Rediscovering Rest: How Nature, Sabbath & Creativity Renew Faith for Christian Women with Eryn Lynum

Hey.

Hey and welcome back to Faithfield Woman.

This is your host, Kristin.

Today we're talking about the rhythm of rest and why it's so important that we actually understand how God designed us to rest and then have days of productivity and why we're supposed to tap into our creativity.

I have a great guest interview for you today that we're going to dive into all of this and so much more.

And I know you're going to love this conversation.

Hey, friend, are you craving deeper faith, renewed purpose and more joy in your everyday life?

Welcome to Faith Healed Woman podcast that helps Christian women grow spiritually pursue God's calling and embrace the abundant life he has for you.

I'm Kristen, an encourager, mentor, entrepreneur, wife and mom, here to uplift, equip and inspire you with faith filled conversations and biblical wisdom.

Subscribe now so you never miss an episode and join our faith fueled community for more encouragement.

Hi.

Today on the podcast, I want to welcome our guest, Erin Linham.

She is a certified master naturalist.

She, she's an educator and national speaker.

She's an author and podcast host.

She has just recently released her third book called the Nature of what the Bible and Creation Tell Us About Sabbath Living.

And she is a top podcast host of the podcast Nat Theo, which is nature lessons rooted in the Bible.

I'm excited for this conversation today.

I've talked about rest.

I've talked about Sabbath on the show before.

We've definitely talked about the importance of us getting outside, seeing God's creation and all of his wonderful.

But I love having fresh perspectives and just talking to someone else that can just help us open our hearts to everything God has for us and how he really designed us to live and live fully.

So I'm excited for Aaron to join us today.

So welcome Aaron to the show.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Absolutely.

Can you start off with just share a little bit about life, what it looks like about, you know, all the things you're sharing in the world on your podcast and through your books and just the way you and your family live your life.

I would love that if you could share that with our audience.

Yeah, of course.

So my husband, Grayson and I have been married.

It'll be 16 years in a couple of weeks.

And we have four children.

Our boys are 14, 12 and 10, and our daughter's seven and we homeschool them and we live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and we really moved out here.

We, we're both from the Midwest and we moved out here because we love the wilderness and the mountains and God's creation.

And as we began spending more time outdoors, I began to see that God has given us so many incredible materials and visuals that we can use to teach his truth.

My degree and my passion are in biblical theology.

And I began to see, okay, this is how theologians taught for hundreds of years using looking at nature, coming from Romans 1:20, that God's invisible attributes are clearly perceived through what he has made in creation.

And so I thought, okay, if I can better understand those materials, I can use them to teach my own children and others.

And so that's when I pursued becoming a certified master naturalist.

And I bring that together with my degree in Biblical studies in my books, the third that just came out, the Nature of Rest.

And then I'll have a children's chapter book and family devotional next year.

And then on our podcast, Nat Theo.

So really just this concept of let's look deeply at the designs in creation and then tie everything back to biblical truth.

So our families are learning nature and science and theology at the same time.

I love that.

That's so powerful.

And yeah, I'm with you.

I. I definitely still see in so many communities, I'm in friend groups.

I'm in that while they might be most of them people of faith, they sometimes get so busy in their lives, which we will talk about.

I feel like they miss the importance of getting a nature, of finding a quiet space, of really taking in the beauty that's all around us.

And, you know, we.

I think we just get caught right in this cycle, and we don't really realize, I think, the impact it's having on us physically, emotionally, spiritually.

And so I guess that's the first thing I'd ask you is your family.

I mean, you obviously, like you said, you studied the Bible.

I mean, that's what you went to school for.

So what would you just share with us?

Like, what have you found living this way and talking about it and teaching this versus people that maybe haven't quite.

It hasn't clicked for them, or they haven't made the intentional shifts to really tie this together for themselves.

This was so surprising to me when I began to look at what Scripture says about rest, because my family and I, about three and a half years ago, we just came up against this wall you talked about a second ago.

You said we get caught in this cycle, and that's so true.

We get so stuck in our.

In our rhythms and our ways.

And I think a lot of us, I know this was true for us.

We maybe don't stop to say, is this really the pace we want our family living at?

And so that's.

That's the question we had to ask.

And the answer was no.

And so we began celebrating Sabbath one day a week, three and a half years ago.

And as we were stepping into that practice, I began looking at the Scriptures.

Because when we think about rest in the Bible, we often think about Matthew 11.

Jesus says, Come unto me all who are tired, weary, heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

And that's such a powerful verse, but there's so much more.

And what I found is that rest is all throughout Scripture.

It's hinted at during creation, established in the wilderness with the Israelites, modeled through the life of Christ and fulfilled at Calvary with eternal rest.

