Jennifer Afriyie: The Burnout Solution

Speaker Jennifer Afriyie is here to save us from burnout. Too many of us do too much, too much of the time. This is definitely an American trait but it often shows up in the church where people try to do too much. Even if you are doing it for the Lord, sometimes rest is necessary. Remember God created the world in 6 days, what did he do on the 7th? He rested. If God can rest, so can we.

Website: https://jyaspeaks.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

If you're listening right now and you're a follower of Christ, then you, my friend, are a 21st century Christian. And if you're new to the faith or interested in getting deeper into it, you're in the right place. Welcome to the 21st Century Christian podcast. Welcome to another episode of the 21st Century Christian with me, your host, Karen Beach. Y'all, I'm tired. I mean, I'm really tired, and the truth is I have been for quite a while. So our guest today is the perfect guest for where I am right now. Jennifer Afrier is a speaker who specializes in burnout. Burnout is unfortunately a common American problem with our go go go culture. However, it's especially a problem in the church community where some people, especially some women, are just doing too much. Um, so in addition to looking at burnout, we're gonna be looking at what the Bible has to say about rest. And we're gonna start with something that people think is biblical, but it isn't. Now, if you look for the phrase, God helps those that help themselves in the Bible, you won't find it. In fact, it's often attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Who is that? An American, and helping yourself is an interesting concept. If you think about it from God's perspective, God quite often says that we are to take our burdens to him because his burdens are light, and he warns us against leaning into our own understanding. See, God does not want or does encourage, does he encourage us to do it all on our own, we should be casting our cares on to him and relying on him. However, this doesn't mean that we're to sit back and wait for God to part our personal Red Sea. If you remember in Genesis, before Adam got Eve, he got a job. We're expected to work. God wants us to work, but he expects us to do some things, he doesn't expect us to do everything. God never, ever expects us to be perfect. There's a famous story of a man who was living through a flood, it was flooding in his area, it was really bad, it was like Hurricane Katrina, epic flooding. And he, being a devout Christian, expected God to save him. He was waiting for that parting the Red Sea moment. So when the waters rose and a ship came by and said, Hey, let's get out of here, he let it pass by because he was gonna wait. And the waters got even higher, dangerously higher, and another boat came by and he shooed that boat away. Finally, the water was so high that he stood on the roof because everything else was submerged in water, and a helicopter came by and it led down a ladder so that he could climb up and get on it. But he turned that help away, and eventually he died. And in heaven, as soon as he got the chance, he asked God the question that had been on his mind why didn't you save me? God told him, I sent you help, not once, not twice, but three times, and every time you turned it away. You see, God's help rarely comes in the form of the miraculous. It comes in everyday common ways, and we have to be open to seeing it, to recognizing it. Now, this man expected the flood waters to part and the sun to come through and God to I guess call him up. But God sent help for him, it came through regular people doing regular things. Now, right now I'm looking for work, I'm applying for jobs, I'm talking to recruiters, and I'm praying to God to direct my path. I have faith that He is going to direct me and put me in touch with the right employment. Now, the other day he closed one door that I really wanted to open. I really wanted this job, but I guess it's not to be. And I have to trust, I have to trust that he's gonna direct me to the right opportunity. You see, my role is to do the groundwork, and he will direct my path. I have to trust him, and I'm working to go where he wants me to go. This podcast episode is brought to you by Concepts and Clarity, affordable Christian online courses for a very reasonable price. Get excited about reading the Bible and getting to know God better. Of all the courses I've created, all about those sheep is my favorite. You'll be surprised at how much we have in common with sheep. And then there's a portion in the last week where we talk about the twenty-third psalm that will absolutely blow your mind. And it's all over at concepts and clarity dot com. That's concepts and clarity dot com.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

