LIVING AT THE PACE OF LOVE
Let’s talk about the transformative power of rest as a vital part of our lives.
In this thought-provoking episode, we dive deep into the power of rest as a spiritual practice. In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to overlook the significance of rest in our lives, but by embracing the art of slowing down, we open ourselves up to profound experiences of love and inner peace.
So, join us on this transformative journey as we reclaim the power of rest and embrace a life filled with love, tranquility, and joy.
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Life basically… Breakdowns, breaks down into two things. If you’re trying to be a follower of Jesus, and they’re, this is what is God saying, me? So what is God saying to me today? And what am I gonna do about it? If you wanna break down, what does it mean to follow Jesus? It’s that learning to hear the voice of God, right? And knowing what’s God saying to me today? And what am I gonna actually do about him? And here’s what I’ve realized in my life, is that revelation. That’s basically what we’re talking about, right? God revealing his, his direction, his guidance, his wisdom to you. Revelation rarely comes in seasons of hurry, right? Rest is the environment of Revelation
Tagline: Created on purpose. And for purpose,
Everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Daron Early Wine podcast. Excited to be back with you guys, and this is gonna be kind of a special episode if you will. And if this episode needed a title, which they all do, right, here’s what it is, “Say Yes To Rest” All right? Simple, right to the point. I already don’t like this episode, right? Say yes yes to rest. And so here, here’s what we’re doing. As you guys know, we produce and, and put out an episode every week, basically all year long. And what we’re trying to do as a team is find rhythms. Whether they be actually they need to be daily, weekly, monthly, and annually that are actually healthy for us, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, okay? And even physically. And what I, I’ve noticed is the way that our world, our culture, our lives operate oftentimes are antithetical and somewhat opposed to the way of Jesus.
And the reason that is, is because Jesus has taught us and modeled for us how to live at the pace of love. And we don’t often do that. So here’s what we’re trying to do, as, as a ministry, is set ourselves up for success in this. And so we’re gonna record, produce this episode, put it out, and then we’re gonna take two weeks off. Not cuz we’re lazy, not because we don’t wanna do stuff, not because we’re not in, you know, invested in productivity. But as a team, as a ministry, we want to actually model for you and just live within ourselves at a pace that we can sustain a pace that’s, that’s healthy. And so when we do the episodes right, we come in, knock ’em out, and, you know, in half-hour, whatever a piece. But there’s a ton of work that has to go into producing, editing.
So here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna do our best to model this for you. So we’re gonna produce this episode, put it out, and we’re gonna take two weeks off from putting out episodes. There won’t be any new content for two weeks. Chance for us to inhale, exhale a little bit, and hopefully for you to do the same thing. And where this really started to kind of start from me, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll take you back a couple of months as my family got a chance to say yes to rest. And we went on a vacation back around Christmas time, just after Christmas, and went down to Mexico. Beautiful resort, just, you know, relaxing, having a great time. And on the way home, this is, this is kind of funny where this hits me, right? So I’m sitting in the, in the airport in Cancun, and the flight from Cancun’s only like two hours, right?
So it’s not that big of a deal, but I’m in the air, in the airport. You know, some airports have free wifi, but sometimes they’re difficult to get on. Well, I get to the airport and realize I have yet to download any shows, any documentaries, any movies, anything for entertainment on this two-hour flight home. And if my wife was here, she would say, this is totally true. And, and she actually helped me see this about myself, is we can get into a major life crisis, right? Remember one time we were driving home from spring break many years ago, and the transmission on our van went out as we were driving down the freeway, right? We got cars passing us, the car won’t go, you know, faster than 20 miles an hour, where in Birmingham, Alabama, many hours away from home and our car is dying on the freeway.
And in those situations, I’m super calm, no problem. “We’re Gonna figure it out. Nobody freak out, right? No big deal.” But these small inconvenient moments of life, I don’t know what it is, but they, they, I flip out like I’m not a cool, calm, collected person. I’m growing, okay, but I’m just being vulnerable. So I’m sitting in the airport and I can’t get I can’t get my wifi to work, okay? And so if I can’t get the wifi to work, it means I cannot download anything and I start getting so angry cuz the wifi will not work. Then this is awesome. You’re in an international airport and they come over the public address system, right? And they’re like we need passenger deer and early wine to please come to the security desk, whatever. And I’m like, what is this about?
