Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 303 Kelly Kapic - Embracing Our Limits and Discovering Our Humanity
If you're like me, you probably know what it feels like to chase after a never-ending to-do list, trying to squeeze every bit of productivity out of your days, only to end up exhausted and wondering if you're missing something vital. Today's conversation might be exactly what you need. My guest is theologian and author Kelly Kapic. Kelly is a professor at Covenant College and the author of the deeply encouraging books You're Only Human and the brand-new 40-day devotional, You Were Never Meant to Do It All. Kelly reminds us today that our limitations aren't problems to overcome, they're actually a part of God's good design for us. He gently challenges our obsession with productivity, individualism, and endless hustle, calling us instead into rhythms of rest, dependence, and real community. In this episode, Kelly and I explore what it means to truly embrace our human limits as a gift rather than a burden. We talk about sleep and Sabbath as practices that help us reconnect to God’s gracious pace, how genuine community keeps us honest about our needs, and how gratitude and lament can help us live fully human lives, rich with meaning. If you’re tired of feeling like you're never quite enough, this conversation is for you. So slow down, take a deep breath, and join us as Kelly Kapic guides us into the beauty of being joyfully and authentically human.
Kelly M. Kapic (PhD, King's College, University of London) is professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, where he has taught since 2001. He is a popular speaker and the award-winning author or editor of more than fifteen books, including the devotional You Were Never Meant to Do It All, The God Who Gives, and the Christianity Today Book Award winners You're Only Human and Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering. Kapic has been featured in Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition and has worked on research teams funded by the John Templeton Foundation. He also contributes to the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care and various other journals.
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You Were Never Meant to Do It All
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In this culture, as we're saying, like this radical individualism, the idea is you become who you are through this isolation, through this autonomy, when biblically, the idea is from the beginning, Adam and Eve were made to be dependent on God, to be dependent on their neighbor, and to be dependent on creation.
Joshua Johnson:Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, well, if you're anything like me, you probably know what it feels like to chase after a never ending to do list, trying to squeeze every bit of productivity out of your days, only to end up exhausted and wondering if you're missing something vital. Well, today's conversation might be exactly what you need. My guest is Kelly. Capic Kelly is a professor at covenant College and the author of the deeply encouraging books you're only human and the brand new 40 day devotional you were never meant to do it all. Kelly reminds us today that our limitations aren't problems to overcome. They're actually part of God's good design for us, he gently challenges our obsession with productivity, individualism and endless hustle, calling us instead into rhythms of rest, dependence and real community. In this episode, Kelly and I explore what it means to truly embrace our human limits as a gift rather than a burden. We talk about sleep and Sabbath as practices that help us reconnect to God's gracious pace, how community keeps us honest about our needs, and how gratitude and lament can help us live fully human lives rich with meaning. If you're tired of feeling like you've never been enough, this conversation is for you, so slow down, take a deep breath and join us as Kelly guides us into the beauty of being joyfully and authentically human. Here is my conversation with Kelly. Capic Kelly, welcome to shifting culture. Excited to have you on thanks for joining me. Oh, it's great to be with you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited to dive into both you're only human, and you were never meant to do it all. I really love that you're you're bringing in the concepts and everything that you had in your book. You're only human into this devotional that actually helps bring about practical application into our lives, so that we could become what we were meant to be all along. One of the big things that you, I mean, you're talking about here, is limits, and we are creatures of limits. What was your relationship with your limits? How did you start to discover that limits were good in your life?
Unknown:Yeah, it's a it's a great question. I mean, often how these things work, isn't it the case? Whether you're writing on prayer or you're writing whatever, it's often something you struggle with yourself, right? And I just think, I don't know if it's, you know, I think there's some theological and personal and you know, various reasons that shape and you know, sometimes it's upbringing and certain views of what work should look like and what success looks like. And for various reasons, I just think I really had this idea of, I should, I should be able to go hard all the time, I think, and just pretty unrealistic goals and that that is that that can sound lofty. It's as simple as every day, at the end of the day, looking at the to do list and thinking, you know, I'd sit around the table with my family and we'd ask each other, how was our day. And I started to realize when they would ask me, I'd be like, Ah, it's okay. I didn't really get and it's always about not getting done all I thought I should get done. And at some point you realize maybe I've got this narrative screwed up. Maybe I don't understand,
Joshua Johnson:yeah, and so then you were starting to not understand that. How did you get pushed then to your own limit and go?