Did you know?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

God wants us to rest. The all knowing, all powerful, everywhere present God took six days to create the world, then he rested on the seventh. If God rested, shouldn't we? Here's some verses. And he said, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. That's Exodus thirty four fourteen. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burdens are light. That's Matthew eleven, twenty eight through thirty. Be still and know that I am God. Psalms forty six ten. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. That's Genesis two three. God rested and he commanded us to rest. This American well western ideal that we should always be working and doing and producing is dangerous. It's the cause of so many health problems. Um headaches, heart attacks, weight gain, diabetes all have a stress factor associated with them, and that stress comes in always doing and producing and never resting. It's important to remember that we are human beings and not human doings. Jennifer Afriya is a speaker who specializes in overcoming burnout and preventing it in the first place. A lot of people, especially in the church, feel the need to do everything, and they keep their plates filled to overflowing, thinking that this is a good look, thinking that they're pleasing God in this attempt to be everything to everyone. Unfortunately, it isn't good physically, and surprisingly, it's not good spiritually. So Jennifer and I sat down and talked about it, and here's our discussion. So I'm here with Jennifer Affrier, and she's my new bestie. I've decided she's my new bestie. Absolutely. Thank you for that. My real bestie is gonna be like, what? And I'm like, we'll talk later. Um, but I'm talking to Jennifer Affrier, and as I said, she's a speaker and she talks a lot about being burned out, and even if you're not a Christian, if you're an American, there's a good chance that you're in a state of being burned out. I can tell you unequivocally, because I'm always real on this show, I'm pretty much burnt out. I'm pretty much burnt out, and I come from a family where I was never allowed to say I was bored. Wow. If I said I was bored, my mother's response was, do you need me to find something for you to do? Right, and that was going to be a chore, that was going to be something I did not want to do. So all of my life from the time I was a kid, I literally wake up knowing what I'm gonna do, absolutely knowing what I have to do, even if my goal is not to do anything, I've written it down, and I know that I'm not gonna do anything, and when I don't do something, like right now, I'm I'm I'm I would say I'm on the verge of burnout, but honestly, I am burned out, and I'm sitting there this morning, like, I got all this stuff to do, and I am so tired. Well, yeah, how am I gonna do it? So Jennifer is here to help you and to help me. Yeah, I need help. I do.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

We all do, we all do. So, like, just wanted to piggyback off a couple things you said because there was so much in there. So, totally relate, me being first generation to immigrant parents. They, you know, they work their butts off to make it and it's like rest. What is that? Like, what are you talking about? Like, they didn't even have a self-care. What is that, right? And and there's a place for that for sure, especially as we're we're climbing. So I don't want people to hear this message and think I like to speak about something called rested success, right? Because you have two extremes. So you have the productivity folks who are like, do more, do more, do more. Here's five more ways to do more. Here's how you can optimize your calendar and get this AI and da-da-da-da. And it's just like there's the do more crowd, and then you have the people who feel like, you know, to rest, you have to like go off in a vacation somewhere in the mountains and like not do anything. And what I speak to is how do you, how do you, how do you build something meaningful and not sacrifice yourself in the process, right? Like, how do you achieve your goals and still make sure you're thriving at the end of the day as well, right? Because I think, you know, we have all these messages we get, especially here in the States, to like grind, you know, hustle and um I'll outsleep what I'll say. It's like you're gonna actually speed up that process if you don't get sleep, actually. Like there's just so many of these messages, but it's like we don't have to, we don't have to do it that way, right? And then also, too, another common myth with burnout is that there's actually um most people's burnout is actually when they're working and they can't take their mind off of work. So if you if you're if you cannot absolutely take your mind off of work, if you're laying down and your thoughts are still racing and all those things, that's a sign you're actually in burnout. So burnout doesn't look like I'm not doing anything. A lot of times it's you're doing too much.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

