Unsexy Church
Unsexy Church
Season 2 Episode 59: On Combatting Stress and Anxiousness
On this week's episode, we explore six practical recommendations for finding peace and rest in the midst of a stressful, restless life. These straightforward strategies offer pathways toward genuine mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual rejuvenation.
Pastor Trent gives us insight on what scripture has to say about stress, tune into this week's episode to learn more!
it's studio day it's studio day we're in the studio and actually it's just me and you. Today you're joining the podcast. Um, I have a topic in mind that we're going to talk through and bob is I wouldn't say mia, we're just sans bob meaning he was just vicinity is he here?
Speaker 2:I think he had a thing and then he's gonna be here and then he's gonna do another thing. Yeah, some kind of pastor thing this morning might be an associational thing.
Speaker 1:We are bobless, we are without bob, sans bob block, pastor bob block. But we're hanging out in the studio. I've noticed the office is lively this morning.
Speaker 2:It is. It's kind of popping.
Speaker 1:It feels lively. I was out at the BCM headquarters in northern Tampa-ish Today In Temple Terrace. I was there this morning, I headed down here and you've had a lively morning. Some car issues.
Speaker 1:With my parents, yeah, but all is going well, made it in I think the liveliness is due to vbs prep that's probably it, yep I think there's people uh, getting all the vbs decorations prepared downstairs, our vbs leaders somewhere in the office and her family's somewhere here too. I thought I heard him running around, so yeah, scampering about yeah sometimes fridays are quiet. That's not a quiet Friday, it's.
Speaker 2:Thursday Today's.
Speaker 1:Thursday Sometimes Thursdays are quiet. It's not a quiet Thursday.
Speaker 2:Not a quiet Thursday, but that's good.
Speaker 1:I have a fact for you.
Speaker 2:What is your?
Speaker 1:fact this morning. So of course we're church planning. We just received our SBC ID, which identifies us as a Southern Baptist church at the national level. You have to use your SBC ID to register to be a messenger at the Southern Baptist convention. Southern Baptist convention is the Southern Baptist. We only technically exist as a quote, unquote convention. When the convention takes place, to register you have to use your SBC ID. But the reason I'm even saying all these things is because this year marks the 100th year of the cooperative program.
Speaker 2:What is that?
Speaker 1:Exciting. Thank you for asking so. The cooperative program is the program put in place for the collection of monies across the convention churches to fund ministries and missions, that's so very cool across the convention churches to fund ministries and missions.
Speaker 1:That's so very cool. So the denomination has been around since 1845. The cooperative program for how we use the spending of our monies has only been around the last 100 years, so there might have been votes for how they would use the monies before that. Now it's like okay, okay, it goes to fuel these entities and institutions. So, um, every year, uh well, the churches that give to the sbc are giving to the cooperative program. Uh, the cooperative program fuels the international mission board. I think it's like 4 000 or so missionaries across, uh the across the world. It fuels the North American Mission Board.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Missions and ministries in the states. It fuels our six Southern Baptist seminaries, which is Gateway Seminary, midwestern Baptist, new Orleans, southeastern, southern and Southwestern. It funds our Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, an office that we have in DC that speaks to social, moral and ethical concerns for Southern Baptists. It fuels our resourcing ministry, which is Lifeway, christian Resources books and Sunday school materials. It also fuels Guidestone Financial Resources. So this is like retirement insurance, financial planning, medical insurance for pastors and ministry leaders. I have Guidestone, guidestone Financial.
Speaker 2:Resources.
Speaker 1:So this is like retirement insurance, financial planning, medical insurance for pastors and ministry leaders. I have Guidestone Guidestone Now for medical I did not have it for medical in the past and for retirement. My retirement accounts with Guidestone Through NAM.
Speaker 2:Through Guidestone, guidestone which is funded by the cooperative program the cooperative program which has been around for 100 years now. That was it.
Speaker 1:The SBC Executive Committee for any issues with the convention as a whole. The SBC Executive Committee oversees that. They're funded by the cooperative program. The WMU, the Women's Missionary Union and State Baptist Conventions also receive a little bit of money from the Cooperative Program. So we're celebrating 100 years of cooperating together to fund missions and ministries as Southern Baptist churches.
Speaker 2:And we're celebrating this next month.
Speaker 1:We are now in May, so it is next month. Are we in May? Today's May 1st?
Speaker 2:Yes, today's May 1st Whoa.