Unknown:There it is, yeah. I mean, that's an interesting question to ask because it's a longer story, but the short version is, my wife and I got married in 1993 and we didn't have kids for almost nine years, and then in 2008 she while our kids were still young, and she was in, I'm very young, and she was still in her 30s at the time, she was diagnosed with cancer, and then for years, so was declared cancer free. And we thought we got through it, and we had to narrow our life quite a bit, cut, cut, cut, but still, you know, we're both kind of driven or whatever. But we thought, God, you were faithful, God. And then, and then, starting in the summer of 2010 and to this day, there's never been a day that she hasn't dealt with chronic pain and fatigue. And so that led to just us having to cut more. And the result was I ended up, with her encouragement, writing a book on pain and suffering to help me think through that. Help us think through it, and this is a long way to get to the answer, only after really coming to believe in the importance of lament and being honest about how hard life is and that kind of thing, did I finally feel like I could talk about the goodness of limits and understand them in my own life.
Joshua Johnson:So then, how does lament help that like, what is like, what is the process of lament that really helps us move to say, Oh, this is good,
Unknown:yeah. I mean, the the lament became important because it, it was amazing, the kind of level of honesty that you find in the Psalms with God. Like, where are you God? How long? Oh, Lord, all of these kind of things. Lament is it can, to an outsider, look like a lack of faith, but actually it's a profound expression of faith, because you're saying, I really am not in control. I never was in control. Now it's really clear, and so I'm upset with you God, or I'm asking you questions, because you are the sovereign one, right? And in many ways, lament is an expression of faith and our dependence on God and our limits. And like God, I can't make this better. Why don't you make it better? Those kind of things? So I really found lament and gratitude are two sides of the same coin. Gratitude is recognizing all good and perfect gifts come from above. I can't generate all of this. Whether or not I I express gratitude, I should be grateful, because they are gifts, and lament is the flip side. Both of them are showing dependence on God.
Joshua Johnson:That's so good. I love how you articulated lament. I think that actually is a profound move of faith that I haven't actually thought of before, thinking thinking of grief and lament like, Okay, this is good things. There's a reason why the Psalms, we have, a book of Lamentations like lament is good but realizing, Oh, it is an act of faith that it doesn't depend on me, I'm not in control, that we're relying on God to be able to do this. That's beautiful articulation. It's
Unknown:and even thanks for saying that, even as we talk about it, it makes me think you know, one of the unspoken things is, when the people of God have not been equipped to learn how to just honestly lament, particularly in our western American culture, then the subtle message is, you really should make it better. And lament is like complaining and Oh, you shouldn't do that. You should just and all sudden, it really is more of this. You need to pull yourself up from your bootstraps. You're you're struggling because of you. And there's never a sense of and it continues to be, even though we would never say yes, I think I'm God. The underlying belief really is we really are God. We really should be in control. Where
Joshua Johnson:do you think that the hyper individuality of our American culture, particularly where the most individualistic culture in the world? Yeah, and saying that we could do this, everything is about productivity. You have life hacks, you have time hacks, you have all these hacks so that you could get better, that you can actually do it all yourself. How is that all wrapped up in the place where we find ourselves going? Man, I don't know if I could actually do all this, where anxiety, depression, loneliness, all of this stuff comes into play, because we think we have to do it. Yeah,
Unknown:yeah. And, and you're right to approach it in terms of kind of the radical individualism, or hyper individualism, where we are told, I mean, the one of the big messages is, if you want to know who you are, actually look inside of you, and that's so now deep in us that we don't even realize what a modern phenomena that was like in the middle ages or around the world. To this day, much of the world and throughout much most of history. If you ask someone who they are, they would say, well, here are my people, here's my land, here's my tribe, here's my vocation, all these external things. But now sudden, we live in a time that know who you are. You have to find it inside of you. That's a very unstable kind of thing. And again, it's the myth that you and I are in more control than we really are. Right? We know our DNA shapes us, our family structures shape us, our our economics, all these things, all these outside forces, are quite significant, and when we downplay it, we do buy into this myth that we have more control, which then breeds more anxiety, because we actually don't have control, and and we come to realize it. So one of the beautiful things about learning to embrace our limits is to recognize we never were in control. God didn't even make us to be in control and and we can talk about this more if you want, but to discover that that these limits are part of the goodness in how God made us, rather than deficiency.
Joshua Johnson:And then talk to me. Yeah, I. Are we human? What does it mean to be human? And why did God create us with these creaturely limits? Yeah.