So I get pulled apart in this Cancun in Mexico to the security line where I’m gonna be, you know, searched with everything, whatever, the whole security check. So now I can’t even access anything that I couldn’t access or do anything. So now I’m just getting increasingly angry. And, here’s what the essence of the anger that’s seething in me is, is if I can’t figure out the wifi and I can’t download anything, I may be forced to face one of my greatest fears in life. And here’s what it is, boredom, right? Just being bored. Like if the wifi doesn’t work, nothing happens. I stay in the security line, I get on this plane, I’m just gonna sit on a plane for two hours. I can have a conversation with my, so sit next to me. I could read a book, I could journal, I could pray, I could just sit there in silence.
It’s not like anything bad’s gonna happen. In fact, all those things I just detailed aren’t bad things at all. In fact, just a few years ago before we could download every conceivable form of entertainment on any di digital device we have in our pocket or in our backpack, that’s what I would always do. And guess what? I actually loved plane rides because they were a set part where I basically just had to rest. And here I am in Mexico getting angry at everyone around me because I might have to be bored. And it was in that moment that I realized, I think I might have a problem that might be for me, but it might be for you too, into the story. The lord’s my shepherd. He knows what I need is I get on the plane, unbeknownst to me, somehow the wifi had been working even when it wasn’t working, and I was able to download a couple episodes of whatever show I was watching.
So praise God, I didn’t have to suffer through boredom for the two hours, right? And you may have a, a similar situation you’re in, in your life, or you’re thinking about like, man, yeah. Like, when’s the last time I just allowed myself to be bored? When was the last time I just sat in silence? When was the last time I didn’t grab my phone anytime I had 30 seconds of unplanned activity, right? I mean, can you write up an elevator without grabbing your phone? Like, how many times have you been watching a basketball game or some kind of sporting event if you’re into that, right? And realize you’ve missed like an entire quarter of the game because you’re scrolling on your phone, right? Game’s on, you wanted to watch the game, the race, the whatever, and then all of a sudden you’re like, what happened to the first quarter?
I don’t know. I was mindlessly numbing out my brain by scrolling on Instagram. I’ve done it a ton of times just being real with you. There’s a problem with this, right? Because what’s, what, what that moment in Mexico and me just taking stock of my life helped me realize was something that I’ve known and I’ve preached before. I’ve taught this, right? Is that what we need in life, right? Life basically breaks down into two things. If you’re trying to be a follower of Jesus, and they’re, this is what is God saying, me? So what is God saying to me today? And what am I gonna do about it? If you wanna break down, what does it mean to follow Jesus? It’s that learning to hear the voice of God, right? And knowing what’s God’s saying to me today, and what am I gonna actually do about him?
And here’s what I’ve realized in my life, is that revelation. That’s basically what we’re talking about, right? God revealing his, his direction is guidance is wisdom to you. Revelation rarely comes in seasons of hurry, right? Rest is the environment of revelation. So if I set my life up where rest is something that I avoid, right? What I’m doing is I’m cutting myself off from the true life source of life, which is the voice of God, right? Jesus said it himself, man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So this is, you know, kind of a funny thing. You could see me freaking out in an airport. Maybe you laugh at yourself of how you freaked out when like, I don’t know you, something wouldn’t work technological technologically for you. But if we really peel back the layers of it, this is massive.
This is so massive. Even when God was creating the earth, the first example he really gives us of how life should function is he’s at rest. He creates the world in six days and then he takes rest. What he’s showing us at the beginning is that there needs to be rhythms of rest in our life. We need to say yes to rest. And what that begins to do for us, it begins to break, you know, our, our addiction to a lot of things. It begins to remove the illusion, right? That we are responsible for everything in our life. That all of the things that flow from our life don’t proceed from the good things that God brings, but from my activity, it takes us out of the central focus of our life and puts our connection and dependency of God back in focus.
