supply of abundance
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And so we're not competing with Christ when we imitate him.
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What we are doing is we are orienting ourselves in the world in a way that we begin to see the
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And so our imitation there really involves not only, you know, it doesn't involve at all,
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you know, walking around in sandals or, you know, wearing, you know, Second Temple Jewish
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That's not the sort of imitation we're looking at.
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But what we are trying to look at is how is it that we can emulate Christ and live the
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In many ways, it's about fulfilling the one of the components of the Great Commission,
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which is learning to observe all that Christ commanded and really living that out.
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When we think about response, I usually go to something like the David and Goliath narrative,
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or there's this fascinating narrative in 1 Samuel where, you know, Saul is pursuing David,
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trying to kill him because he knows that David has been anointed king of Israel.
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Saul goes into the cave where David and his men are hiding, and David has opportunity to
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And despite the encouragement of David's men, David refuses to raise his hand against the
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And what I see in that narrative is David really focusing in on not just his situation at the
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But instead, David, instead of responding to the situation, David responds to God and says,
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And so as we look at response and think about how we would cultivate a sense of awe and reverence
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and respect for all that God is doing, as opposed to trying to enact sort of God's justice on
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our own or to sort of move forward in ways that would maybe use a great place to go is Ephesians 6.
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You know, we do not fight against flesh and blood.
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You know, we fight against the powers and principalities and spiritual realms.
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Well, if we're using fleshly efforts to sort of try to change the world into our vision of what it
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should be, we're probably not responding to God in those moments.
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We're really responding to a situation we find uncomfortable.
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And so there's a balance there between being patient and being proactive that I think we
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And I'm guessing that's probably what you cover in the discernment chapter, because I am thinking
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as you're talking about this, wow, this takes a lot of discernment, which I think just emphasizes
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your point even more of the importance of being connected to Christ and resting in Christ,
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sitting at his feet, proverbially, and hearing his teachings, because that discernment is
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And whatever fills us controls us, whether we are filled with the dopamine hits that are
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coming from scrolling and being addicted to our phones, whether you're filled with alcohol,
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whatever you are filled with is going to control you and determine the decisions that you make.
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Being filled with the Holy Spirit empowers you to make these kind of discerning decisions,
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because it's not always as easy as black and white.
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Sometimes it is just sitting and resting, but it does.
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It takes a lot of honest analysis of the motivations of your heart, the outcomes that you are trying
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to produce, and really what God is calling you to in that moment.
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It's very easy for all of us, and a large portion of this audience is moms.
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It's very easy for all of us to call our sinful busyness by different things, whether we call
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it service or whether we just excuse it because, well, we're moms.
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Of course, we're just going to be busy all the time.
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Of course, we're not going to be able to read our Bibles.
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And I'm not trying to diminish the real busyness that comes with the responsibility of parenthood.
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But the reality is, is that we are all called, just as Mary and Martha were called in that
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passage, we are all called to prioritize rest, to prioritize connection.
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And some of the busyness that we have in our lives is not as necessary as I think we think
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that it is, and we tell ourselves it is, right?
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I think usually when I'm counseling people on how to go about doing this, I say two
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And so, you know, it's consistency and progressive overload.
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You know, if you're bench pressing 225 pounds and you need to add five pounds to the barbell,
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you know, there are certain places people in the gym will kind of laugh at that five pounds.
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But I can guarantee if you continue adding five pounds to the barbell, there's a point at which
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that five pounds is going to make the difference.
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And so it's about small, incremental, consistent changes and ways of focusing in our daily life.
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D.L. Moody has a great quote and sort of like you quoting C.S. Lewis, I'm going to butcher it.
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But he says, you know, many people miss out on working in God's kingdom and really being productive
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parts of God's kingdom because they're so focused on doing great things as opposed to doing little
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things. And so what I encourage people is not to view this as this huge monumental task that,
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you know, you may or may not feel capable of doing, but to hone in on these small little practices.
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And as we practice, as we obey in the small ways and we allow God to sort of enter our lives and
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prove himself to us, sort of that idea of Malachi 310, you know, God calls the Israelites to test him
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through obedience. And as we do that in those little ways across time, I think God shows up.
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The other thing I usually recommend to people is just keeping in mind, you know, 1 John 1, 9,
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confession is a part of our everyday lives as Christians. We're going to get this wrong.
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And that's OK. The point is not getting it right every time. The point is recognizing when we get it
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wrong, confessing that and growing from it. And so luckily, God gives us the grace to miss the mark
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and to recalibrate and to reorient ourselves so that we are more focused on him. But we need to be
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cognizant of these things. And I think that's the main reason I chose to write on the topics that I
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did in the book, is that I wanted to provide some broad frameworks for people to begin thinking through
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that they might not get another devotional literature. And so that's really what these
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chapters are designed to be, is to help people think through those sort of non, those topics
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that aren't as regularly treated in Christian circles.