Unknown:I mean, it's a fascinating thing, because in this culture, as we're saying, like this radical individualism, the idea is you become who you are through this isolation, through this autonomy, when biblically, the idea is from the beginning, Adam and Eve were made to be dependent on God, to be dependent on their neighbor and to be dependent on creation, dependent on God, neighbor and creation. Now think about that's part of the goodness of creation, that's not part of the fall, that's before there's any sin or fall. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in the early 20th century talked about this, and he understood dependence is not a result of the of sin or the fall, but what the what sin in the fall does is twist those dependencies, undermine the healthy dependence, right? And so now we see each other as a threat, either to overcome or to ignore that kind of thing, rather than the goodness of being a creature is growing in healthy dependence. And just think about culturally, when do we ever use the word dependence as a positive if I've like Joshua? Yeah, like people say, Hey, you met Joshua. What do you think I'm like, he seemed really nice, but he seems like he's really dependent on a lot of people, right? That's never a compliment, but biblically, you and I and so how do you do Christian discipleship when the word dependence is negative, when actually discipleship is learning healthy, robust dependence on God, right? Healthy, I don't mean dysfunctional dependence, but healthy dependence on each other, and even recognizing how dependent we are in the rest of creation. That
Joshua Johnson:means then I could then put myself into a place where I could rightly situate myself, where I belong, yeah? Or I say, you know, I'm independent. I could do it all on my own, like it's a lofty view of who I am, yeah? But when I'm dependent on God, I have a right view of myself and then a right view of God, yep, take us into a place of, how does humility play into us realizing who we are? What is humility and what? What is it not?
Unknown:Yeah, that's great, and that I do think that's this is the right context to even ask that kind of question. Because in the history of the church, and in some of our circles and my tradition, struggles with this. Sometimes we really get humility wrong, and I think it hurts us. So if you ask Christians, kind of without any prep, you say, Why should we be humble? Our gut response often is, well, we should be humble because we're sinners. Well, I actually do think we're sinners. I think our sin is complex, and to be honest, I think we're probably more sinful than we even have a clue about. So what I'm going to say is in not denying that, but if you and the fact that we are sinners, should contribute to us being humble, but if you build humility on the foundation of sin, it distorts the whole thing, so it gets us back to what we're talking about, here's the quickest way, without all the technical discussion, is this Adam and Eve before the fall? Should they have been humble? And the answer is actually yes, because they should be humble, because they were dependent on God, dependent on each other, and dependent on the rest of creation. And that dependence is a sign of humility, of right on rightly under one understanding oneself and the rest of creation and God. So here's here's a really practical way. It works out in our lives. When we think humility is built on sin. Then as Christians, we often know, gosh, I am not humble like I should be. And then people say, Okay, I want to grow in humility. So the way we encourage them to grow in humility is by focusing on what a bad sinner they are, which ironically makes them still the focus of the whole thing. It's self absorbed, but it sounds pious, so you're like, Okay, so I'm all for appropriate times of introspection and analysis and repentance. I'm all for that, but that can undermine it. So really with humility, you can grow in humility by learning to look at the gifts God has given other people, to learn to celebrate and delight in other people like those are constructive things and practices you can put into place that will grow and foster humility and and it's funny, because to even say something like that, Sometimes people like, well, that sounds wrong. That sounds arrogant to say, which betrays it the fact we kind of assume either you're humble or you're not, either you got the gene or you don't. But actually we can grow in humility as we grow in our recognition of who we are and our love and delight in other people and in God and and that kind of thing. My
Joshua Johnson:wife always throws a joke at me because I'm telling her how great I am, and she talks about, oh, and you're really humble as well, yeah. But you know, I do say I have some good things in me, like, and I have limits as well, but I don't want to, like, focus on me as. Sinner and the sin and introspection and like, have this false sense of humility. I'm trying to get to this place in my relationships, knowing that man, I could actually be okay, and like, be confident, and God has created me to be in relationship to the world and to one another in community and to him and still be humble at the same time. Yeah, he only doesn't mean a lack of confidence,
Unknown:right? Yeah, I do think, I think one of the keys there is, as we start to I don't, I'm not trying to encourage people to falsely flatter or lie. Don't tell your kid they're great at soccer when they suck, right? That's actually not what I'm saying. I'm saying though all good and perfect gifts come from above, and as we look and everybody really does have gifts, I know we think it's cheesy to almost talk that way, but, but we don't tend to know our gifts. We don't tend to recognize our gifts. And so I don't think these days it takes a lot of time for me to convince people we need people who are different than us to help us see our blind spots. I think Thankfully we're finally there to realize that, but I think we've missed the opposite. We also need people who are different to help us see our strengths, because our strengths come so naturally. Even though they still require work and development, they come more naturally. We start to assume everybody has them. So if you're great working with children, you just kind of think, what are you a monster if you're not right? But the reality is, it may be that these are part of your gifts. If you're great with hospitality, and you walk up and people just relax. When you're there, you kind of assume that's what everyone brings, but they don't. So other people can help you see what God has given you, which is a delight. And as you learn to delight in others, I do just a circle back to what you said. I then think you can be in a more honest place, where you can go there's all kinds of things I'm not very good at, but it does seem like God has given me this and this, and then also you can be God doesn't want you to lie about yourself and say you're terrible at something he's given you gifts at. It's just to recognize you're just a creature. You're really important, but you're a really small creature. And we need each other, and so we can delight in what we have, even as we delight and recognize what we don't have.