And so I began looking at all these elements and not only Sabbath, but also these underlying themes of rest, seasons of waiting that can turn into productive rest and preparation.

And the whole concept of abiding and really leaning into dwelling, staying in the presence of Christ and experiencing his restful presence inside of us.

And then the concept of selah in the Psalms being this intentional pause that becomes a daily rhythm of rest.

And so that's.

I was just shocked to see, okay, rest is not a footnote in Scripture.

This truly is foundational to biblical truth.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, and I love that you do tie, you know, in your book the basically that all of creation, right.

In nature, the rhythms of rest and movement work.

Right.

Whatever they're doing is so clear and obvious.

Right.

Birds don't question their rhythms, you know, dolphins don't.

No one else does but us humans, if you will.

Right.

And so I think it's so interesting that to your point is if we are disconnected from nature, right, from all of God's creation other than ourselves, sometimes we, we try to.

Oh, well, I can just stay up later because we have every type of artificial light.

Oh, I can just push the envelope.

I don't need enough.

I don't need more sleep.

But what we don't realize is it's actually taking a toll on us long term.

Right.

I mean, it might happen one time, right, where you have to stay up late.

But if we continue to do this and we don't experience the rest that we were really, it was designed right into us to need this daily rest, to need, like you said, have Christ abiding in us and then also have this weekly rest, right.

The Sabbath rest.

And so I think it's.

Sometimes it's hard, like you said, you have to kind of stop and Be intentional and say, is, is the way I'm living, is the pace I'm living at, is the way I think I'm.

I need to hustle.

Is this right?

Like, is this really what I want?

And is this actually what God wants for me?

And so tell me a little bit about when you said three and a half years ago, you guys decided that you're going to actually practice the Sabbath right in your lives.

You're going to honor that time to slow down and not work.

So what did that look like?

To ask questions?

Like, what kind of questions are you asking yourselves to make those kind of changes?

Because I think a lot of people don't even, they're not even there yet.

I mean, some have, I've talked to people that are doing, you know, the same.

But so I'm just curious, like, what did that look like that season?

Well, I think it starts with this notion inside of us that is instinctual, but also, if you're a believer, it's the Holy Spirit inside of you saying that something is off.

And we were definitely feeling that.

And there's some background context to where a few years before that we had really defined our family's values and what is most important to our family.

And we went through this probably year long process of honing in on, okay, what do we actually want for our family.

And that works as a grid work so that every opportunity that comes our way, we sift it through that.

Does it fit our values that we have prayed over that align with scripture?

Well, if it doesn't, then it's not for us.

And there was kind of this shift because we were, to the best of our ability, in God's grace.

We were living according to our values, but we were still too busy and we were tired and burnt out.

And so there was still this little notion of, okay, something's off.

And so that's when we realized, okay, rest is not optional anymore.

It's critical.

It never was optional.

We were just living like it, like it is.

But it's critical and it's vital.

Like we talk about the animals and the creatures.

When you think about creatures, they live by instinct and by God's design.

And they are so focused on survival and finding shelter and water and food and reproducing.

But also to them a vital activity is rest.

They have to rest in order to operate and do what God designed them to do.

So why would we be any different?

And so that's what we realized was we couldn't forego this any longer.

It wasn't good for us individually or as a family or in our faith.

And so we took this big risk, this big step of faith.

When you think about God calling the Israelites to rest in Exodus 16, it's the first mention of Sabbath in Scripture.

And so the Israelites had very little context for what God was asking them to do.

And they're living in the wilderness.

They're kind of in survival mode.

They're used to gathering, gathering, gathering.

Really, this scarcity mindset.

We often have that same mindset.

We suffer from the scarcity mindset, this fear of missing out.

And so we are gathering, doing, producing, creating.

And God says, trust me, stop and rest, and I'm going to take care of the rest.

And when we did that, and again, it felt so risky.

I had all these doubts that this was even going to work.

But when we did it, we quickly became even more productive and fruitful and effective by devoting a day, a week to rest.

So good.

I can't remember.

I know you obviously referenced some of the other books on rest, you know, that are well known, like the Rhythm Elimination of Hurry.

And I can't remember if it's in his book or another book I read, but he talks about how one pastor hadn't taken the Sabbath, I forget how long.

But he ended up burned out and had to take a.

A sabbatical from work, basically.

And it took him as many weeks as he didn't take the Sabbath.

Oh, wow.

To recover himself.

Right.

Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

But the point is, sometimes it's not that obvious to us, right, because maybe we are resting some, but we're not as committed to, you know, the whole day.

We're not going to toil, right?

We're going to delight, we're going to stop.