And I read a great book last year, and I think maybe I’ve told you about it in the podcast. If not, here’s another great resource for you. But John Mark Kromer has a great, great book called the “Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.” Really really challenging book or me. I got my discipleship guys and my am my discipleship huddle reading that, they read it last year. I have some of the new guys reading it this year. And in that book, John tells a story about talking to one of his mentors which was John Ortberg, which would be kind of cool for John to be a mentor of your life. But John was talking to one of his mentors, which was Dallas Willard, which that would’ve been amazing if Dallas Willard could have been your mentor when he was alive.
And John asks Willard, he says, Hey, what do I need to do to become who I want to be? That’s a huge question. If you’ve not asked yourself that question, that would probably be a good one to mix in in the next maybe quarter of life, maybe in this season of rest, right? Is what do I need to do to become who I want to be? We talk about on the podcast all the time, our goal is to awaken you to become who God created you to be. So what do you need to do to actually have that happen? And Willard thought for not very long, and he said this to John, he said, listen, you need to relentlessly eliminate hurry from your life. And I think that was true for John. I think it’s true for Dallas. I think it’s true for you and me if we’re going to become the person that God created us to be.
And that’s not just about productivity, that’s not just about what we do, job career. It’s about who we are as people. And to become the person that God has created you to be. You have to Ruth ruthlessly and relentlessly eliminate hurry from your life. You have to say yes to rest. Well, why don’t we do that? I’m gonna unpack that here with a couple quick points in this episode. But I think first and foremost, one of the reasons that we struggle to do this is cuz we are addicted. And I literally mean addicted to hurry, okay? The word addiction right, is defined as this. It’s treatable, okay? It’s a treatable chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, and the environment of an individual’s life experiences, people with addiction, use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences.
That’s the definition from addiction. And I think we are addicted to hurry. And in a way this actually chemically works out in our brain, right? I’m gonna break down a little science for you. I’m not a scientist, but I at least understand this, right? Is a lot of that is tied to the, the chemical of dopamine in our brains, okay? Dopamine is a compound present in our bodies as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of other substances, including ephedrine. Okay? And so here’s what dopamine does, is when we accomplish something, okay or engage in different acts, what happens is dopamine is responsible for actually allowing us to feel pleasure, satisfaction, or motivation. It’s what your body, your mind actually secretes into your system, right? To allow you to feel pleasure, satisfaction, and motivation. Right? You feel good for achieving something, right?
And, and it’s because you have a surge of dopamine in your brain. And, and oftentimes what we, what happens with some of even our chemical dependency on being distracted or on social media scrolling or whatever it is, is we, we, we move to those things because even though we’re not actually accomplishing anything, right? We do get to hit of dopamine from them. And that can be a, you know, connected to a lot of things. Whether it’s something where you’re, you’re, you’re seeking a dopamine hit from, from, from shopping, right? Accomplishing that. Maybe it’s, it’s, it’s in the form of lust, which is also something that can release dopamine in your mind. What happens to us is we actually get addicted to this. Hurry, I’ve gotta go faster, I’ve gotta do more. When I do, I get that dopamine hit. And so what I become is I actually become a disciple of dopamine. That’s one of the reasons why you find it so difficult. Why I find it so difficult to say yes to rest. Cuz when I’m resting, dopamine is not right there, right? To be grabbed, to be experienced, to be felt. I may actually find myself at rest in even bored.
The problem there, right, is if you’re listening or watching this podcast, I hope you’re watching the podcast. We’ve talked about it past couple weeks. We’re really stoked about the work we’re doing on YouTube. You haven’t subscribed to the YouTube channel yet. Big ask from me is to go over there on YouTube and just search my name and, and subscribe to the channel. But if, if you’re part of the podcast, my guess is you’re either a disciple of Jesus or you’re, you’re curious about becoming one. And if that’s the case, right? We were called and created to be a disciple of Jesus. Meaning we’re trying to learn to live our life the way Christ would live it if he were us. And so I, if the goal, if the, if the created design for us as humans is to be a disciple of Jesus, and we’re a disciple of dopamine, we’ve got ourself a problem, right?