Speaker 1:So everybody, make sure you pay your rent or your mortgage or whatever else lands in the first. It's the day Happy May. Happy May April showers bring May sand in Florida.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:It's just hot sand.
Speaker 2:April showers bring May showers. That's right, it's just humidity which brings June, hurricanes which brings Well, right, it's just humidity brings june, hurricanes, which brings, well, august, not, I guess, august yeah, that's a lot closer to hurricane season this hurricane season, september, october um yes, somewhere in there.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, we have a lot we're going to talk about, but you have a question. We do?
Speaker 2:I do have a question for you, mr pastor trent yeah, can I edit your question a little bit?
Speaker 1:Go ahead and ask your question, see what it is.
Speaker 2:No you can't. My question is what are the top three songs on your Spotify repeat playlist?
Speaker 1:So my Spotify gave a skewed look into my listening habits for a long time because I I had like one set playlist I'd play before, services, before and after, and that wasn't necessarily what I listened to all day, it was just on a playlist on repeat so you get it in your brain no, like, I mean like pre-service stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, so like you're talking about, what the things you practiced like for the drums and whatnot.
Speaker 1:Sorry, well, that too, but for a long time, like my spotify was the one in the youth room and my spotify is the one in the young alt room, and so the same songs, the same 20 songs, would always be my top 20 songs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they just repeat it all the time. Now that's not the case, so it's actually a more accurate reflection of what I listen to. Um, so right now, a band that I don't know how to pronounce it looks like Keala or Koala or Kaola is one of the tops on my list, or?
Speaker 2:Chiola, I don't know how to pronounce it. I don't even know what that means. Sorry, so I listen to a lot of singer-songwriter music.
Speaker 1:So that band is up there. Noah Gunderson is always up on my list. Who else by Gateway Worship is on my list? Um uh, who else by gateway worship is on my list, One of my favorite.
Speaker 2:Wait, so did you give me? You just gave me the artists, though. What are the songs?
Speaker 1:Okay, sorry, wolves by Koala Um, let's see one by Noah Gunderson on here. First defeat by Noah Gunderson Um. A simple song by Chris Stapleton who else? By Gateway Worship, the Lord's Prayer by Matt Marr, up by Forrest Frank, because we were listening to it with the kids in the car Hospital. By Lydia. Simple Gospel by United Pursuit Way Home by Young in the City. So a lot of it's like singer-songwriter artists that I listen to a lot, mixed with some favorite worship songs right now.
Speaker 2:So cool. That's a typical playlist. Wow, what's your fave song at the moment of all of them?
Speaker 1:I don't have one.
Speaker 2:All right, I don't have one.
Speaker 1:All right, I don't have one, so have you noticed? So if anybody has Spotify, you know the day list feature, you know what this?
Speaker 2:is I think so yeah. It gives you a little playlist for your day.
Speaker 1:But it also names, what your day list is.
Speaker 2:Okay, what's the name of yours?
Speaker 1:Sometimes they can be funky, so my day list is called I look up day list because it didn't pop up. My earthy happy folk Thursday morning. Have you seen this?
Speaker 2:Earthy happy folk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look up day list. What is yours called?
Speaker 2:Thursday morning. Mine is called uplifting positive Thursday morning.
Speaker 1:That sounds very much like Joel Osteen.
Speaker 2:Okay, sorry.
Speaker 1:Earthy happy folk. So I've got Zach Bryan, tyler Childers, gregory Allen Isikoff which I'm probably mispronouncing Shaky Graves, camp Watch House, steel Drivers, wild.
Speaker 2:Rivers. I love Wild Rivers. Yeah, they're okay.
Speaker 1:I really liked them at first.
Speaker 2:They're okay, blue Meniers are on here.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Trent Wild Arado Ghost of Paul Revere. Never heard of them. I don't know who that is. What about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have some strange things on here that I don't even listen to. There's Kane on here, chrisris tomlin, which is not bad, but I don't feel like I listen to him. Very often need to breathe. Jervis campbell is on here, of course, which I like, jervis campbell knew that um.
Speaker 1:Chris renzema is on here, but ann wilson's on here and I don't listen to her I guess I just wanted chris renzema a lot and he didn't pop up on any of my lists yeah, that's weird, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't listen to ann wilson or not, that she's bad or anything, I don't know christian artist, secular artist, I don't know anyone else she's a christian artist. I believe she's the one who does my jesus I would tell you about my jesus I thought that was jamie stoffus.