We're going to appreciate, you know, God and what he's given us.

But I think what we don't realize is when we feel exhausted sometimes, or like you said, we start getting on this path of burned out, or we just.

Something's off.

Sometimes we don't realize that it's actually because maybe we're not taking it to God and maybe we're not realizing that actually what he's calling us to is, like you said, to pause, to rest, to be intentional with our time, but not on the.

The work or the glorifying him side.

Sometimes a lot of us are doing those things decently well.

It's actually that we think we have to do more in order to rest.

Yeah.

And I love that idea of.

You said intentional rest has to be intentional because I know one thing a lot of people, including myself, have struggled with or I struggled with, is that we think rest is idle or lazy or that it's doing nothing once in a while.

It has to be.

We just had a couple of really busy weeks of travel and teaching and conferences.

And I crash afterwards and I slept like for a couple of days.

I just took long naps and it was glorious and wonderful and exactly what I needed.

So in an extreme case like that, yes, rest is stopping, but so much more so.

And we see this in our weekly Sabbath rest is inspiring and refreshing activities.

Maybe walking out in creation or sitting outside with a good book or this past Sabbath I painted with my.

Outside on the, on the back patio and, and eating good food with each other and playing games.

Maybe it's making music or listening to music or, you know, it's all these things that we want to do because they fill our soul.

They bring us back to a place of delight.

Delight in God, delight in each other, delight in how God has made us individually.

But we say, oh, I don't have time.

And so Sabbath becomes that built in time for delighting and connecting.

Absolutely.

And I think that's what a lot of people, unless they really dug into this don't realize is that the Sabbath is to.

It's for us to not work right in our.

What we do on the other days, like you said, you said it so well.

Is it is for us to.

To delight, to connect and to do those things right.

That actually we delight in.

But it's to slow down from what we do the other days, right.

To not live at that pace.

Right.

It is to us for us to enjoy that day.

Right.

Like God gifted us the Sabbath, you know, and it's.

Some people think, oh, like, that's another thing I have to check off.

Right?

Like, but that's not actually it.

It's.

That's just to be a gift, right.

That we enjoy, you know, because we were designed for this, this day too, like you said.

And I love that you talk also about in Sabbath but also in nature.

This is where we can find inspiration.

We can, you know, see God's creativity.

We can have more connection with him or in some cases, you know, with your family or whatnot.

So what would you just share about that?

Because I know you are.

You definitely get a nature, a Lot.

And I do as well.

I love being outside and, you know, wherever I can be outside.

Yeah, definitely.

I think that's such a big part of rest and that God really designed creation to give us rest.

Rest of heart, rest of mind, rest of body.

And so a lot of our Sabbath is spent outdoors.

Even in the winter.

We love going out and sledding or visiting with neighbors and being out playing in the snow, and so really looking for those ways that God is inviting us into creation.

And one thing I love is that science backs this up.

Like, you think about trees, and God designed trees to be the air filters of our planet.

Trees and plants, because trees under their leaves, or in the case of pine needles, they have these little pores called stomata.

And through those pores, they take in the air around them, and then they store up the carbon dioxide, which is a waste product we don't need.

They use it for food.

And then they kind of like exhale, let out clean oxygen.

This is why when you walk in a forest, you think more clearly, because that clean air is enhancing cognitive function.

And then, of course, you're removed from distractions, and so you're able to finally rest.

And it might not look like some people's idea of rest.

Sometimes the most restful times to me is trudging up a mountain, because I love trudging up a mountain now.

Sometimes it's sitting in a meadow, listening to the rolling brooks and smelling the wildflowers.

But other times, it really is like this, this endeavor just to enter God's creation, to remove myself from our normal rhythms, routines, distractions, demands.

And once you're out there, sometimes it takes a while.

Sometimes it takes me an hour, two hours of being out in creation to really let go of the worries from.

From the day or from the week.

But God has really fashioned creation to help us in this endeavor, because rest is not easy.

Hebrews says, let us strive toward rest.

Let us work for rest.

Because this is countercultural.

Everything in society is set up against us resting.

And so God gives us these helps through his spirit, through his presence, through his scriptures, through his creation, to really usher us into a place of rest.

So good.

Yeah, I can't remember the gentleman that you were quoting in the book, but, you know, you talk about that rest is.

Or you reference him saying it, but rest is active, it's effective, it's impactful, and that it's through doing that.

Right.

Because rest isn't, like you said, it's not like sleeping necessarily.

Not to say that it's not part of renewal.

Right.

It is, but it's.

That's when we become fully alive, is when we allow ourselves.

So really it's stepping out of, like you said, our daily effort and removing ourselves from that.

Right.

So that we can renew, refresh.