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Something that stands out to me about that passage, too, is just Jesus is, as you said, his grace for
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Martha, his kind of understanding of where she's coming from, and that he sees underneath her service
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what's going on in her heart and mind, that you are troubled and that you are anxious. And so he sees
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that really the motivation behind these things isn't so much this kind of like just peaceful,
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joyful worship that she's doing through acts of service, but it's actually she's worried, like she's
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she's wound up in those moments. And so you see that God is trying to relax her and release her from
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those unnecessary obligations for her good. It's not just that we're trying to live this stoic Luddite
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life as Christians, that we can't engage in any kind of technology or any modern form of fun.
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He releases us from the things that burden us. I mean, Jesus's yoke is easy. His burden is light.
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And so releasing distractions is actually like a gracious gift that God gives us that I know for
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myself. I don't always take that gift. For some reason, it's like I want to carry this heavy
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burden of the distractions that I have in my life. I guess it's just an addiction.
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Yeah. And I think, you know, I struggle with a lot of this whenever I work. And in many ways,
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I am a workaholic. I still, you know, sort of struggle with it and making sure that I
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balance sort of, you know, create that sort of work life balance that everybody talks about,
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which I think is sort of like a unicorn. It's fictional. Yeah. But the reality is, I do, I think
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I tend to take a lot more on myself than I probably need to. And I would say, through the development of
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the Go to Art Shine Bright campaign, through the writing of this book and various other things,
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what I've come to realize is that I can have a great deal more peace and satisfaction in my life
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and still be as productive as I ever was without feeling that pressure and stress and urgency.
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And like you said, the deep weight that sort of comes from taking it all on me.
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And so I think as I've allowed myself to say, you know, God has gifted me with a certain capacity.
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But the reality is that that capacity, while I should exercise it, it isn't the end all be all of who I am.
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And I need to be tying in with God because he can do far greater things through my weakness
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in a lot of ways than he can through my strength. Yeah. And so there's a balance there that we have to,
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I don't think it's a, I don't think it's an either or, I think it's a both and. But I think the
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unfortunate part is we usually emphasize the part where we say, well, God's given me these gifts,
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I have to use them. And we ignore more often than not these areas, or at least I did,
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these areas where I was weak, but God could use me through my weakness. I didn't want that to happen.
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I wanted to always be operating out of my strength. And I think that kept me sort of
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in a frenzy, in this sort of relentless, unrestful frenzy. Whereas now I'm a much more,
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I've found a much more calm place to be productive in the kingdom and a much more connected place
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to understand who Christ is and what my relationship with him should really be doing in me,
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Tell us a little bit more about the practical steps that you take. You mentioned that you're
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a workaholic, like a lot of us are. And so I appreciate that this is like a real everyday
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struggle for you. I'm sure as you used the metaphor of weightlifting, it's gotten better and
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better. But I imagine when you first kind of started thinking through this, it wasn't very
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easy. And you had to just take some very tangible steps to say, okay, this is how I'm going to
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eliminate this needless distraction in my life. Tell us just a little bit, maybe, I don't know,
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two or three things that all of us can do starting today to help us.
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Yeah, absolutely. I think number one, you sort of have to take a step back,
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look at your life and recognize what you're using as a crutch. So for me, my crutch was
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academics. Studying the Bible is something that I really love and enjoy. And it's obviously a good
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thing. But I was using it as a crutch to say, see, I'm in good shape, right? I'm in good spiritual
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shape. So I read my Bible all the time. I'm always writing or researching something. And so I'm in good
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shape. I wasn't in good shape. Right? I was using my I was using that Bible studies and excuse not to
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do other things. And so part of what I needed to do was sort of rightly diagnose myself. And so I
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started once I realized, you know, hey, I'm using this as a crutch, what I started to do was take
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more time out to pray. And I would basically set a minimum limit for myself every day that I was going
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to pray. And it wasn't very big at first, it was like, you know, five to 10 minutes, right? I'm
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always going to pray 10 minutes a day. And that may not seem like much. But when you go from basically
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zero to 10, it's a lot. Yeah. And so, you know, I had to set those little small benchmarks for myself,
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just so that I got it in every day. And I was opening that door to God using those moments,
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where I was saying, okay, 10 minutes of prayer is better is, is me spending my time better than I
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could and doing anything else. So I would say set small little benchmarks as you go. That'd be one
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of my pieces of advice. And then the other piece of advice I would give that that I found really helped
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me was changing the cadence of my day. So I recently started doing getting up earlier.
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And then I'll set boundaries, specific boundaries on when I'm done working.