Speaker 1:She always does that song. She does, she always does that song when we're doing on sundays, oh, yeah, okay, um. So hey, the topic of the day today what is the topic? Let's jump in. Uh, so I thought it would be a good idea to just have a conversation about stress, um, but that topic kind of morphed in my head as I was writing just some ideas of what we talk about, to six recommendations for a restless life. So let's title this podcast on six recommendations for a restless life.
Speaker 2:For a restless life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for those that feel restless or stress-filled or just like overwhelmed or tired. Just tired, apathetic, tired, you know. I thought this would be maybe just some good recommendations was there something that made you think about this topic? Um, in the past I've there's been seasons I've felt very restless. Where I've not, I feel like rest evades me. Yeah, um, where I'm, I'm busy, I'm tired, I'm not as one would call on my game yeah make sense mm-hmm so here's some, maybe just some things to add in. It could be patterns, healthy patterns sweet yeah, I'm talking myself here.
Speaker 1:This I don't.
Speaker 2:These six recommendations, I don't miss a whole two all the time mm-hmm recommendation all right, let's hear, maybe you could add one, if you have one. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So here's number one Prayer. So, for those overcome by anxiety, what the scripture recommends is hey, examine your prayer life. Hey, if you're worried about tomorrow, cast your anxieties on the Lord, for he cares about you. His mighty hand is the one that parted the seas and also carves your path in life. Cast your anxieties upon him, for he cares about you. We think of Matthew chapter six. Matthew chapter six talks about worry, and that worry can be likened to a lack of faith, and this worry, in particular in Matthew chapter six, is a worry over the future. Ah, what about tomorrow? What's going to happen tomorrow and the next day and the next day? How am I going to do this and that? And so what Jesus speaks about in the Sermon on the Mount is hey, god controls your future, so trust him with it. Right, don't be overwhelmed with future circumstances that you can't control. God's in control of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he cares about you.
Speaker 1:You don't think he cares about you. Look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. You aren't worried about tomorrow and he cares a lot more about you than the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. And so set your mind on things kingdom related and God will help you and care for you every day of your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like sometimes, when I'm in a stressful situation or moment, I don't really want to pray because I'm trying to think of a way out of the situation. So it's hard to get myself into a spot where I can rest enough to actually think, to talk to God about whatever's going on, which is probably a sign of the need for, I guess, like more spiritual maturity. You know, because we want to go to God first, but a lot of the time it's like ah.
Speaker 1:Two things to consider. The first is an exaggeration is sometimes helpful to prove a point. I think that's what was what Martin Luther was doing, the great reformer. He one time said he says I have so much to do today that I will need to spend three hours in prayer. Yeah, that's a helpful exaggeration. He says I have so much to do today that I will need to spend three hours in prayer, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a helpful exaggeration. Hey, don't busy your life so much that you can't spend time in prayer, and prayer is what fuels servitude.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right Proper service. You think also, what could have been, in his humanity, the most restless time in Jesus's ministry? Well, probably right before he died. And what did he do? He prayed, he went to the Garden of Gethsemane and prayed right. He knew what was coming, he knew how difficult the next days would be and he prayed. What did Jesus do? The most stressful time of his life? He prayed. All right. Number two I can see Calvin, the last, the most stressful time of his life.
Speaker 2:He prayed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, number two. I can see Calvin just standing outside the door. Calvin, you're welcome. Oh, that's Matt. Is it Matt or Calvin? You can come say hi, just say hi. All right, calvin said hi. Bye, calvin.
Speaker 2:Bye, bye.
Speaker 1:So the second thing I'd recommend is sleep. Um. So the second thing I'd recommend, uh, is sleep. Sleep. That doesn't sound spiritual.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I disagree. I do think that the physical life and the spiritual life of a believer are not so disconnected. Uh, here's what I mean by that. Um, sleep is God's reminder to us that we're not him. Sleep reminds us we're not sovereign right. So God has so put in our design, our bodies, the fact that we must shut off and trust the Lord that he's going to wake us back up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So every night before we go to bed, I'm an imperfect dad. There's a lot of things I don't do well. So every night before we go to bed, I'm an imperfect dad. There's a lot of things I don't do well. But one thing that I think I just want to bake in my son's memory of his childhood is every night, the last thing that I say I pray over him, pray with him. We read the Bible together. Every night, it's the same exact rhythm. The last thing we say is hey, judah, we can sleep. And he responds because God doesn't Right.