So what I want us to do in the rest of this episode is I want us to dig in a little bit to the understanding of how Jesus was able to lead and lo and, and, and live right at the speed of love. Not at the speed of hurry, not at the demands of dopamine. And so we’re gonna unpack that a little bit and, and I wanna hopefully get your mind around why we, we resist this step one, right? Is because we’re actually addicted to it. We gotta, we gotta actually begin to change some of the brain chemistry that we have going on. But there are a few other reasons we’re gonna jump into and we’ll jump into that process in just a second. We’ll be right back.
Is it time for you to take your next step towards discovering your purpose, but you’re not sure what to do? Maybe jumping into the entire Spiritual DNA course seems just like a little too much for you right now. No problem at all. That’s why I want you to know about the five-day Jumpstart to Purpose. It’s totally free and it’s a five-day audio course you’re gonna listen to just, it’s really short, like, I dunno, five, six minutes a day. But it’s gonna help you just, let’s call it an appetizer, right? To help you jumpstart this process towards purpose. It’s free. All you gotta do is go to daronearlewine.com/jumpstart. It looks like this right behind me on the screen. You’re gonna go there and we’re gonna send you the course for free and he’ll help you take your next step. Because we say it every week, I don’t want you to forget about it, right? God’s created you on purpose and for purpose.
Let’s jumpstart that purpose. Now, let’s get back to the podcast.
And we, all right, got the dream chimes back. All right, see, that gives me a little hit of dopamine right there. I get to push the buttons, we get dream chimes, we get things happening, and then I push this button and now you’re laughing at me, huh? I can’t hear it. I don’t have headphones on, but I know what’s, it’s in the recording somehow. Little dopamine hit. Okay, here’s the deal. Let’s jump in. How do we actually begin to move and live at the speed of love? First and foremost, let’s, let’s do some self-diagnosis here. Let’s see if possibly, cuz remember when I talked about addiction, right? It said they’re interesting, right? That these are compulsive and often they’re, they’re behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences.
So let’s take a look. Do you have any of these harmful consequences? Like here, here’s a little self-diagnosis if maybe you’re living at the speed of hurry rather than the speed of love. Here’s the first one. Frequent irritability, right? Do you find yourself easily agitated, frustrated, or angry? Okay, that’s me in the airport. Oh, no, WiFi’s not working. Why is Daron being short with his kids and being an angry little elf at Christmas time in Mexico, right? Because he has frequent irritability. Here’s the next one. Emotional numbness. Do you feel unmoved by things that used to matter to you? Do you find it hard to care about someone else’s pain? Right? emotional numbness. I was just talking to a friend actually this week who was just being vulnerable and saying, “Hey man, I just kind of feel numb and I don’t like it.”
I don’t, this is not the way that my life is supposed to be functioning. I just am kind of numb, right? How about this one? Disordered priorities. Do you feel busier than ever? But still, like you don’t have time for the things that really matter? Do you feel like you are always reactive? Rarely proactive? Okay, here’s the next one. You may be living at the speed of hurry if you have some escapist behaviors. Do you find yourself trying to escape reality through television or eating food or drinking? Do you carry around a deep sense of exhaustion? Right? Where are you escaping in this? We all have different ways that we do this. We’re all doing it in some type of way, and we, we, we gotta become aware of it, right? Is it video games? Is it shopping? Is it pornography, right?
Is it excess eating, drinking, smoking, whatever it may be? Are there, are there things in your life where you realize, I’m starting to feel bored, I need to do something to kind of escape from this? One of the reasons that I’m passionate about what we teach in the Spiritual DNA workshop. If you’ve not gone and, and participated and gone through the workshop, you can go to my website, daronearlewine.com and get information to, to buy the course. You can also go to spiritualdna.me. But one of the things you’ll learn about yourself, right? Is who you are, why you do what you do. And it can kind of help you understand a little bit about how you are or why you’re moving towards some of these escap behaviors, right? It’s important for me to know one of the things you learned in spiritual d n a and one of the things I’ve learned, right, is I’m a type seven on the Enneagram, which means I have a deep need for freedom in my life, right?