Right.

So rest is so much more.

It's not.

Just like you said, some people think of rest and they think like it.

It means I'm just like vegging on the sofa or I'm sleeping, which could be some of it.

But it's so much more than that.

Yes, completely.

It's.

That was Oswald Chambers and he talks about rest as being this vital activity that it.

It' not lazy, it's not idle.

It's actually one of the most productive things that we can do.

Yeah.

And I thought that was amazing.

That's beautiful.

So, yeah.

So obviously in the book you talk, you.

You sort of alluded to this earlier, but let's talk about vital activities for a few minutes because you obviously already kind of referenced that your family did a whole.

Did a whole year trying to really get clear on what's most important to you and your values, which if someone hasn't done that, that's.

It's such a great and important thing to do.

But then you started looking at what are the most vital activities Right.

In our life.

What are the things that.

That take priority?

And would, Would you just say anything to people about that?

Like, how do we.

How do we.

What's the litmus test to kind of decide so that we aren't saying yes to everything or to some of the things that actually are exhausting us and isn't really wasn't even stuff that we wanted to prioritize.

Yeah.

So when I'm teaching about this in a group setting, I often have a visual.

And some of your listeners might be familiar with this visual where you have a jar and then you have large rocks and you have sand.

And the jar represents our time, in this case a week of time.

And the rocks represent your values, what is truly important to you.

So that might be faith, family, community, generosity.

It might be your work, if your work is, we were created for fruitful work, so that can certainly be a value.

And then the sand is everything else, these little grains.

And some of it is necessary.

It might be folding the laundry and washing the dishes and cooking meals.

It might be answering text messages and emails.

Some of it is necessary for everyday life, but some of it could be done away with.

And so when we have an empty jar, if we start by placing our values Those large rocks in first.

Then what we find is that the sand is going to fill in the areas around it.

And some sand will even naturally be filtered out because you're.

You're really just cutting out the fluff that doesn't even belong in your day.

But if we start with the sand, that sand will quickly fill the jar and you will have no room for the rocks, your values.

And so this is the whole idea of are we living for what is urgent or important?

When we start with our values, there will be time for what there needs to be after.

And so where we see this in scripture, it's so interesting.

I talked about rest being hinted at during creation because we know, of course, God worked for six days creating, and then he rested.

Not because he needed to, but I believe because he wanted to stop and delight and enjoy everything he had just created.

But Adam, the first human, was created on the sixth day.

That means that Adam's first full day was the Sabbath, a day devoted to rest.

So God works and then rests.

But we were always meant to begin with rest.

Think about the jar again, when we front load.

When we start with rest, then we make sure that it happens and everything else flows from that.

Yeah, I thought that was interesting when you talked about that.

Like I had written down.

I'm sorry, called to rest before work.

Right.

And you explained.

I forget how you explained it, but you were saying like in.

Was it in the Hebrew.

I don't know if you said practice.

I can't remember how you described it, but you basically said.

Right.

Excuse me.

Right.

The.

Their Shabbat or Sabbath happens Right.

In the evening.

So that's when you rest first.

That's the beginning of their day.

That's what it was.

Yeah.

How to define it?

So it's evening time.

And when we rest happens before the work.

And so I thought that that was really cool because I haven't really heard it in that exact way before.

I mean, in a book I've read or anything.

And so I think for people to realize that, like literally, like the example with Adam in Genesis, but like, literally we were meant to first be renewed, refreshed, you know, like be in God's presence, rest, and then do what we're called to do.

And I thought, I think that's so powerful.

It is.

It has been powerful in our life.

We follow the traditional Hebrew model of Sabbath.

And you don't have to do it that way, like rest.

Sabbath was made for man, not man for Sabbath.

There's flexibility and grace in it.

It's going to look different.

Home to home and family to family.

The point is God wants to gift us with rest.

And so for us we do start Friday evening around sunset and there's like this physical anticipation for Sabbath.

And we start with communion together to celebrate what Christ has done for us.

And then we toast to the week, just celebrating.

What did we see God do?

What what did we see him accomplish?

Where did we see his power?

What, what were we able to do through Him?

And so it's a celebration and then a fun dinner together and a treat and, and then we go into Saturday which is our full day of rest.

And it's just this beautiful rhythm.

Not always like it's messy, I'll tell you that.

Like going and knowing that it's going to be messy.

It's called a practice for a reason.

But it's this beautiful rhythm.

Because we start with Friday, we get a full restful night of sleep, an easy, slow going morning, easy day.

Sometimes we'll wrap up with a hike or going into going on a walk or something like that.

But then Sunday, I mean that's so important for us, for community and fellowship and worship together with our church.