It's funny you say that because um when I go to sleep, that's when my mind starts a lot of the time. I lay down, I'm like, okay, tomorrow I need to do this, and oh, why don't I try this? This would be a good idea. I need to do this. Oh, and I can do it this way, and then I can do that, and and I'm like laying in bed thinking about all this stuff. And I was talking to someone who goes to sleep and like gets to sleep within five minutes. I'm like, how do you do that? And they're like, Well, I don't think of anything when I go to sleep, I just think about going to sleep, and I'm like, What do you think about going to sleep? You don't think about everything you did through the day, everything you could have done, every conversation, and all the witty things you could have said if you remember to say it, if you don't do that, she was like, No, I was like, Wow, oh that's deep. And to to bring it to Christians, I know that you know my show is for new Christians, and I'm sure there's people that pace themselves and take it out. Then there are people like me. Oh, now I've got to find a church, and once I find a church, then I have to find out how I want to contribute to the church, and I need to find out what classes I need to take at this church, and you're setting yourself up for burnout because you always think you have to be busy.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Oh, yeah, and the list, the list never ends. So once you get in the church, that's that's just the start. Even if you find a church, right? Then that's just the start. So my burnout story actually happened when I was like in the middle of the church and I was doing like so much for the church and in the middle of like working for God and doing all these things for God, right? So I I totally get it. And it's like we have to we have to really take time. You know, one of my favorite verses. So I'll tell a little bit about my story. I think that'll go for it a little bit more. But like, so for me, a a couple of years ago, um, I just went through one of those seasons where everything kind of hit the fan all at once in a way. Like I was working full-time, I was also working in ministry, I led women's group, I led prayer, I volunteered, I had about five different positions in my church on top of working full-time. But again, I'm I'm a person, I'm driven, I love to contribute, I love to make an impact. Like, so at the time I didn't even understand what burnout was or you know, anything like that. And I think people have a misconception that like if you if we have this conversation, so it's coming from a place of weakness, and it's not actually the strongest people, a lot of times the most capable people are the most the people with the highest capacity are the ones that need to watch out for this the most, actually. Right. So like I was in the middle of doing all those things. Um, then unfortunately, my uncle had a brain aneurysm. So he uh was walking and talking one day, and then the next he was completely hospitalized, couldn't move, couldn't speak, and all life support, right? So I ended up needing to take in his grieving teenage daughter who had her own struggles. So, and I wasn't a parent at the time. So, on top of that, now all of a sudden I found myself, you know, to keep her out of foster care and things like that, I found myself like the pseudo-parent to like a grieving teenager in the middle of all this too, right? And because I didn't know like some of the things that we're gonna talk about today, I just thought, okay, I'm I I just kept going. Like I didn't even process it all. So I just have to, right? I didn't even think about changing things or anything like that. And so I was working through that. And basically overall, I was doing good. Like my career was doing well, the ministries were growing, you know, she she was stabilizing. But then basically a couple months into that, my body just completely shut down. Like, and doctors did not know why. Like my test looked fine, they didn't know what was going on with me. My immune system just completely gave up. And so that moment, that crisis, and that went on for about a year. So I just it it snowballed into a lot of things. But basically, in his loving kindness, God, in the middle of all that, God brought me to the story of Mary and Martha in the Bible. And it's a really, really powerful story because it's done uh Luke 10, 40, 41. And basically, you have these two sisters, right? And so you have Martha, who is like serving the Lord, you know, the Lord, if Jesus is your guest, you have a lot to do. You know, you're hosting the savior of the world, you know. So you gotta make sure the house is spotless, you gotta make sure he has a good meal.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