And the, the term for the, for the type seven, right, is the enthusiast is, I, I need dopamine all the time, right? And I need a sense of freedom, and I need options. And I hate being bored. I don’t really like painful emotions. And so this escapist behavior is something that I have to pay attention to, right? Because when I’m feeling bored or when life’s just happening, the tendency for me is to reach for some kind of escapist behavior. Usually that takes me out of a place of actually being able to hear the voice of God guiding and directing my life. Each type is gonna have a different, a different you know strategy with that, right? Some people, they’re not gonna get more involved or, or, or, or, or, or more hurried. They’ll actually numb out and become just kind of bumps on a log.
Like they’ll just kind of tap out and kind of move into a slothy type of behavior, right? Each type is a little bit different, but that’s why it’s important to know yourself because then you can say, okay, where is this place of growth for me specifically? Okay? Cuz it’s gonna look different for you than it does for me. But my guess is there’s some type of escapist behavior that’s present. Here’s another one. Spiritual apathy. Do the things you know, sustain you spiritually, constantly get put aside, right? Has it been a while since you spent any meaningful time in prayer or reflection on scripture or other spiritual disciplines? And I don’t know if it’s for you, and I think this is actually a spiritual attack, is there are times where I will notice that my spirit will say, Hey, you’re too worried. And I’ll sense the Holy Spirit, you know, calling me to silence to some solitude, to a time of worship.
Maybe just time to be in the word a little bit more, maybe a time to wake up a little earlier and spend some time in prayer. And do you ever have one of those moments where you have that urge, you have that sense, and then all of a sudden you start arguing yourself out of actually doing that? Or sometimes I’ll even, this will happen to me. I’ll have that thaw and know that it’s the spirit and I’ll actually instantaneously start having a bad attitude about doing that healthy behavior. And if you’ve ever sensed that I have, and now I’ve become to realize like, wait a second, I had the thought, I liked it. Now all of a sudden I’m deconstructing why I shouldn’t do that. That’s not wisdom, right? I think that’s actual spiritual tech, because what the enemy wants to do is to keep you from becoming who you’re born to be.
He wants to keep you from connecting with God, and he’s going to do that with hurry. Okay? So why are we hurrying? Here’s a great question, right? And here’s one of the reasons I think we’re hurrying all the stuff I just told you, but I think deeper even than that is, I think we’re often hurrying in life because we’re hiding from God and hoping outside of him, okay? We stay in a state of hurry because we’re hiding from God and we’re hoping outside of him. And why do we hide? We’re gonna unpack that from a minute. But I want you to know that the invitation from God is not to hide from or to hope outside, but to actually abide in and be with Him, right? One of the great passages of scripture that’s difficult to live, Psalm 46 10 says this right from the New Living Translation, he says this, God’s speaking to us, be still and know that I’m God, okay?
Be still and know I when I think be still, I don’t think be distracted, be hurried, be frantic, be escaping. God’s invitation to us is to actually slow down and say yes to rest. I love the way the passion translation interprets this scripture. It says it like this, surrender your anxiety, be still and realize that I am God. Wouldn’t it be great to do that? If you’re at a place right now where you’re like, man, I am so anxious. I’m so worried, I’m so worried. I’m frantic. What can I do with this? Here, here, here’s what God’s invitation to you and me is. He says this, “Hey, how about this? How about you surrender your anxiety to me? And how do you do that? Be still and realize that I am God. You’re not God. I’m God, I created the world. I created you.”