Joshua Johnson:So in this, this dependence on God and others and creation, to know that we're human, part of what you you really talk about is an embodied experience of being, knowing our bodies, being in relationship to other bodies, even in physical touch. I think, you know, for me, I feel human and alive when my feet are in the dirt, in creation. Yeah, I'm also, you know, a part of that and dependent on this creation. How does our bodies help us realize who we are?
Unknown:Yeah, oh, it's such a good question. We do have this phenomena where we often look in the mirror and we say, That's not who I am, right? Whether it's like we've gained some weight or, you know, whatever, this disassociation from our body, both in the church and outside of the church, is, is a really strong temptation. But our bodies, especially with, you know, we all have phones. We can all, quote, unquote, be multiple places at the same time, but we can't actually, we have a body, we have a brain, we have physical senses. And so learning to recognize the importance of, as you said, like being where our feet are, becomes very significant, and we devalue the body in ways that hurt us. So for example, I'm a college professor. That's my full time, uh, job. And one of the things I found I've been teaching at covenant College on lookout mount Georgia since 2001 it's great school, but I so I've gotten to know a lot of alum you know, who come back. And one of the things that surprises them, especially the first year to three years, is they most Miss physical touch, and they didn't expect it. But basically what happens is they had so many of them had really good friends. They'd wrestle in the grass. They sit right next to each other on the couch. They gather, they greet each other in the hall. Constant hugs, just being next to each other, laughing all sudden, they're supposed to be quote, unquote, grown ups. They go move into an apartment by themselves, go to a professional environment in a workplace, and it terrifies them, because also they'll realize days, weeks sometimes go by and they've never had physical touch. And I'm talking about healthy, appropriate physical touch, which makes us all the more vulnerable to unhealthy touch. And so I think that we go to extremes here, where we act like touch is everything, or touch is nothing, right, because it's so important to actually being a human, it's part of. Why we can be manipulated and hurt in this way. And so the church needs to really be clear about sexual abuse, inappropriate touch, all of that. But the church should not over correct and fail to realize just how significant, healthy, appropriate, godly touch is. And so this whether it's singles, children, all of the like, we need important child protection policies, but don't think the answer is to never hug a kid, right? And I've seen these kind of extremes.
Joshua Johnson:There was a huge difference when I went to go live in Jordan in the Middle East, like one Hey, their concept of time is different than my concept of time. Their concept of of physical touch is different than mine, yeah, concept of hospitality and community is, Yeah, mine and all of it is a communal culture in which I actually then would would come into people's families. Men are kissing men on the cheek. You know, women, we're hugging each other. I I've never seen like more men hold hands in a black way than in the Middle East, like their Arabs love to hold hands. Yeah, and it's not sexualized, and it's not sexual
Unknown:and I remember, I remember being in eat. I think this is Egypt. My wife and I are in Egypt, and we look and there are these two soldiers with their like, AK 47 driver walking, holding hands, right? But they're just friends. It's very sweet. But we just, yeah, we've so sexualized
Joshua Johnson:everything. How do we practically then do that? How do we foster a community or places where we can actually see healthy physical touch and healthy community?
Unknown:It's interesting. One of the areas of research when I was working on your only human and some of this comes out in the book, you were never meant to do it all in the devotional but is to, you know, you read in the New Testament about greet one another with a holy kiss. And we kind of just joke about that. And I remember thinking, Oh, that's That's funny. And yes, we live in different cultures, but when I started to study it in the ancient church, like after the the, you know, post apostolic period, it was actually quite significant still. In fact, you have some early church fathers who will say things like, without the kiss, you're not sure if the prayers are heard and and in some ways, it was just so tied together. And there was, there was a volume originally published Princeton University Press by the sociologist who I don't think was actually a Christian at the time, but since it's become a Christian. And he studied how in the world, did this little group of Christians become a global power, right? And one of the arguments was the way the early church treated women and children, because socially, women and children were often just used for their bodies and horrendous, like, you know, without getting into even, like we talk about tutor the tutor system, trust me, back then, it's not what you think, right? It's pretty terrible. So all of a sudden in the church, your body was respected, and the metaphor changed. So all sudden in the church, you are my sister, my child, my brother, my father, my mother. So these are familial languages, language. So now all sudden, you've desexualized it. And the idea is the church is watching like this. It needs to be holy, but you greet one another with a holy kiss, as you would saying hello and goodbye to your grandparents or to your sister or brother. And so that's quite significant, where all of a sudden, the safety of that community really honors bodies in ways that brings back dignity and allows people to then resist some of the problems socially.