The food has to be on point.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Right, right. Exactly. And then you have it, you know, her her sister Mary over here, who was sitting at Jesus' feet, and Martha came to Jesus, like, hey Jesus, tell her to help me. Like, I'm over here doing all this stuff. I'm trying to host you properly, tell her to help me. And I love what the Lord said to her. You know, he was like, Martha, Martha, you are so worried and upset about many things. Does that not describe so many of us, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Your sister, but your sister's doing the right thing, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Listen, exactly. But he said, few things are needed. So the key was like, few things are needed, and indeed only one, right? And and Mary has chosen what is better, and that's not going to be taken away from her. So it's like, okay, what did Mary choose? Mary chose resting at the feet of Jesus, even though there was stuff to do. She chose to rest at the feet of Jesus in that moment. And Jesus said she chose the better thing. And so what God showed me through that season and the process, and why I talk about this today and kind of walking through what this actually looks like practically, is that you know, doing things for God is not the same thing as taking time to rest and be with him. And when we when we take time to rest and be with him, that's where we get the strength and the grace to do the things for him. But in that moment, in the in that season in my life, I had gotten it too confused. I thought the doing was the same thing as the being, and it's not. We have to be human beings first. And the crazy thing about it is as we do it, you know, because I I stuck I started to research this stuff and study it because I was like, okay, well, how can I actually do this? But then when I studied, I found that, oh wow, God is really smart. Like, you know, we were talking about earlier on the seventh day, he rested. And it's like, why? He's God. He's God, he has all power, all strength. So there must be something in that. And I was like, okay, so God rested, but I'm thinking I shouldn't. It's like, am I more powerful and stronger than God? I was like, huh, maybe there's something to this. And then I started to look into it, and it's like, oh, people who take time to rest, even like 15 minutes a day are like 40% more productive. And I was like, oh, wait, like there's actual like benefits to this, like we're wired for this. This is this is how we're created. It's we have to have that balance.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

And I was just like, oh, you know, so when I got into the and God knows that, yeah, no one doesn't know that, people, yeah. Who tell you that you need to be going faster, you need to be doing more, you know. But like you said, God, all knowing, all powerful, all present, is resting a full day, a full day, and he keeps going, and we here we are. Okay, I need to we're we're the Marthas of the world, right? You know, Jesus said it's the first one that said Martha, Martha, Martha. Exactly. You know, and it's it and we do need to rest. I I know I need to rest, and maybe that's part of my problem. Because, like you, I got all the tests done, and I had all my blood work done. There is nothing wrong with me, but um exhausted, and it's because you know, as you were telling the story about Martha, it's funny because I started a business last year and I do courses, and I did a course on women, and I talked about Martha and Mary and the fact that Mary just sat and listened to Jesus, and Jesus said she did the right thing. You're trying to do everything, you don't have to do everything. I don't want you to do everything. I would appreciate it if you were doing what your sister did.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

And there's wisdom even in that because it in the language when you look at it is a she chose the better thing. So it's not it's not even always because I don't want to make you know, especially people you know who have servants' hearts and who are you know impactful and love to move. I don't I don't want it to feel like we can't, but the there's so much coming at us all the time, we're always going to have to choose. And when you take the time to rest, that's where you get the time to pause and say, wait a minute, am I actually choosing the better thing? Right? Because there's gotta be and so one of the things I talk about like with productivity is like we get this message, I need to do more, I need to do more, I need to do more. But that's that's incorrect. It's like we need to do the we need to do what matters and we need to have the energy to do it well. And more in what actually matters, what actually moves the needle for you is not the same thing. And that's but but if we're like hamsters on a wheel sometimes, we don't even get to take take the time to stop, you know. And so that's kind of one of the first things, you know. And I have like a four-step process for all this stuff, but like it spells out rest. But the first step is reflect. Like you see, even in Jesus, where you know, he was ministering and going through crowds and doing all this stuff. You know, Jesus had a lot, he was in demand. I mean, you'd say with the world, you we're never gonna be more in demand than Jesus was, right? And he was he was working, he was working, but he would say, you know, sometimes the disciples would come to him and be like, you know, the people want you to go here or they're calling for you. And he'd be like, you know what? I'm gonna go to go talk to this woman in Samaria. Um, so we got to go, you know. Or he would say, uh, he would slip away in the morning to the solitary places to pray. Like Jesus still found that time to get away and reflect and pray and commune with the Father, even in the midst of all he had going on, disciples, the all the whole nine yards. So, so there's a key in that of like having that space to just be and really think and process. Like, that's where you get your biggest insights. That's where you decide, that's where your things are able to settle, literally, and that's how we're wired, like our brains, things are able to settle down, and then you're gonna see things, you're gonna see how you can be more effective, you're gonna see what matters, you're gonna see where you've been wasting your time and what you really should be focusing on. But we can't even get there if we're all just like scrambled trying to do everything, like you said, you know. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

So, what is if you're spelling rest, what's the E? What is the second step?