Speaker 1:You can sleep because God doesn't Right Um. A good reminder is hey, we're not sovereign and God, like it, will ruin us if we do not go to sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Uh, a Baylor study in 2019 has been a bunch of studies, but a Baylor study in 2019, um Bay of studies, but a baylor study in 2019. Um baylor's uh college of medicine, bcm, which is kind of funny. Bcm did a study. It basically said you want to be more stressed, sleep less yeah, yeah, how many hours you get per night I am pro sleep, so here's how kind of like the the typical day works for me.
Speaker 1:Um, if I go to bed later than 1030, I'm up too late. Right Now, some people will say that you're staying up too late. Some people, it's all relative, but if I'm up past 11, I'm unhelpful. Right, I'm typically unproductive.
Speaker 2:The next day, the following night.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm not having a good time if I'm up past 1030. Typically, typically, um so uh, my wife wakes about five, 15,. I'll wake up about five, 45 to six ish, sometimes six, 10, depending on if my kids are awake yet, uh, so I don't wake up before my kids. They wake up too early, uh, and then I help, you know, get them ready for school, uh, and they leave and I spend some time in the word and sometimes I'll fall asleep for about 10 to 15 minutes before I have to jump in the shower.
Speaker 1:So, um, you know, on average I'm getting you know, seven and a half to eight hours of sleep that's good, that's very good I think, a lot of guys who are just worn out and they're like I don't know why I'm just struggling with apathy and anger and frustration and just tiredness. I think sometimes we overanalyze and the simple answer is like how much sleep you getting? Genuinely, how much sleep you getting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think like, especially in America, we just feel like we have to be on top of it, you know. So we have to be like going to get that bagayden wakes up super early, but he also prefers to go to sleep super early as well as he should, so yeah, yeah, I'm quite the opposite. What's jesse? What time does she go to sleep?
Speaker 1:she's more of a late night person than me. We're going to bed at the same time every night.
Speaker 2:I mean, if one of us is going to she's more of a late night person than you, oh yeah, and she wakes up at five in the morning yeah, I mean she's.
Speaker 1:I mean she doesn't want to wake up that early. So if there's a morning where she's gonna sleep in later, she wants to stay up later yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so she, she likes being up and and not just going to bed. I, I'm good to go to bed. I like I want to work and go to bed tired. Um, she's good with staying up later. Every once in a while I'll be like hey, let's watch a movie, it's late, let's do it. We'll sleep in more. Um, but um, she's more of a late night now than I am. That's crazy. She has to wake up earlier than I am. Yeah, but if we can sleep in, I'm more of an early morning person than she is that's very interesting.
Speaker 2:Oh, she does a good job with that. Yeah, she does. All right, do you have the next point for us?
Speaker 1:Number three community. This is pretty obvious. But a man, as the old phrases go, a man is on an island, a woman is not an island. They cannot live isolated. It's unhelpful, mentally, emotionally and physically for you to be removed from people. The shift of work to working at home has had a detrimental effect, I think, on the psyche of a typical human being if they're not getting out of their home regularly. Right, we are meant to be with people, to see people. Adam should not have been alone. That's why God created Eve. Right, of course, that speaks to marriage, but it also speaks to just the fact that we're not meant to live in isolation, and so I think any number of things can make us restless, one of which could be we're just not around people. The church was built just for you to be around people, to be encouraged by people, to pour into people.
Speaker 2:Um, so yeah, is there a time in your life cause you, you've grown up in a Christian community, and so have I? Is there a time in your life because you, you've grown up in a christian community, and so have I? Is there a time in your life that you remember you feel like you may have had a very small amount of community or access to community, maybe during covet or sometime previous? Maybe you weren't as regularly involved in a church. I know it's strange, because you've been involved in a church majority of your life, maybe even all of your entire life, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1:But I can't think of a time.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:You.
Speaker 2:Um, I think in when I was in Orlando, like high school years, we were still actively involved in church but I did feel like I didn't have a lot of access to other believers that I could share my suffering with, because I went to a public school and whatnot, so most of my friends were not believers. And then I moved here to Tampa and then I found a good bit of people who were kind of on the same track as me that I feel like I could share my suffering with. I mean, that was really good. I feel like there's a cliche that people say where it's like if you have a friend, you have half as much. If you share your suffering, you have half as much suffering. If you share your joy, you have twice the joy, or something like that. That I thought was really sweet. I feel like I've heard that little bit here and there.