I have all the resources you need to walk through what you’re working through. I’m here for you. So listen, just be still and realize that you can surrender your anxieties to me, there’s the invitation, right? But we’re hiding. We’re hiding. And I think we’re hiding basically because of this. I think we’re hiding from God because we’re afraid of him and we don’t trust him. And Aaron, that sounds a little bit harsh. Well, it, it’s true. I think at least I know in my life it has been. And I know as I read the scriptures, it seems like it was true of Adam and Eve, the first humans that, that, that we, that walked the earth, right? They were hiding from God when they stepped into sin, right? Why were they hiding from him? Because they were afraid of him and they didn’t trust him. If you know the story, it comes from, from Genesis first book of the Bible in Genesis chapter three, right?
Is what happens, right? Is is Adam and Eve. They, they eat the forbidden fruit and her and Adam eat it, right? And it says, at that moment, their eyes were opened and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. And the next scene we have is really interesting. It says, when the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So for me, what I can read into this is it seems like this may have been an evening regularity that they’re in this amazing paradise created to live eternally in a relationship with God. And God himself is their walking in the cool evening breeze. Like, I just want you to close your eyes for a minute. Not if you’re driving right or on the treadmill. We don’t want you to be on a viral video if you’ve fallen off the treadmill, but just think about like, is there anything more relaxing than a cool evening breeze and you’re just sitting on, you know, an outside, in a chair, maybe you’re, you’re in a hammock or something.
You know, we’re recording this episode in May here in Indiana in the past month. We’ve had a lot of rain and stuff, but we’ve had some really nice warm nights and just sitting outside, my wife and I, Julie sitting outside, I’ve probably said to her 15 times in the past month, like, isn’t outdoor living so much better? Right? Just sitting out by the cool of the evening breeze. And, and, and there’s something in my soul that loves that. And you look with Adam and Eve, there’s this moment, cool evening breeze, a time to rest, a time to connect, to be with God. And what happens says this, they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to man and said, where are you? Where are you?
Adam replies, I heard you walking in the garden. So I hid I was afraid because I was naked. Who told you you were naked? The Lord God asked, have you eaten from the tree of, from the tree, from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat? The man replied, it was the woman who gave me the fruit. And I ate it. Lord God asked the woman, what have you done? The serpent deceived me. She replied, that’s why I ate it. Here’s the fall of humanity, right? Created to say yes to rest in the cool breeze of the, of the evening, to connect with God, to be restored, to be, to be filled back up, to be loved. And what happens is the sin in their life causes them to feel shame and they hide from God because they’re afraid of him. And in this moment, what I think is, is interesting is, is if we were to read through the rest of, of the, of the, the, the account is God says, Hey, there are gonna be some consequences now because you guys have decided to, to create this, this space between us, but there’s not anger in his voice.
And in fact, the further you read on what’s interesting is God actually when the next thing he does is he actually makes clothes for Adam and Eve like he, he compassionately provides for them in their state of hiding and fear. Why? Because he wanted them to know they don’t need to hide. They don’t need to be afraid. He’s compassionately still loving, restoring, providing for them. He wanted to reestablish a level of trust so that they would stop hiding. And this may take some I don’t know, some time, some reflections, some, some deep soul work for you. And maybe this next two weeks, no new podcast episodes, a little time of rest to come to grips with and wrestle with a little bit of like, why am I hiding from God? Like I know I I wanna spend time with him and, and, and I get up in the morning and I, I have these good intentions.
You know what, first thing I’m gonna do, I’m gonna spend some time on the word. So I open my phone, get ready to go to the Bible app and have a little time. And before I know it, I get this thought of like, I don’t really wanna read the Bible this morning. And there I am scrolling Twitter, scrolling through Instagram, numbing out whatever it is. And I’m thinking, wait a second, I got up. I had this intention where I did actually wanna spend time from God and then I always seem to find something else to do. You know, I’ve got, I’ve got 20 minutes, or I could just sit and, and have some time with the Lord. Oh, well I gotta do this. I’ve gotta order some groceries and I gotta do that. I gotta go water the flowers. I gotta make this thing happen.