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Yeah, so we have R, which is reflect, right? So I'll I'll just kind of run it down. So we have R reflect. So that's just taking time, even if it's just five minutes a day, five minutes a day, just to reflect and just process and just let yourself be for a little bit, right? Maybe journal, ask yourself some questions, but that alone, taking time to reflect is gonna make you twice as productive. And that's been proven, right? Then we have E. E stands for energized. So this is about doing things that fill you up. You know, the Bible says the joy of the Lord is your strength. So when I say rest, sometimes people think rest is just sleep. It's now, of course, sleep is the foundation of everything, right? So you got to get your sleep. But I've also been through seasons, and maybe some of the listeners have been through seasons where it's like, man, I'm getting sleep, I'm getting sleep, but I'm still tired, right? And the reason why is because there's different types of rest, right? So there's creative rest where you're doing, you're using maybe you have a job where you have to be like on top of things and thinking really hard all the time. So maybe you need to do something like completely different that uses a different part of your brain, right? Or just give yourself a new experience or let yourself see something new. Or there's also social rest, for example. So when was the last time you just got together with your friends or your girlfriend and just had a really great conversation where you weren't looking at the clock, you weren't worried about the time, you just made space to be around people you love, right? That fills us up too. So there are actually about like seven to eight different types of rest. And so sometimes if you're in that camp where you've been sleeping, but you're you still feel exhausted, it's because you need to replenish your soul with one of the other types of rest, right? So E is about just energizing, moving your body and finding something that fills you up, you know. Um, S is for strategize. So after you've reflected and after you're energized, that's the best place to make decisions, right? So strategize is about, okay, now that I'm filled up, now that I'm rested, what do I want my next move to be? And that's the thing. A lot of people don't get to their best decisions and the things that could really change their life because they're so exhausted, they don't get the first two steps. But you make the best decisions when you feel rested and you feel energized and full. Like that you're not making decisions from desperation or what's urgent or anything like that, right? You're at the place.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Or you're you're not making decisions from a place of confusion.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Exactly. Exactly, exactly. So that's why that's third. Sometimes people try to put that first because they feel like all the pressure, but you you have to get to that good state of mind first to be able to make the best decision. So S is for strategize. So it's about really taking time to say, okay, what am I doing where I could get more results with less effort, right? So I'll give an example from my from my work. I was like so busy with all these meetings, and I will at these meetings I'll be working on these presentations and all this stuff. And I realized like I was really stressed out about these presentations. One day I was like, you know, what if I just stopped doing these? I wonder if it would matter. But I was in the place to actually ask the question. Like before, I would have just kept going. And you know what? I stopped doing those presentations, and the and my um my job didn't even notice, you know. And then my their review of my performance actually went up because it's just like if I'm getting the result for you, I can talk about it. I don't necessarily have to have this spreadsheet, you know. Like so, there's things like that. It's like there's a lot of stuff we are doing that we think matters as much, but it doesn't matter as much as we think it does. So it's about taking time to figure out what is the stuff where I can pull back or what is the stuff I should focus more time on, right? Okay. And then the T is for Thrive. So Thrive is about, I talk about kind of four things. So peace, purpose, presence, and provision, but it's about like making sure you take time to be a whole human being, right? And how do you build that into your life routinely? Is it every other weekend you're going to see something or you know, enjoying family, or like what do you want the routine of your life to look like? Because when we get to the end of our life, nobody's ever like, oh man, I wish I had stressed out just a little bit more. You know, right? I wish I had, you know, burn myself out just a little bit more. You're gonna want to look back and have those rich relationships and rich experiences and all those things. So it's like God came that we might have life and life more abundantly, not stress and stress more abundantly. So it's about making sure you have time to have a life and building that into your routine. So you're not waiting once a year for a vacation or anything like that, you're doing it all along the way and enjoying your life all along the way, which is God's desire for us, anyway.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Right. He wants us to live life and live it more abundantly, exactly. Not um when you're if you really stop to think about what makes up living life for you. You know, if you have kids, you're spending time with your kids, you're spending time with your family, you might be traveling, you might be um me. I love kickboxing, so it's gonna be or salsa dancing, it would use uh it would have something to do with that. I'm a really I'm not gonna toot my own horn, but beep beep. I'm a really um accomplished home cook. So that's something that I would want to do, but if my life is made up of those things, then I can do what I need to do and to live my life more abundantly. Now, for you, that's gonna be it's gonna be different, exactly. But even for all of us, we need to think about what would our life look like if it was more abundant, yeah. Putting those things that make us fulfill or make us feel fulfilled in in place, yeah. Absolutely. So even if you're working, when you're working that job, there needs to be time when you can take this class that you want, or that you need to um go to that place you love.