Speaker 1:If you're listening, write it down, that's good.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and then during COVID I was a part of this church at BC Tampa and then during COVID I was completely cut off. I didn't even watch it online, if I'm being honest. And so that was really difficult, because I remember even I got COVID and I wasn't allowed back at work for like two weeks because they had to make sure it would go away. And then I got tested for COVID again and then it was still positive, even though I wasn't sick anymore, and then that was another two weeks that I was just away from anyone at all. So that was really rough, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this goes for I mean, we're probably both extroverts, but this truth, I think, goes for even the introvert right yeah this is not a matter of personality. This is a matter of reality.
Speaker 2:We have to have some sort of community yeah, I definitely used to be more of an introvert and then, since having been to college and realizing the importance of sharing my faith and being in community, I've made a practice of like getting out of my comfort zone, which has been so good, and especially like with Jane and I going into the military life or whatever that looks like, to be able to have conversations with people, get out of your comfort zone for the purpose of either sharing the gospel or building community around you. To keep you accountable is so important.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I see it in our young adult group too. There's a lot of girls especially, who are just in such need for accountability because it's like, even if they've been able to come to church and make the decision to come to church, you know, on a Sunday morning, you have the rest of your entire life throughout the rest of the week, and if you can't share your suffering with anyone, then you have to bear it entirely, almost by yourself. And the Lord has given us people, he's given us himself, so that we could share our suffering with him and with others, because he is represented by the church here with us. And so, yeah, I agree that's very, very important to have community in the midst of stress.
Speaker 1:That's good. Number four forced disconnection. So it seems like I'm saying the opposite of what we just said, but forced disconnection, so this would be in the realm of, like, social media and internet and all that kind of thing, right, easier said than done. I'm obviously not great at this. I don't know if obviously is the right word to use, but I'm just I'm personally not great at this. But, um, set apart, you know days, times, rhythms, where do you just disconnect from social media anyway, you can, right? So it's funny. The promise of the phrase social media is that we would be more social, and yet what we learn is that social media has made us more isolated and, in some ways, more disconnected, and so to disconnect from social media might help us actually become more social, right? Yeah? So there's a well-known encouraged rhythm that I think a few pastors have talked about, where, um, hey, if you can rest from social media, here's a pattern one day of the week, don't be on your phone, and then one month of the year don't be on your phone, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you're looking for a rhythm, uh to just uh, so just to disconnect, that's a healthy thing, I think.
Speaker 2:One day a week, one day don't be on your phone to, to not need, just, yeah, to not be on social media, okay, those kinds of things yeah yeah, I remember you talked about getting a I don't know if it's like a brick phone or just something and one of my friends he downloaded like a thing that just well, he got a completely new phone. That's just like wiped every other thing off of his phone yeah so it's been helping him, I guess like focus and some things that matter.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I think that's very good yeah, I think social media is kind of what I'm trying to talk about here, because I'll talk about work in a little bit. Um, so number five, uh, work, I say a little bit, it's the next one work, um. So I I want to be careful and be in the right balance here. Um, christians are supposed to be the least complaining of all peoples.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's one way we shine as lights in the midst of a twisted and crooked generation. Using the words of the apostle Paul in Philippians, chapter two and we want to be really careful. We're not lazy. Um, there is a lot of problems about the sloth. There's a lot of proverbs written about the sloth. There's a lot of proverbs written, possibly, about zeal.
Speaker 1:We want to be hard-working people yeah okay, um, we want to work really, really hard, but we also want to learn how to delegate. We want to learn how to say no as much as we say, or even more than we say, yes. You don't have to say yes to everything, right? This might just sound proverbial, but the scriptures speak in proverbial ways, especially good steward of our time. It's right to put you know, a lot of work into a few things we can do well. Then, um, little work into a bunch of things we can't do well, right.
Speaker 1:So learn to say no, um, I just wanted to write. I wrote this down. You know, learn. This is part of kind of that shutting off. If you just think about days in the recent past, you know hundred turn years. Whatever you want to go back, we went from letters. So if we, if someone needed something and needed to communicate with one another, you're right, and letters take time. You're thinking about what you write and there's time for it to get to the person you're writing to. They're taking time to read what you wrote, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Then it went from letters to having a house phone. Okay, so you had one point of contact where someone could pick up the phone, dial your number. You'd have to stand by the phone, you'd have to talk there, right, we went from letters to a house phone to email. Okay, now you have internet and you can can sit down at your home computer and you can type up an email and it would take a few minutes and it would get to the person on the other end and they could read it, but they're not on their computer all the time. It sits in one room of their house. Went from letters to house phone, to email to now a cell phone.