Oh, I got a call for the kid’s school thing. Oh, you know what, I could, I could check the email real quick. I could probably fire off a couple emails tonight. Right? There’s some reason when our souls call out to us and say, Hey, let’s say yes to rest cuz you need some fresh revelation from God. Why do we hide? I can answer that question for you. I can just, you know, suggest that there’s a chance that that might be why you’re saying yes to hurry, why your life is not moving at the, the pace of love. Because there’s something going on where you’ve lost some trust in God, right? You’re, you’re, you’re moving away from and scheduling stillness out of your life. And I think it’s probably because you’re hiding from him, cuz you’re not sure you trust him. And I wanna invite you to, to, to ask God, get compassionately curious about God.
What do I need to know about my level of trust in you that would allow me to actually begin to say yes to rest? Because here’s the bottom line. We’re invited by God to hide in him, not from him. We’re invited to hide in our relationship with him, not from him. My life verse, I’ve shared it with you guys before, right? Matthew 11:28 through 30, this is the message paraphrase, right? And this is what God says. Just listen to this invitation, right? Are you tired? Are you worn out? Are you anxious? Right? Are you worried? Are you hurrying? Are you addicted to hurry to dopamine?
Are you burned out on religion? Here’s the invitation from Jesus. Come to me. Come to me. Don’t hide from me. Hide in me and in our connection, get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest, walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. What a powerful invitation. Unforced rhythms of grace include seasons, days, moments, rhythms of rest. Jesus ends at me. He says, listen, I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. Hmm. It’s so good. It’s such a beautiful invitation. And we see this in the life of Jesus. He modeled it for us, right? We see time and time again when Jesus was on earth that he would take time to get away and rest.
Right? We find that right when Jesus started his ministry, right? If you look at the story of him being baptized, and then in Mark chapter one, it says at once, right? Jesus is baptized, his identity is affirmed by the Father, right? This is my son with whom I’m well pleased, not because of what he’s doing or what he has, but, but who he is. I love my son. I’m pleased with you. It’s what God’s saying to you. Then it says that at, at once, the spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild for 40 wilderness days and nights. He was tested by Satan, wild animals, worst companions and angels took care of him, right? Right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he was sent out to this desert place for rest. And I used to, to, to read this. And I actually thought that, that, you know, I I even heard pastor say I probably preach, preached a sermon before, like at the end of the 40 days.
Like Jesus was so hungry and weak and the devil attacked him when he was his weakest. I was reading in a book here recently that, that brought the idea that, that the in the Greek, the, the word there, and I don’t speak Greek, but I think the way you say it is “eremos”, okay? E r e m o s. Eremos actually translated as the quiet place, right? And so it, it, it’s flipped my, my perspective that the spirit sent Jesus into 40 days of rest of, of fasting, a prayer of rest. So that when the temptation came from the devil, he wasn’t at his weakest. He may have been weeks physically from fasting, but he was his strongest spiritually. That’s why Jesus was able to say to the devil, listen, man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth.
And God, God sent Jesus into this quiet place, eremos, right? So that he would be the strongest he needed to be for this moment. And you may be feeling like, Daron, I’m so stressed out, there’s so much happening around me, whatever, and I just, I can’t seem to have enough. It’s probably because you have too much happening in your life and you need some time in the quiet place. Another story that pops into my brain is later on in Jesus’s ministry and it’s in Matthew 14. And it says, as soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat to remote place to be alone. As soon as Jesus heard the news, what’s the news? Right? What’s the news that Jesus heard? Here’s the crazy part. The news that Jesus heard was that John the Baptist, right, had been beheaded, which would’ve been a crushing reality for Jesus.
John the Baptist, a relative of his right precursor, setting up his ministry. They were close. This would’ve been a moment that grieved that was very, very sad, heavy for Jesus. He hears the news, John has been beheaded, right? And what does Jesus do? I get he, Jesus got frantic and mad and, and he was, and he was, you know, really, you know, short and angry with people. And, and then he started just doing a bunch of busy stuff and hurried himself around the house and with the people. And that whole day he was really short with the disciples because he was angry and because he was grieved, right? No, when life began to press Jesus in this, when grief came on, all these different things, right? As soon as he heard he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone because he knew, right, that his strength came from not the hurry, but from the rest, right?