But then we kind of treat Sunday as it ease back into work where we're getting ready for the week.

And then we go into the week strong because we have started from this place of deep rest.

Yeah.

Yeah, Beautiful.

I love that.

So what else?

So there's so many other things you talk about in the book that are still tied to rest and delighting, but what would you just want to share about?

You know, like we were obviously designed for this purposeful work and we have a creative calling.

Right?

You talk about that in the book, but what would you just share with people?

Because I think, you know, yes, there's a lot of conversations around that now, but I still think that it's, it's just, it's not happening everywhere, right?

It's, it's just like we're in this, this area, right?

Like we talk about these topics.

But I feel like in my day to day life and the people I encounter in my communities, it's not like they're not talking about these topics all the time.

Right?

You know what I'm saying?

And so what would you just share with us?

If somebody's listening and they're thinking, well, I don't feel ever creative or I just don't really see, you know, I don't feel like I co create with God or you know, maybe they're in a job right now.

That they're just not feeling like it's what they're meant to be doing.

So what would you just share about those two concepts?

Well, God created us to be creative.

And that might not be an artist or a singer or a musician or an author.

It might be creatively problem solving in your business job or creatively coming up with solutions to troubles that your kids are facing.

Like, God created us to be creative, and he created us for work.

Work and rest came before the fall, not after the fall.

They're part of his original design.

And what I've been able to see in my own work, a lot of my work is creative work in writing books and writing podcast lessons.

So much of it is creative.

And what I've seen is that when I am at rest, I have so many more ideas, and not only the creative ones.

But I'll give you an example.

One of my daily restful rhythms in the book we call daily rest, Selah pauses is a walk outside.

And I try to do this every day, usually at the beginning of the day.

And this past January, it gets cold here in Colorado.

But I was still determined, I'm going to walk outside.

And so we were in the midst in our podcast of a season.

We were talking about God's designs in the human body.

It was a series called Wonderfully Made, where we're teaching kids about God's design and DNA and cells and the heart and.

And the brain.

And I didn't know how to wrap up this season.

It felt like such a.

Like a special thing God was doing.

And I didn't want to just like, okay, we're done.

And so I could have stayed home and, like, written something and just put it out there.

But instead I went on my walk.

And during that walk, I'm just praying, lord, just show me how to wrap this thing up.

And he gave me this idea, and he said, ask the kids why they are wonderfully made.

And we had never done this before, but I put on the website somewhere where the kids could call in and leave a recording.

And I said, hey, just mention your name, your age, general area of where you're taught from your state or your country, and if you can just share why you're wonderfully made.

I didn't know if any kids would do this, but I tell you, they came in one after the other.

And the whole episode I was going to add to that episode, I didn't because it was 22, I think it's 22 minutes straight of children from around the world, from, I think it was three years old, up to 14 or 15, saying, I am wonderfully made.

God made me to run fast.

God made me to be smart.

God made me to read.

One little boy said, I know I'm wonderfully made because my mama lost a baby before me, but I'm here.

God has a purpose for me.

And I'm just weeping as these are coming in as I'm editing.

And it was because of that Selah pause, because I didn't stay at home trying to force the creative process.

I went out for a half hour walk and God gave me this, this inspiration.

And he works in those moments of pause.

So if we are not pausing daily, weekly, seasonally, then we are missing so much of the life that he wants to bring to our work.

Oh my gosh, that's such a beautiful example.

And I absolutely see that in my life and work as well so many times.

You know, even when we.

I think I'm not trying to push something, you know, like make it happen.

There are times where you're like, well, another episode has to come out.

And maybe that month I didn't have things booked out so far.

And yeah, and nothing's working.

You know, like I have ideas just not happening.

And I'm with you.

I have to step away.

I have to step away.

And it's usually when I'm reading.

It could be a devotional, but it could be just a one of my favorite Christian authors.

It could be, you know, an interesting book that's just really beautiful, creative.

It can be on my walk, sitting in my backyard or in my garden.

And often it's after that break, that pause.

I might have the idea during it, but sometimes it's just having needed to have that reset, have that refresh, you know, clear my mind that then I can sit down and, you know, just say a little prayer and just, you know, like, tell me, like, what is it that I.

What is it that should be said here?

Right?

Like, I might have an idea, but I'm not quite sure, like you said, how to bring it together or something.

Or all of a sudden online I'll see something, like, I'm working on something, but I'm stuck.

And I'm like, that is exactly connected to the concep of what I wanted to talk about.

And so I am with you.

It's, you know, and even if somebody wasn't of strong faith, you've even heard people say that before, right?

Whether they were faith or not, like scientist or writer, you know, it's like when they went to Sleep.