Speaker 1:Early on, cell phones didn't have texting. It may have had it, but rarely people texted. You had plans where you'd be restricted to a certain amount of text a month, um, and so now you can text in the case of emergency. Of course, pagers were kind of like that, but we won't talk about pagers. Um, then you went from letters to house phone, to email, to cell phone, to texting. Texting is a regular part of life. Hey, you should do this. Hey, can you take care of this?
Speaker 1:hey what do you think about? Then we went from letters to house phone to email, to cell phone, to texting, to multiple social avenues to receive messages. So I could receive messages on Facebook. I could receive messages on Instagram, on Snapchat I don't really use Snapchat, but Snapchat, twitter has a messaging feature. What other messages features? Group me if you're part of groups.
Speaker 1:So there are multiple ways to access people and there are a few ways that you can shut off, yeah, and so, um, my recommendation is work really hard without complaining, learn how to delegate, learn how to say no and learn how to shut off when you can right hey, I'm reachable from this hour to this hour and if there's in case of emergency you can call me. Otherwise I can text back tomorrow you don't need another day, right? That's harder to do for pastors or emergency service workers, but it's right to shut off, to work really, really hard and then to shut off yeah, I think that's very important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I talked a lot about that.
Speaker 2:Sorry, but I think that's helpful no, it kind of went hand in hand, I guess, with the, the social media thing that you were talking about. Could you kind of recap each of the five things again, because we have one more left?
Speaker 1:right Yep. So prayer, prayer, sleep, sleep, community, community. Forced disconnection Forced disconnection Including number five work Consider your work. Yes, Learn to say no, and then active rest is number six. Active rest, active rest. So there's a proverb that says those who work with their mind.
Speaker 1:this is not a proverb in scripture but an ancient proverb those who work with their mind rest with their hands. Those who work with their hands rest with their mind, and that is at least true in my life Meaning. There's a lot of work left undone on the desk when I leave and go home to be with my family, as I should. So there's sermon prep that could get more work done. There's more books that I could learn more about so I could teach on different issues impacting the life and minds of college students and people in my congregation. There's people that are still being discipled.
Speaker 1:That's a long, slow process, but if I can mow my lawn, I can look back and say done, yeah, done, feels good, it feels so good. Right, we are moving, obviously, to church plant in Knoxville, tennessee, and we have a swing set in our backyard that has slowly been made of wood and so it's slowly just being ruined by all the rain and stuff like that. It's rotting, um, and so we're getting rid of it. Um, aside from the displeasure of being stung by a wasp on my hand, it brought me so much joy just to be outside and hack apart it apart it felt awesome, it was restful.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm sweating like crazy because it was like 90 degrees outside and I've got you know just sweat pouring down from my face, but that was so restful to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're just doing something completely different than what you do all day, so it's just yeah.
Speaker 1:So here's my encouragement Find something that you can accomplish. Let me say this find something that you can accomplish. Let me say this. It was from a book I read end of the year last year. Quite a controversial book, but it talked about hey, how do you deal with some mental health struggles in your life? Sometimes a prescription has been in modern days to like rehash it in your mind, to ruminate on it which is a symptom of the problem, right?
Speaker 1:Sometimes there's a study done that said, hey, like, if you're struggling mentally, one thing that could be helpful for you, whether it's anxiety or loneliness or depression, these feelings of whatever it might be.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Is to get out and go grocery shop because you got sun. Sun is helpful.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You got out Out is helpful. You accomplish a task, that task.
Speaker 2:That's helpful for you mentally to just even feel like you're being productive.
Speaker 1:You used money you earned. That's helpful. Four things where you could be ruminating, talking about the problem over and over and over in your own head. No, get outside, go accomplish something. So think of ways that you can, you know, set some goals and meet some goals If you work with, again, your mind. Do something outside. Do some landscaping, yeah, make some plants. Find something that you enjoy doing If you work with your hands. Read a book, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Find a book you can read and enjoy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 1:That's my last.
Speaker 2:I think, it's very helpful yeah.
Speaker 1:So again, prayer, sleep, community, forced disconnection, work life, and then active, rest, active, rest Active rest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you're stressing, here's some things you might need to sleep. You might need to sleep.