Joshua Johnson:You know, one of the things that I find that has creeped into western church is our concept of productivity and time, and we just have to strive to be to be better, to do all of the thing we do have a ladder mentality of trying to get to God. Just pervasive, I think, in the church, where it's really about us, right? It's up to us to be able to do something so that we could please God. And part of it, I think we have to get everything into this limited amount of time that we have, so we have to really work at our productivity. What is this, then, our relationship with time? And how do we as humans relate to time? Or how should we relate to time? Is the question, oh, it's such a good
Unknown:question, and it's interesting talking to you about it because you you have lived overseas, you've lived in Jordan. So another area that I really learned about doing research is scholarship. Will talk about, I didn't even know there was a field of sociologists of time, but there is right. But anyway, scholars will talk in this field will make a distinction between what they'll call contextual time and. On contextual time. And contextual time is basically you understand time in terms of your context. The sun is up, it's bright. This you can see it's down. Your body chemistry is changing, right? Or it's a time of war. It's someone's pregnant, someone's sick. All of these kind of things affect the context, affects your view of time. That is how most of the world lived until very recently, like we're talking the last 100 years, especially, there's a famous essay in in, um, I think it was 1946 called the tyranny of the clock. And he basically says, said at the time, this is 1946 think about how much has changed since then. And he basically and he basically said, the most significant factor that that shows the difference between us now and most of the ancient world and much of the world is our view of time, right? And and what he calls clock time. And so clock time is non contextual time, and that means there are 24 hours. Every hour is just an hour. Every minute's just a minute. So what that looks like, practically, is, if you have an hour of work to do and it's 11pm Well, we have electricity, turn on the light, open your laptop and start working, because you have an hour of work to do, and you have an hour that is totally ignoring the blood sugar levels in your body. It's ignoring that the kid in the back of your house might have COVID. It's ignoring the It's ignoring everything that the sun is down, all it because all time is the same. And this, you know, it's a much longer conversation, but this then contributes to why when you're driven by clock time. You should always be able to get more done. There's always, you know. How do you think of time? It doesn't take into account rhythms of life, seasons of life, body chemistry, all that
Joshua Johnson:stuff. It stresses me out just thinking about it. But this is the, this is the the way that we live now. How do we then start to think about maybe think about time differently. This is the question I I've been thinking about. I think God is outside of time, and it's not bound by time, but we're also made in the image of God. And so because of that, is, should I have a different relationship with time, or should I view time differently as somebody who reflects God, who is outside of time.
Unknown:Yeah, that's great that. So that reminds me, you're putting it more in a more sophisticated way. But maybe this will help listeners I had, I was talking about this to a group of high school kids a summer or two ago, you know. And I love Q and A afterwards, at these kind of conferences, and after I was explaining this idea that we are finite, it's not really word you and I have used yet, but just to make sure listeners are following, the idea of finitude is a fancy word for limits, right? We're finite. We're limited in space, time, knowledge and power. So finitude means limits, limits, or finitude, or fancy way for what Christians just meant by creature. So anyways, I'm talking about the goodness of our limit. So I had the student raised his hand at the you know, and he said, I got three questions. I could tell he's upset with me, which I loved, you know, my God, this is great. I'm really proud of this kid. So he's like, three questions. Dr gavid, number one, he said, is, Does God have limits? And, you know, I'm a theologian, so asking me a question like that, I don't kind of want to say what. Want to say, Well, I mean, he can't sin. Is that a limit? But I knew that's not what he wanted. So I said, No, God has no limits. And he started to smile. And he said, number two, are we made in the image of God? And then I start smiling. I'm like, Yep, I knew where he started. And then he literally, as best as I can represent. I think this is almost word for word. What he said? He said, number three, then how in the world can you say we should have limits? And then he said, Show me the verse which I loved. I love, like, I'm not telling the story to make fun of this kid. I actually think it represents some deeper assumptions. Like, in other words, that kid didn't come up with that on his own. He's trying to make sense of what he's been catechized in, whether or not they called it, that he's been shaped in the church, in the world. And so I, you know, as gently as I could basically, how do you say to this kid, it's not a verse here or there, it's in the it's every page of the Bible. It's what we actually call the Creator creature, distinction. And so the idea is God alone is infinite. He really is everywhere. Knows everything, but we are finite, and to collapse those two is a form of idolatry. So to be made in God's image does not mean that we're Trinitarian. It doesn't mean we're infinite in all these kinds of ways to be made in God's image. Actually, you go, Well, we're made in God's image. Jesus Christ is God's image. So if you actually want to know what the image looks like, you looked at Jesus, and what that image of being in the image of God as a human best looks like in Christ, it looks like perfect, right? Love of the Father, right, right, communion and relations with the rest of humanity and rightly relating to creation like Jesus becomes that model. So it's never meant to make us Gods. Something else is going on there. So
Joshua Johnson:if I want to embody Jesus, then in our day and age, I'm thinking of Jesus, right? Jesus walked everywhere. You know he things were were slower in his age. Things are a lot quicker in our age, and they're speeding up. That feels like everything's going faster and faster, and we can't keep up. And so now I feel so if I want to be like Jesus, yeah, body Jesus in the world, and if I'm discipled to him. How do you think that Jesus then would live in our age of like a sped up time? Yeah, what would Jesus be doing to help us then see, what is our relationship with our world today? Yeah, I love, I love that