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Yeah, exactly. And the key about it is like it's something you have to do. If we if we just go by default and kind of like especially, you know, a lot of our listeners would probably be American, just the American way of life. You're gonna work yourself to exhaustion, get sick, and you're probably like your late 60s, early 70s, and then have a fast decline after that. That's what a lot of people experience. So that's not it's not the path we're going. We have to be very intentional about building that life. It's not just something that happens, it's gonna force you to try, and it's gonna force you to say no to some things, it may force you to move some things around. And that's the part I think people struggle with sometimes. But we have a right to it. Like you, you are a human being. You know, I I look, I think about the verse, what does the profit of man that gained the whole world and lose his soul? Like your soul is your mind, your will, and your emotions is most valuable. This is what Jesus died for. Jesus died for your soul, you know, and he says, Come to me, go find rest for your soul. So, like your your being is important. And I I watched, you know, I we were talking about a little bit before this, like, you know, I lost my mom last year. And she was one of the most hardworking people I've ever seen. And she unfortunately gave so much of her life to, she worked for the healthcare system, she saved so many lives, she did so much, but in the end, that same system turned against her. It didn't support her. But in her mind at the time, she made those sacrifices for her health and her time and her recovery and all those things because she thought, she thought it was, she thought it was gonna get her somewhere, right? And then one day she would live, one day, but unfortunately that time got cut short. And so tomorrow isn't promised either. And so that's why it's so important. It's like we have to live now. Like what we have, you know, the present is our gift. We have to live now, we have to make it work now. And I want everybody listen to know like that you're worthy of that. You're worthy of uh taking time, you're worthy of being able to smile throughout your week, you're worthy of being able to get sleep, you're worthy of being able to think without being exhaustion and having all this anxiety. And like there are systems, you know, one thing I talk about a lot is there are systems that benefit from us being exhausted all the time. Because if we're exhausted, we overeat. If we're exhausted, we don't, we, we, we don't take time to think, we can't think for ourselves, we can't build for ourselves, we just kind of are passive consumers, right? Versus active builders of our lives. So it is a bit of a rebellion to live this way, but I believe it's the way that God designed us to live, you know, and he's gonna give us the grace as we commit to the path, he's gonna give us the grace to do it.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Yeah, and we have to um, and I know that whenever I'm dealing with women's groups, especially women's groups, Christian women's group, this next thing they tell me sounds selfish, but you have to put up boundaries and you have to be able, as you said, to say, no, I can't do that right now. Might be able to do it later, but right now I can't. Exactly. And that has to be okay, and you have to put those up. Now, you talked and I talked earlier about doing a lot of stuff for the church. If you're on five um different boards or five different groups, maybe right now you need to be on three, exactly. Yep, and you need to tell those others too that right now you can't in this season you can't do it, it's pulling you too far.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Exactly. And you know, I want to emphasize that God doesn't love us any less when we do that, because again, he said Mary chose the better thing, right? And so if you're if you're taking time to rest and commune with God and be with him, and like in him we live and move and have our being, like that is worship too. Like there's no such thing in from a biblical standpoint as far as like secular or sacred, like everything we do are we we in him, we live and move and have our being, our very being, right, can connect connect with the Lord. So I don't want people to think that um I'm disappointing God, because that's that's another narrative that can kind of be thrown out there, like you're disappointing God if you step away. And that's not the case, especially if you're stepping away to restore and actually obey the scriptures and have time to rest. That's not stepping away. And Jesus modeled it again, you know, because there were so many times Jesus told the disciples no or told people who wanted him to go here and there no and were pulling. He had he said, I only do what I see the father doing. So that was his boundary. He allowed the father to direct him. And if people wanted him to stay longer or do other things and it was not in a line with the father's will, he said no. So you have a model in scripture, the best model in scripture of what that looks like. But again, that relationship and that connection to be able to identify what is God's will for me right now versus not. It will the key to that was him having the time to commune with God to get those answers. And that's that's the main thing I want, especially for us as believers to know, it's so important because if not, we'll just toss, we toss to and fro with every season and every news headline and every you know random demand from our job, or you know, anything like and and that's not the way God designed us to live at all.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Okay, so as we get ready to um wrap things up, what would your advice be to a new Christian? Someone who just got baptized, someone who just recited sinner's prayer, they're excited about this new faith walk. What would your advice to them be?