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And so last night, I shut I work at home, which is even more challenging. Yeah, but usually,
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you know, I'll get up at 530 in the morning, I'll do a workout, I'll work from 630 to about 730 when I
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have to take my kids to school and, you know, different things like that. And then I'll come
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back and work till around 330 or four in the afternoon. And then I'm done. Laptop, laptop stays
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in my office. And I try to keep my phone out of my hands after four o'clock. And so, you know,
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there, there are those kinds of things that I think are really important to set boundaries for
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yourself. And to begin thinking that, you know, any email I get after four o'clock,
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it's probably not so important that I can't wait to answer it tomorrow. Yeah. You know, it's just,
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it's sort of that mindset shift and a discipline to reinforce it. And so I'd encourage folks to do that.
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I think the last thing I'd say is, you know, getting other people involved. My family is
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really supportive about the cadence of life that I'm setting for myself. And I'm supportive of the
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cadence of the life that they set for themselves. And so I think having that sort of community and
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encouragement around us is important. I usually tell the story, I lost 50 pounds in 2018.
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Oh my goodness. Yeah. And, and you don't do that without help. Yeah. There have been a lot of
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things that I've done in my life that I couldn't have done without help. Finishing my PhD was one
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of them, you know, without my wife helping me along and really providing a good social system for me
00:28:02.140
while I was doing that, I would have never finished. I think the same was losing the 50 pounds.
00:28:08.840
And so you have to set your environment up for success and you have to have that social structure
00:28:13.820
and system to really help you do these things. And so that would be my encouragement is to find
00:28:18.480
that community and social structure that's really going to help you through.
00:28:33.720
I love the comparison that you've made a couple of times of physical fitness, even when you're
00:28:37.820
talking about setting up your environment for success, if you're trying to lose weight and your
00:28:44.400
counters are aligned with junk food, or if you're an alcoholic, you're trying to give up alcohol and
00:28:49.960
you're constantly walking into a bar, you're seeing handles of liquor, whatever it is, that's going to
00:28:55.060
make it a lot more difficult. And I think sometimes we don't think about that, about our tech devices
00:28:59.880
that, okay, if we don't want to be distracted, then walking around with our email, with our social
00:29:05.480
media, which is something I do, so I'm talking to myself, is probably not going to set us up for
00:29:10.860
success when it comes to those things. And so we have to, as you mentioned earlier, recognize our
00:29:16.160
weaknesses and set up safeguards and have other people as well help us set up those safeguards so
00:29:23.860
we can remain focused on the things we need to be focused on. Yeah. I mean, there's so many little
00:29:28.920
things that we can do. They're just, they're really no effort. I mean, I don't use my phone as an alarm
00:29:33.320
clock anymore. Yeah. I have a old school analog alarm clock that goes off in the morning if I feel
00:29:38.840
like I need to wake up and my phone's charging in another room. Yeah. And so, you know, those kind
00:29:44.080
of little things can really be impactful. And one of the ones that I found out recently as we were
00:29:49.620
designing the Go Dark, Shine Bright program this year is, you know, prolonged, consistent use of any
00:29:55.640
screen after dark can, uh, is now been correlated with increased levels of depression. Yeah. I
00:30:03.560
believe that. And it's related to, yeah, I mean, it's just related to your brain, not knowing light
00:30:07.760
from dark. And so these are like subtle ways that we're not even necessarily trying to hinder our
00:30:14.540
discipleship, but we may very well be. And so we just have to be cognizant of these things.
00:30:20.180
Yeah. There's definitely a spiritual metaphor to be explored there when you don't know the
00:30:24.200
difference between light and dark, all kinds of confusion and chaos can be, uh, can show up in
00:30:29.340
your life. Well, thank you so much. This has been so insightful, very encouraging. And your book again
00:30:35.240
is called Christian Resistance, Learning to Defy the World and Follow Christ. People can get it
00:30:41.740
wherever books are sold. I'm guessing it's probably on christianbooks.com, maybe at your local bookstore as
00:30:46.820
well. And I'm sure on all the places where, uh, books are sold and where can people find out
00:30:53.340
more about Go Dark, Shine Bright and the DL Moody Center? So they can go directly to
00:31:00.400
GoDarkShineBright.org and sign up for the, um, campaign this year. We've got over 12,000 so far
00:31:08.100
signed up, which has been great. Um, all they have to do is put their email in and then they'll download
00:31:13.100
a guide, um, with, uh, this time we formatted as 20 questions about Christianity and digital
00:31:19.420
technology and, uh, also gave 10 days worth of devotionals to kind of last people through their
00:31:25.160
social media fast. So GoDarkShineBright.org, um, to do that. And I should say that, um, all the
00:31:32.400
profits from the book sales actually go to supporting our ministry. And so, um, when they purchase Christian
00:31:39.600
Resistance, all of that goes to supporting the Go Dark, Shine Bright program and, uh, and the DL Moody
00:31:44.800
Center more generally. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on,