He says, Daron, listen, I got too, too much going on. You know, I dunno about your life, Daron, but I got kids check. I got three of them. I dunno about you, Daron, but I’ve, I’ve got some stuff. I’ve got, I’ve got two jobs. Check, I got a couple jobs going on in my life, right? Daron, I dunno if you know about how hard marriage is, yes, I get to praise God, celebrate 22 years of marriage with my wife in August. Okay? I’ve got all the stuff that you have too. And here’s what I’m beginning to realize through the gentle compassionate instruction of God is I’m not too busy, right? To actually stop and embrace rest, right? Is, is there’s actually too much going on in life to not do that. The demands you have on you as a mother, as a father, as a friend, as a leader, as a disciple, all the different responsibilities and things tugging on your life, it’s too much for you not to say yes to rest, to get into that quiet place and allow God to restore your strength, your peace, right? Your love, your faith. We got to say yes to rest, okay?
Why does it all matter? It all matters because this is the life that God has called us to, the life that Jesus has modeled for us and the life that’s available to us. And I’m gonna tell you what guys, our society is not going to, to model this for us. It’s going to work completely counter counterintuitive and against this kind of life. And so this is, I think, a big part of our calling as, as, as Christians and how we’re gonna create the future, right? Do you wanna create a future for your kids and your, and your spouse and your neighborhood and your, and your organization, your church? Like the future’s gonna be an anxious, worried, hurried, frantic you know, short-fused type of environment that that’s not the kind of home i I want to grow up in. That’s not the kind of culture I want to create with my life, right?
I want to see my life create a wake of faith and hope and love and peace and patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. And what God is continuing to show me is, listen, the only way you can do that is by working regular seasons of rest into your life. Don’t hide from me. Hide in me. So we’re gonna take a rest, no episodes for the next two weeks. We’re gonna take some time to rest, to recuperate, and to model for you what we’re trying to live as a ministry and as individuals. And would love to hear from you if you have ideas, if you’ve got things that you’re working through, maybe you do take some rest and you say, you know what? I begin to realize this may be why I’m hiding from God. Or this is some stuff that God showed me as I actually began to do this.
And here’s why. I’m gonna give you some practical steps. I want you to think about this. Do you have unforced rhythms of grace, right? Unforced rhythms of rest for yourself daily, right? Is there moments in each day that you have set apart to rest? Okay? And I’m not talking about eight hours of sleep a night, although that’s a great place to start. You’re like, Daron, I’m so busy, I sleep two hours a night. You might, there, there’s your problem right there, right? You might wanna start there. So, daily, weekly, weekly. Do you have a rhythm of rest? Maybe it looks like going to church on Sunday, right? In worship, maybe it looks like an actual Sabbath, which was one of the 10 commandments. Doesn’t have to be on a Sunday, but a day that you say no. So you can say yes to the best of life, okay?
Monthly, do you have some kind of rhythm? Monthly or seasonally at least. Okay? And then I would say annually, here’s, here’s a challenge for you in 2024. You got a couple months or half, half a year to figure this one out. But when you start planning your 2024 calendar, what if you started by blocking out your time of rest, right? We’re taking a vacation here. I’m taking this weekend off. Start by putting the actual rest in place for the year and then fill in the blanks around it. Okay? Listen, I hope this has been encouraging to you. I hope it’s been challenging to you. I know it has been me but I’ve actually begun to do some of this this year and it’s amazing how God is, is is bringing a season of renewal to me. So appreciate you guys so much for listening to downloading the podcast.
Would love to hear from you. As I always say. You can email me daron@lackbirdmission.com, text me 317-550-5070 or you can reach out on any of the socials and would love to hear from you. Thanks again. Download this episode, share it with a friend that you know might need a season of rest. And until we talk again in a couple weeks, remember, God’s for Not Against You. He’s near you not far, and he’s created Jew on purpose and for purpose. We’ll talk to you next time right here on the Daron Earlewine Podcast.