They woke up, and the thing they were trying to figure out, they could figure out all of a sudden, right?

Because to your point, we need to allow our brains to, you know, have that downtime, have that clear, you know, time to kind of, you know, maneuver everything in our brains.

Right?

Because obviously when we.

When we take a break, when we rest, we're kind of clearing out some of those, like you said, the things we.

We don't need to be thinking about right now.

We're trying to force something.

So I love that example about the kids.

That's so beautiful.

What about.

And actually that has to do with.

You talk a little bit about in the book that sometimes we try to.

To be more or do more.

And.

And you had said, like, if only I can be more like Christ.

Right?

You talk about that instead of Christ being within us.

Not that you didn't want that.

You were just saying.

And I think we've all maybe felt that where, you know, I want to do.

I want to do more good in the world or I want to do this.

And so we're trying to be like Christ, but sometimes we're.

We're trying in our own power instead of maybe surrendering and just, you know, asking Christ to come and be with us.

And what would you just share about that?

Because I think that that's really powerful.

I think sometimes as Christians, we.

We try more than we realize.

We don't have to try.

Like, we just have to be in the presence, you know, of Christ.

Well, God, just as God designed us for work, he designed us to create.

And with this idea of, let's progress, let's build, but the enemy has taken that and said, skewed it to where we think we need to be the producers and we need to be forcing the fruit.

But when you think about grapes on a vine, they have to experience something during the growing season called a lag phase.

And we go deeper into this in the book, but we talk about.

So grapes have to rest in order for their fruit, their berry, to actually form correctly and be the best that it can be.

It can't just always be growing.

It can't force that fruit.

It also needs rest.

And the same is true for us.

And this comes back to the biblical concept of abiding.

And that word abide that we find specifically in John 15 is the Greek meno, and it means to remain, to dwell, to stay.

We're not so good at that.

We like to go and do.

And God is inviting us, no, stay in my presence.

Experience my rest.

Because we're not always on a Sabbath day.

We can't always get away to a quiet place.

We're not always in a Salem moment.

But what we do always have is, is God's restful presence inside of us.

And I was thinking about this idea of abiding recently, and it made me think about almost a year ago.

We're preparing to go back into our homeschool season, but our kids do a co op, an enrichment program.

And so one of my sons had it in his mind that the first day back, he wanted to bring his friends homemade comic books.

He loves writing and illustrating comics.

And so I think it was for a couple of weeks he's working on this comic and he's carefully writing and illustrating, coming up with these great ideas and.

And then the night before, he goes to copy them on our copy machine, only to realize he used a pencil that was too light and it's not going to copy.

And he's heartbroken and frustrated, and he goes to sleep thinking like, this is.

Not going to work.

And all discouraged.

And God just put it in my heart to go get his comic and get a fine point sharpie and go over it all.

And it took over three hours.

I stayed up late that night, but this isn't something I would normally do, but, you know, I had.

I had liked that he was writing these comics.

It's great creative activity, but until that time, as I'm carefully going over every line, I hadn't realized just how brilliant they were.

His storytelling and his characters and, yeah, a whole lot of misspelled words that I had to hold back from correcting.

But like this brilliant work of art that is abiding.

And the next morning when he woke up and they're all copied and stapled together and ready, of course he's thrilled, but I think the gift was for me because I abided in my son's work.

And the same is true when we abide in scripture, looking at every detail of God's mercy and grace and truth.

And when we look at creation and start looking at every detail of his design.

Like, I think about it that the other day we were driving down the mountain canyon after a hike and there's this black bear.

I love seeing black bears.

And it's going up this mountainside and we're watching it in our binoculars, and it's flipping over rocks looking for insects, and then it's grabbing berries off bushes.

And I've seen this once before where the bear is flipping over just all these rocks looking for Things.

And it always makes me think of, I want to be like that bear in Scripture, looking for every note of goodness and truth, not leaving any rock unflipped, but doing the due diligence of looking for God's grace and truth.

That's abiding.

Absolutely.

Oh, that's a beautiful example.

So let me ask you this.

There's so many beautiful, I mean, you walk through so many beautiful things in your book, you know, in so many different types of rest.

But what would you.

What is maybe, you know, one to two things you want to just want to share with the listeners that we haven't yet covered, you know, that you think would just be encouraging and maybe helpful for people as they think about the nature of rest.

Well, we talked a little bit about getting out into creation, but where we see this really pointedly in scripture is in the Gospels.

And I talked about.

We see that Christ modeled rest for us because you look at his few years of ministry and he was busy like he is.

Doing God's work at Mark 1 is like a whirlwind of activity where Jesus is coming out of the wilderness after enduring 40 days of temptation.