Unknown:question. I really do. Because in some ways, like, I think people talk about apologetics, which it doesn't mean apologizing for but making a defense of the faith. And often it becomes like, well, we should give arguments for God's existence. But actually, in light of your question, it's part of what I would say is the best apologetic, the best argument the gospel, one of the best gifts that the church can give the world right now is a fresh vision of what it means to be human. That is actually, it makes God more believable. It makes so and that like to understand Jesus like part of what it means is to learn to value, yes, what I'm saying is not about sloth, but to to learn to value rest, to learn to value Sabbath, right? That word, depending on people's background, can be very legalistic. I'm not interested in legalism, but there is something profound in this chaotic world about entering a one in seven pattern where there's a day where you're like, you know, you can sleep, and then you worship with God's people, and you feast, and you get time in God's creation and just to slow down and enjoy God. And I find people who are like, No, that's too good to be true. You're like, no, that's actually one of the 10 Commandments. But for various reasons, we acted like that. One doesn't matter anymore, and we are dehumanizing ourselves. So again, I'm not interested in legalism, but one of the one of the gifts, is to learn. We work hard and we learn to rest, and we ultimately rest in God. I mean, another area I would go to is I've really because I've wrestled with this my own life, and part of the research and writing help me see I now think of sleep as a spiritual discipline. Because every day you go and you say, God, I can't keep going. I am now entrusting you into this. And it's interesting, if you're in war and on the front lines, you can't sleep unless you have a friend who's awake and has your back. And you realize biblically, the whole argument for why we sleep is because God never sleeps, and so sleep is a daily practice of reminding ourselves we are creatures, and God is the Creator and Sustainer of the world, and it is not all upon us that He is the one, which is why we lament when things are not going well, and why we're grateful when they are. How do we structure our days? Yeah, you need to structure in a five minute increment. Yeah, exactly.
Joshua Johnson:So this is what we're asked about constantly, like, how do we do this is and structure it. But I want to be human. I don't want to just, like, be a machine. I think we're we're wanting to be more and more machine like than human. So what do days look like? Yeah, other than rest as humans and not machines, that is five minute increments, yeah?
Unknown:I mean, it's a very fair question. It's interesting. Sometimes I'm asked to come to colleges, but also like high schools, because this is a massive issue. I mean, you know, in your only human I begin with the story of just a regular day of high school for for most kids these days, they'll have me talk to the to the parents and or the students. And inevitably, we get to Q and A, the parents will inevitably get to some version of like, we love what you're selling. Sign me up. But it then comes down to So how can we have everything we're doing and this right, and be more humane and rest and not kill our kids, not kill ourselves? We're all worn out. And it's funny, because that's the reality. Is you can't. And we kind of know the answer, but we don't. We're still looking for the hack. So part of what I love is there's a guy, there's a guy named Oliver Berkman, New York Times best selling author. He's not a Christian. He's very thoughtful. He's read Augustine and other Christians, but he's written on time management for years, right? And he wrote a book called 4000 weeks and the aha moment. Berkman. As writing this book, 4000 weeks is the average lifespan of someone in the Western world. And Berkman realizes, oh, all of us in time management are basically in the business of selling the myth that we're not mortal, and that if you just arrange your life well enough, you can do it all. And so Berkman is not even Christian. He's just basically like, No, you have to make hard decisions. You have to say no to things and try and do the things you need to do and want to, but then you would just have to, like, the irrationality of all of this, where I had a student of mine, when we're I was asking students to give me feedback on this, and I had lunch with this student. She had this sheet of paper, and she had made a square for every hour of the week, so seven days, 24 hours. And she said, what I did is I took time to try and put into this week everything that people I respect, my pastor, my parents, my professors tell me I should be doing, and I won't bore you with all the details, but what she discovered as she started color coding, the whole thing is It's literally impossible. And I encourage so actually, what I would encourage listeners to do when you feel utterly overwhelmed is map do something crazy like that, and workman who's not a Christian would tell you, and you know what you're gonna find. You actually can't do it all. So it's irrational to imagine you can so just either have the courage and bravery for us to admit this stuff, that we're creatures, as I would say, as a creation, and God never wanted us to do it all, or continue to live constantly disappointed, feeling like God's frustrated with you unrealistic expectations. So I do think this stuff takes tremendous amount of courage, and the only way you get that courage is starting to listen for and believe God's benediction is over you, and it's not contingent on how much you get done. A
Joshua Johnson:lot of this comes down into our identity. I think one of what you said at the beginning was that we look for our identities within ourselves, we also then try to, you know, hack our way into our identities to say, Hey, I'm good enough in this area. I'm getting the things done people are going to be okay with me. And so oftentimes it seems like we jump from identity to identity to identity. And because of that I feel like I have to go faster. I have to do more. I have to like, transcend my humanness so that I could be better. Where does identity come into play, within community and what we receive from God, so that we can, like, be rooted where we