Speaker 1:You might need to pray.
Speaker 2:Might need to pray.
Speaker 1:You might need some friends. You might need to shut off that phone.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Or you might just need to go grocery shop.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You may need to pick up a book and follow a story.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I genuinely. I've started to like poetry more and more, so I bought a poetry book not long ago, and that's not for everybody, and I don't know for sure if it's for me. Yet I like it so far.
Speaker 2:What poetry book is it? Am I allowed to know?
Speaker 1:No for sure if it's for me yet I like it so far, uh, but what poetry book is it?
Speaker 2:am I allowed to know?
Speaker 1:no, but but it's really trying to buy milk and honey. Yeah, don't know what that is, but it's like a viral?
Speaker 2:I don't know, it was famous a little while back, but okay, so uh, poetry or something like that, yeah yeah, may I add something?
Speaker 2:yeah, that could be to stress, I think just at least in regards to the social media type thing. I have quite a few of my friends, you know we're just on social media, we're on all the things all the time, and I think it's. I agree that it's so helpful to unplug because we just have so much access to information. I know a lot of people will talk about this nowadays, but you know, we're thinking about politics, we're thinking about things that are happening overseas, we're thinking about all of these other problems in addition to our everyday life struggles. And, like you know, we have our own set of problems, and so does our neighbor. You know they have their own set of problems, and so, if we're thinking through in our brains about how to solve some political issue, you know, like I can't solve the issues happening in the Middle East, but I can maybe help my neighbor and share their burden in some capacity. And so I think that that if we want to not only relieve our own stress this might be controversial too, because you know people want to be informed nowadays If you're not informed, you are wrong.
Speaker 2:You know, if you're not informed, then you're not doing enough to help the people, everyone in the world. You're just not doing enough. And so, but I would argue that it's even more beneficial to actually solve the problems that you're capable of solving, you know, and so like. That's something that I think about every now and again when I see people angry online about this or that, um problems that we can't really directly solve. We can help. I'm not saying that we can't help. There's no way that we can. I'm not saying that there's things that we can do, um, but a lot of problems are bigger and up to other people. Um, yeah, I think that that's helpful.
Speaker 2:And maybe another thing is that when you're not stressed something that actually has helped me, a spiritual discipline when you're not stressed to memorize a scripture, is so helpful because there's been so many times that I've been stressed that I've been able to pull from the scripture that I have memorized which was something that I learned in college in the midst of all that, those ministry things that I didn't realize would help me so much While I was practicing the scripture, cause it was just so much fun. But when you're stressed, you don't want to practice memorizing the scripture, you're just really going based off of anything that the Lord could could give you to bring you peace, and so to have scripture memorized also something that can be helpful for the believer as they are existing in the world in a stressful environment or situation, yeah, yeah, what you put in your brain matters in both the situations.
Speaker 1:I've said this before, I'm gonna echo what you've already said. Is like the doom scrolling thing right where you're scrolling through your algorithm.
Speaker 1:I just um the. The cultural philosopher bo burnham wrote a song about this, right, um, I don't think we were built to process varying emotions so quickly, meaning I mean, the Psalms do. There's variance in his emotions, there's resolve in the end, but like I don't know that we're built to process, you know a high-speed chase, and then a cute puppy video, and then a child who's deaf now receiving, you know, the cochlear implants, and then the, the joy that that brings and the happy tears that brings, and then the murder of someone on a college campus. And that does that make sense?
Speaker 1:yeah, like I don't know that we were supposed to take that in in seven, seven second bits without reflection, and scrolling does not allow reflection. It allows, like you know, you know, a jump in our kind of serotonin, the jump in our all these sort of emotional parts of our chemistry. I don't know that that's healthy yeah and memorizing scripture is a long, slow process of thinking about the things of god, which is I more what we're built for. So I think you're hitting the nail on its head.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey, well, hopefully this has been a helpful episode in some sort of way. Maybe a few things jumped out. You're like I want to think about that or I want to put that into my daily rhythms or weekly rhythms. Instead of just talking about how busy we are, let's put in place some practices that help us rest in the goodness of God, rest in his care of our life and just find ways to enjoy all he's given us.
Speaker 2:Amen, let's do it 37 minutes.
Speaker 1:We did it.
Speaker 2:Yay.
Speaker 1:See you later, everybody All right, see you. Well, there we go. All right, see you.