So he's physically tired, he's worn down, he goes into ministry, he starts gathering disciples.

So he's building a team, he's teaching, he's preaching, he's healing.

And really what we see is he's starting the most long standing, successful ministry of all time.

And what sustained him was a rhythm of rest.

Because we see right in that chapter that he woke up early in the morning and went to his solitary place.

And there he prayed.

And we see this time and again that this was his rhythm.

And that word solitary in the Greek is eremos.

And it, it can mean solitary, but also a quiet place.

And so it's this idea of Jesus modeled this.

But then he invites us into it in Mark 6, his disciples are coming off of this busy season.

They are tired after teaching and casting out demons and healing and.

And he says, come away by yourselves to a eremos quiet place and rest a while.

And I had a sweet experience with this scripture recently.

It was a key scripture that I used in the book in the nature of Rest.

But then this past April, my husband and I had the opportunity to travel to Alaska and I was teaching at a conference and it was, I was teaching six one hour presentations over two days and running a booth and this after travel.

And so it was a really amazing opportunity, but it was also very tiring.

Everything leading up to that and preparing.

And after the conference, you know, we are like, bone weary, tired, filled up because God did so much, but tired.

And the event coordinators, they said, hey, we.

We got you this Airbnb, so go up and.

Because we already had two more days in Alaska.

And they said, just go check in.

Your room's waiting for you.

And so we get in at like 11pm and we are so tired.

And there's a little note on the door.

It says, hey, Grayson and Aaron, your door's up to the right.

And we walk up, and not only is it gorgeous and such a gift, but there's a tapestry on the wall next to our door.

That's a lake with a bench, and it says, come away by ourselves to a quiet place and rest a while.

And it was like the Lord, I just taught on that scripture that morning.

And it was the Lord just saying, hey, it's time to rest.

And he does that for all of us.

Busy seasons are not bad as long as we're doing the right kind of busy.

But we have to take his call, his invitation to come and rest a while.

So beautiful.

I think there's a quote that I really like.

I think it was Pastor Jason Laird, but he says the rhythm or rhythm of rest is woven into the.

It's.

It's a.

Now, see, I just had it.

Now I messed up.

But it's rhythm of rest is woven into creation, right?

Which it is.

And that's what you're talking about.

And.

And I just think that so many of us just.

I hope this conversation helps encourage people, right, to just be reminded that Scripture is calling us to it and that it is here for us.

And that when we.

When we step into these pauses, these moments, the restful season, preparation, waiting, that it is for our benefit, for God's benefit.

You know what I mean?

Like, but so I just think it's so beautiful what you're sharing with people.

What would be one last takeaway that you'd want to share with the listeners before we wrap up with my last question?

I think if anything, it would just be take a risk, unrest.

It does feel risky.

It's countercultural.

We all have these doubts of, is this relevant?

Is it realistic?

Can we actually do this?

You know, it's fun.

As we go into our Sabbath, I prepare a few ways.

I talk about this in the book Preparing Mentally, Spiritually, Physically.

And one way I prepare mentally is I wrap up any emails and I put an away message on my email.

So if anyone emails me on.

On my Sabbath, it bounces back.

It says, hey, thanks for your message.

My family's resting.

It has a little thing in there about Sabbath.

I'll get back to you in the new week.

And I've gotten some really cool responses to that, because people, I think in their minds, they say, we can do that.

That's allowed.

Yeah, it is allowed.

It's encouraged.

It's biblical.

It's a gift.

And so take that step of faith, just as God called the Israelites, that step of faith, stop gathering, stop.

See what I do with it.

God is faithful.

This is his design.

So even if it's messy, even when it's messy, he's going to bring fruit from it.

I love it.

Yeah.

You know, two things that just kind of hit me when you were saying that is one, you know, you talked about this is a practice.

Right.

It's not perfection.

And we're not asked to be perfect, and we can't be even if we tried.

But I have had conversations over the years with people who say, yeah, you know, I used to hustle and I would work six days a week, seven days a week, whatever it was.

In some, in a lot of cases, they have their own businesses.

And what they found is when they finally set boundaries for themselves, Right.

Which is a little bit of what.

We'Re talking about, being intentional setting boundaries.

And they said, no, we're not going to work on Sunday or Saturday or both.

And we're.

Or I'm not going to take on a client that says that they want me to work, you know, have.

Have business meetings on the weekend.

Right.

Like at some point or past a certain hour, because that's my family time.

And I'm not saying everyone can do this.

Everybody's life is different.

And there's.

We can rest at different times.

But what, what I'm saying is these people all said to me, my, my business did better when I actually started being intentional.

I set boundaries.

I didn't take the clients on that didn't align with my values because.