SPEAKER_00 37:15

My advice to them would be make space, make unstructured space, even if it's just five, ten minutes a day to just sit with the Lord. Allow that time, you whether you read, whether you sing, whether you pray, whether you listen to see if the spirit is whispering something to your heart, building that personal, intimate connection with the Lord and really allowing him to speak to your identity will be the key. It's it's like the engine to your faith walk. Because without that, you might have religion, you might have church attendance, but you don't have the life that the spirit gives, right? And so make in all you're doing, make sure, like Mary, you take time to just rest at the feet of Jesus and make a habit of it, and that's gonna get you so far. So that's what I would say.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Well, thank you so much, Jennifer. I've learned a lot, I've learned a lot, I've absorbed a lot of what you said because a lot of what you said spoke specifically to me. I I can see how God is working through you to speak to me right now because this is exactly what I needed to hear. So thank you so much for dropping by the 21st Century Christian.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

That's awesome, but it's such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. That's Luke 10, 41 and 42. Let me set the scene. Sisters Mary and Martha have invited Jesus and some friends over for dinner. Martha is doing all the cooking, all the serving, and all the cleaning. Her sister Mary isn't helping at all. She's sitting at the feet of Jesus listen to the teacher. Now a frustrated Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to help her. And this is Jesus' reply. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. You see, both sisters had a choice to make. Martha went the earthly route and decided to try and be the perfect hostess. After all, she is serving Jesus, and if he doesn't deserve the best, who does? And if we're being honest, this is the route that many of us would have taken. I know I would have. So think about what kind of rest you need. If it's social rest, call a friend or go out to dinner with friends. If it's mental rest, just spend some time reading or doing something that's not mentally taxing. Emotional rest. Who knows? Maybe you need a good cry. Maybe you need to have a discussion with somebody and then just be. But determine what kind of rest you need this week and make sure you get some of it. We're gonna wrap things up. So if you like what you're hearing, you can donate at Dollar Sign Karen Beach 921. That's K-A-R-Y-N Beach, like by the ocean 921. Again,$KIN Beach 921. That's K-A-R-Y-N beach 921. So that's it for this week. Um, I hope you have some time to get some rest this week because we all need some kind of rest. Even if you're not near burnout, get in the habit of getting some rest so you don't get there. As someone who's there right now, it's not the greatest place to be. But come back next week and we will have another episode for you, and we're gonna talk about all sorts of things related to faith and what you need to do and what you need to know to get closer to God, and know that that is never perfection. He doesn't want us to be perfect, he doesn't expect us to be perfect, so we shouldn't expect that of ourselves. But go forth and have a great week, and I will see you next week, the conversation. Continues in the twenty-first century Christian Facebook group. Got questions, comments, feedback. That's where you go. God bless.