Unknown:are so good. I think one of the things we do face, or at least me, is when you start to ask the practical questions, like, how much should you do? I'm a terrible judge of that in my own life, right? And it depends on our background. In my case, like I will, you know, we one of the jokes around our house now is sometimes at Tabitha, my wife will be walking by, and she'll see me on my computer at night, she said, Wait, are you working still? You know. And there are times just like a farmer when it's harvest time and you need to put in long hours. And so I think that's just realistic. The problem is, if you make all of life harvest time, you will, you will die like it's killing you. So anyway, sometimes you'll see me and say, you know, are you still? What are you doing? And if I and I sheepishly, it's not one of those times like, Well, yeah, she's like this. She'll say, Kelly, done. ESPN, right now, and it's a joke for us. But the reason is because if I would have looked at myself in the bathroom mirror five minutes earlier and said, Kelly, I think you need to be done with your work, I'd say, are you lazy? You know, because there is something in me, but I trust her. So now, all sudden, I can do this other thing and engage and rest and that kind of stuff. So I find a small group of people who know you and love you can really help, because sometimes they will say, as they listen to what you're doing, this up. Sometimes they might actually say, actually, Kelly, we feel like you're put it this way. They might not say you're lazy. Might say you're not engaged, like the community needs you to or your workplace and we're impoverished because you're not. So it's not always do less. Sometimes the community can say you're being negligent. They'll put it nicer than that, and sometimes they'll go, Oh my word. This is crazy. This is too much, and it's much easier for us to see it in others than in ourselves, and we are much more gracious with other people than we are with ourselves. So I really do think community is the way, particularly small groups, is the way you get pockets of shalom in this chaotic world, and we can start having the courage and bravery to be more honest and realistic in how we're living our lives. And I think that can point to the beauty of God, to his kindness and love. Community is messy, though. Oh, man, they're just like, I
Joshua Johnson:have to actually. Then interact with people I don't like. I have to do conflicts resolution like I I don't I can't just run from every conflict that I have and just isolate and be alone. Why is community good for me? If all of this mess happens when I'm a part of it, it's
Unknown:the dependence part. It is interesting. It's kind of like Lewis and others, CS, Lewis and others talk about this, but they're like, there's, you know, I can, I can actually save you from ever having your heart broken again. It just don't enter any relationships, right? And but the problem is, you turn into a rock, and we are really made for these relationships. And this is, this is how we flourish. So unfortunately, love is always a risk, you know. And I have a son who's about to get married, and, you know, these are terrifying things now. I mean, he's not saying that, but like, and now I see it from the parental perspective, but there's no other way. Like, this is what it looks like. You enter in and it's beautiful and it's really hard, and God often works in and through those very ways. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson:that's good. You know, one of the things that, when you said that when we think of life as it's always harvest time, that we're consistently working, you know, my wife leads the missions organization, and we're, we're with missionaries a lot, and that is their, their typical view, like, it's always harvest time, and it has to be harvest time, right? There's an important work to be done, and we can't rest like, that's, that's probably, you know, with missionaries, that's the the thing for yes, for missionaries, yeah, they're romanticized, ideal, yeah. Then how would you then help people like that, where they think that what they do matters so significantly, they can't rest? What would you say to people like that?
Unknown:This is so great. You put those two questions together so perfectly. So here's the short answer, because there is so much work to be done. It's all good and necessary work. But again, we read the Bible so individualistically so. Think of Matthew 25 and the sheep and the goats, right? Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell. It's of judgment scene. And when you start to read that episode and not draw everywhere else in Scripture, the thing that separates the sheep and the goats is, do you feed the hungry? Do you clothe the naked? Do you do you bring these things of healing. Do you like? Are you? Are you concerned for the marginalized? Are you doing these things? The problem is, does that mean, then that I personally must do all of those things? And so what's happened is, you have two responses to that kind of text, or at least what it represents. In our day, you have some who, especially in the last 2530 years, have finally woken up to the Bible. Actually does care about justice. It does care about poverty. It does care about these things. But then they've taken that and they've become pure activists, and they feel like they themselves need to do everything. And we know how that works. 10 years later, often burnout, and I work with a lot of nonprofits, and they will tell you many of their employees who've been doing it for a long time are some of the most bitter people you'll ever know, because they're like, Why is no one helping? But then you have the other side, where other side has seen that, but they were like, Well, Jesus has done it all. I don't need to do anything, because otherwise, maybe I'm trying to earn God's favor. You're like, no, that's not what the Bible says either. So it's either I need to do everything or I need to do nothing. And I think when you take that same text, and you don't read it in a radical individualistic way, but in a communal context, whether it's Jordan or the Ancient Near Eastern right, all sudden you realize Jesus isn't screwing around these things all need to be done. But, and here's my punch line, you discover it takes the entire church to be the one body of Christ. Takes the entire church to be one body of Christ. Missionaries, because of some of the rhetoric, start to think, yes, the harvest is ready. I must personally do it. No, no, no, you you're you matter, you're really important, you're just a person. And so there's good work for you to do, but you're not ever meant to do it all. Takes a whole church to be the one body of Christ. And I do and and tell some of these stories. There's some examples of missionaries actually ending up in Super dysfunctional situations and problems for these very reasons. So I want us to avoid either thinking I personally must do it all, or therefore I don't need to be engaged at all. No, no, you're a part. You're you're you're a toe, you're an eye, you're a thumb, you matter, but you're not the body.