Right.

They didn't want to be working 24, 7 7.

You know, and so I just.

What you said, try taking risks on risk, rest.

Because honestly, you probably could talk to many people and they will tell you, and they've actually said yes to more rest, yes to their values, family time, faith, whatever it might be.

Their life got better in some.

Yeah, completely.

We've seen.

Both my husband and I run businesses, and it has been exactly that.

That our businesses have grown in amazing ways.

We've seen God do amazing things in our work, in our family, in Our faith because of this practice.

I love that.

So beautiful.

Okay, last question is, what is fueling you up right now in this season?

It really is being out in creation.

This has been a busy season, the busiest book launch yet, which is ironic because it's a book on rest.

And it's been really sweet to see that.

You know, we've done more events than ever.

I've done more interviews than ever.

But what has sustained us is our Sabbath that we've pretty much kept the entire time, even if it looked different certain weeks.

Yeah.

And time and creation.

And I recently, a couple of weeks ago, I had the sweet opportunity to teach at a children's wilderness camp in the northwoods of Wisconsin where my husband grew up.

And it was so sweet because my daughter, who's seven, went with me and we stayed in this little rustic one room cabin in the woods.

And every day I got to teach 60 kids in the morning and then again at evening and using things like orchids and birds and turtle shells and bees and bringing it all back to the gospel.

But what sustained me in that, because it was.

I was surrounded by 60 kids for a whole week, was walking through the woods and sitting on the little deck in the morning and going down to the lake.

And so it really has been when it just feels like so much stepping outside and going on a walk.

As soon as we got home, like, we didn't even unpack.

We got home, I think we like came inside to open the windows and then we went on a walk and found monarch caterpillars.

And it's just like God's gifts over and over and over and him saying, like, this is life, this is goodness.

Yeah, I love it.

Yeah.

I mean, I, you know, we've already shared a little bit, but I love being outdoors and in nature.

And every time, you know, I always say I don't see how people aren't excited about a sunset every night.

It's like a new piece of God's artwork.

Right.

It's like seeing new creativity every night.

But I think it's just because of what we talked about.

So many people are getting busy and we get stuck in the rhythm of hustle and busy and we don't realize that there's another way.

We're invited into living a different way, but we have to be brave enough to try it, you know, so that.

All right, Aaron, so as we wrap up, can you share with people again?

Where's the best place to connect with you?

Where can I learn about your podcast and your books and all of that other goodness that you're doing.

Thank you.

So the Nature of Rest with the Bible and Creation Teach us about Sabbath living.

It's available wherever you buy books, including of course, Amazon or on my website.

And that's my name, which is spelled funny.

It's E R Y N L Y N U m dot com.

We also have a free family Sabbath Guide to help walk you through starting or refreshing a Sabbath practice in really practical ways.

Even like a Sabbath shopping list, like, how do we actually make this happen?

And that's erin lynham.com familysabbath all three of my books are on there and the two new ones will be out next year.

And then our podcast is for kids and families and it's called Nat Theo, short for Natural Theology Nature Lessons Rooted in the Bible.

And it is a weekly podcast where we dive deep into science and nature at a level kids can understand and engage with, tying everything back to Scripture.

Wow.

So powerful.

I love it.

Well, thank you for coming on and sharing your heart, sharing so much biblical wisdom with us and just how important it is that we tie it back to God's creation and nature.

So I appreciate everything that you shared with us today.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for the opportunity.

As we wrap up today's episode, I hope there were some tidbits or nuggets that you can take away and apply to your own life.

Whether that's about trying to honor the Sabbath at some point during your week, whether that is understanding that when we allow ourselves to rest, to be renewed, to be refreshed, that it actually allows us to serve our families, server communities serve the world at a higher level because we are ready, right?

We are mentally strong or emotionally and spiritually strong when we don't rest.

That isn't always the case, but I do also want to let you know that if you haven't already, go over to my website, it's KristenFitch.com and join me with my weekly newsletter where I encourage and equip women to just step into their lives to both nourish themselves, nourish their faith, deepen their relationships, and step into purposeful and passionate things that you love.

Because God is calling us into the things that he's created us to be interested in and to pull towards our heart.

And for anybody that's looking for additional support, I do offer a one hour unstuck coaching session.

And I also have regular monthly coaching packages as well.

But go over my website and check that out.

But if you're somebody that's ready to be more supported, to be encouraged, and to help you get unstuck or to elevate a part of your life from a faith perspective.

Reach out, connect with me and let's get started.

Thanks again for listening to the show and if you enjoyed today's episode, we would love it if you could take a minute to leave a rating and review on Apple podcast because it helps our show get discovered by more people.