Joshua Johnson:It's so good this body, this body metaphor and like we're part of this, the body of Christ. I'm not the entire body. I often live like I am because I have been so ingrained with this individualistic mindset that I think that, oh, it's up to me to be all of the body man that. Hyper dependent, dependence, then on the body of Christ. Yeah, to do those things, it's so it's both life giving and freeing, but it's also scary that depend on on one another and each other, yeah?
Unknown:And even think about, you know, those of us in ministry missions, whatever, we will often say, and there's truth to this, but we will often say, I'm worn out. I don't have any time, but there is a need, so in faith, I'm gonna trust that God will give me what the energy I need to do this next thing. And God does that sometimes, but it is as if we fail to recognize it it can also be a legitimate, honest expression of faith to go I've been doing all these things. I'm worn out. I have to believe God loves this person or situation more than I do, and so he will provide someone else to do it. There is an arrogance that can sneak in where we start to think we're Messiah, and there's only one Messiah, and none of us are him, right? Jesus is Messiah. So, amen. That's good. Thank you for actually taking your book, your only human and then making this, this 40 day devotional. You were never meant to do it all. I think it's going to help a lot of people to walk through those things. And thank you. What? What is your hope for people who pick this up and actually do walk through these 40 days and yeah, devotional, my hope is people will actually, their shoulders will go down. They'll, they'll feel more comfortable in God's love, His kindness and grace. They'll value community more, and they'll, they'll become more enter a more humane existence. So really it was because business people, actually some chaplains and prisons, some others who said, We love you're only human. But for some people, it's a bit much. So could you give us a more digestible version, something, you know? And so the 40 day devotional became a way. It's shorter, it's little bits. So I really do encourage people in small groups. It seems like it's been an encouragement to people that's at least our prayer.
Joshua Johnson:I have a couple of quick questions here at the end. One, right? If you could go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?
Unknown:Oh, that's a great question. I think I'd tell myself to breathe more deeply, to allow myself to be present in the moment and not just working for what will be anything
Joshua Johnson:you've been reading or watching lately, you could recommend,
Unknown:yeah, there's an old book on worship by JJ von Alman called worship that really it's, it's decades old, but I find it. I found it quite significant in terms of trying to rethink how corporate worship really reflects Jesus and the Gospels and how Jesus the argument I would make is Jesus. This is a longer conversation. The short version is, we don't just worship Jesus. Jesus is a leader of our worship, but that's a different book. But yeah, so anyways, readings on worship have been significant to me lately.
Joshua Johnson:Man, that's so good. I think we sometimes we might have to go back to older books to get a better sense of where we need to go in worship and communal worship, you know, again, it feels like an individualized style of worship that we have, oh yeah, in the Western Church. And so what does it look like as the body, yeah, be able to do it together, yeah, I think that would be fantastic. So give it to us. Let us. Let us. You got another record in November, yeah, so how can people go out and get you were never meant to do it all, and you're only human as well, to go and actually walk through these, these limits that we have. And what does it means to be human? How can people get those? And is there anywhere else you'd like to point people to?
Unknown:Yeah, thanks. It's pretty funny, given what I'm writing about, I'm actually not on social media, so I don't have Facebook, I'm not on Twitter. I'm not on threads or anything. But it to get the book, Amazon, any, any place sells it, but and and Baker bras sells it. But also, if they want to get in touch with me, I mean, Speaker something, if you just type in my name, it takes you to covenant college. And there's a there's a link in a little form you can fill out and stuff. So thank you, Fern. Well,
Joshua Johnson:thank you so much. It was a fantastic conversation, and now I feel like I could be human again. So thank you. I
Unknown:appreciate you. Have a good rest of your day. You
Joshua Johnson:too. Bye, bye. You.
