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Practical conversations to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ.
Staying Connected to Your Faith_needs edit
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[00:00:00] Oh, Aaron and Morgan, where have you been? We'll answer that question for you in just a second. Welcome back to another episode of the True Discipleship podcast with your host. My name is Aaron. My name's Morgan. And, uh, we've been going for the past couple of weeks, but.
That was, uh, I guess it would seem a little weird for people. We didn't say we would be gone or anything like that or [00:01:00] didn't explain ourselves. , this is not what we have done in the past where we just disappear for a year or two years, whatever. We just went on vacation. Have you been managing our social media?
I haven't been doing anything. I was on vacation. I did a complete disconnect. I, you know, it's funny since we stopped doing video, I don't really post as much to social media because I don't really know what to post to social media. There's some times where I post quotes or if there's a good takeaway or something like that, but.
It was a lot easier to clip stuff for social when we were doing video still. I figured like a little warning would have been nice to post on social media. Like, Hey, you're going to be without some episodes. No, I just found out who our real friends are. Cause they were like, Hey, are you guys? Okay. You guys haven't posted anything in a while.
Yeah, I had somebody get mad at me cause they had a commute and they were like, man, it was really boring not having anything to listen to on that commute. I was like, well, hold on, things are coming. And like, that's what you said last week. And yeah, but now it's this week and we're here and we're back. Um, [00:02:00] yeah, the reason we took some time away is just because of that.
We were on vacation. We're actually on our baby moon, which was super exciting. Uh, if you are new to the show or if you haven't listened in a while, we're expecting our first kid in September and, uh, You didn't flinch when I said our first kid. No. No. Are you cool? Okay. You heard it here first. The first of many.
First of I wouldn't say many. No. Uh, yeah, but we have a kid on the way in September and so we decided to take some time to go away. As I'm sure many people have over the course of the summer. Just taking some time to go off on vacation or get away. Maybe get a little bit of a break from work and stuff like that.
And Arguably when the time comes. People would want more podcasts to listen to arguably, you know, maybe more leisure time. So yeah, sorry, we took vacation the same time you guys did. Even this conversation probably should have come before we left. Maybe, but it's cool that we actually get to learn from some of these things.
So one of the things we've been talking about more recently is what is this show? What are the conversations that we're having? What is it that we're [00:03:00] talking about? And really what we're talking about is. Uh, man, we're just two people who are following Jesus and you kind of get to hear the commentary of, Hey, this is what this week of following Jesus has been like.
And so we've kind of talked about and tackled some topics that were just timely and relevant when some of the things we were going through in our life, but now. We've been on vacation these past couple of weeks. And what we thought it would be a good idea to do would be to talk about what does it look like to stay connected to your faith, really when you get out of any sort of routine originally, it was kind of like when you're on vacation, when you're traveling, but I've noticed that I think what makes it so hard to stay connected to your faith is really just the break of the routine.
Um, when you are in a routine, it's. natural and kind of easy to create these habits of this is when I pray. This is when I read my Bible. This is when I go to church. This is when whatever you kind of practice the different disciplines and stuff like that. Or here are the moments where I expect to encounter God this week or in my day and all that stuff.
Man, when you go on vacation, it's so easy. To like just put [00:04:00] everything to the wayside, like completely check out of everything. And so maybe it is vacation for you. I'm sure people still have some trips and stuff like that coming up, but maybe it's just you're in a season of life where work gets super busy or family is demanding a lot from you or.
You know, sometimes you just go to the college football, 25 just came out and you'd spend too much time playing that. And so you don't find yourself, you know, spending as much time in prayer and the Bible or, um, growing and focusing on your faith and stuff. So we just thought we would talk about some of the things that worked and didn't work for us.
Uh, I feel like, you know what I'm about to say. I don't know how to say it though. Oh, I was just going to offer like a counter perspective to like, being out of your routine. Uh, sometimes on vacation, I find myself more, uh, Likely to practice spiritual disciplines because I feel like I have more free time.
Oh, okay. Makes sense. Um, a large, hurdle for me in having, , quiet time or Bible reading or journaling in the morning is because I feel this need to rush out to, , be at work at a certain [00:05:00] time, , totally for perception of, , if I'm not in the office by a certain time, then people are going to think that I'm lazy and I don't, , value my job or things like that.
So I will sacrifice my, quiet time in the morning to be able to. be at work by a certain time. I won't sacrifice sleep though. I will hit snooze many times. So it's not a matter of not having time. It's, I'm not making it a priority. , but on vacation, it's like, we don't have anywhere to go. So we'll find ourselves going to coffee shops and just like sitting.
And it's so leisurely that I'm like, yeah, like I, I have the time. I have the space to read. Book about Christian living or read my Bible or, journal. And so that's just an opposite, like, yeah, that's good. I think that can offer a good, unique perspective to this cause I definitely wrote it from the other angle of like, man, I, I check out and I like check out.
I saw, I think I joked with you [00:06:00] about this, but a friend of mine had posted a thing and they were like, are you, am I ever going to reach the day where I stop, , packing my. Running shoes when I go on vacation because they just unpacked them. They sit in the corner of the room and they put them back in.
And sometimes that's the way I feel about my Bible is I'll pack my Bible in my bag and I'll have full intentions. Either that or you know me, like I'll pack like three or four books and I'm like, I'm going to read all of these in their entirety on vacation. And then. You know, you just get going with the schedule and exploring whatever town you're in and find a new place to eat and all that sort of stuff.
And then you don't really end up making any, any real progress in any of that stuff. So today is going to be a little bit different. We're not going to break the episode up in the way that we normally do. This is just going to kind of be us talking a little bit about what that was like for us. What did we do that helped us stay connected?
What, what ways we didn't. And then hopefully that just that insight is, , maybe a little bit helpful for you. So let's go here, Morgan. What did we do, to stay or to not stay connected to our faith? What did you do over the, over the trip [00:07:00] to try to keep growing deeper? I did not pack my Bible, uh, but I only packed one book.
And I'm most times I'm like you, I pack multiple books because I feel like I'm going to be so ambitious with all this leisurely time. I'm going to read all of these books. But I told myself, I'm only going to pack one book. It is called Mama Bear Apologetics, , and it has been fantastic, , what I've read so far. I've really been enjoying it. I actually think one of the episodes that we've recorded since coming back, I talked about a quote that I had read from it that kind of spurred on a conversation.
Oh, that was probably our Family Values episode, because I remember that was a big part of that for you. Yeah. Yeah. So there's just , I mean, my mindset has shifted a lot from , my faith isn't just for me. , and maybe the defending my mother's faith episode as well. There was probably some inspiration from Mama Bear apologetics in there too.
It's not just about me anymore and my faith and, wanting to [00:08:00] understand why I believe what I believe and why we do what we do. And that way we can raise our child up in being able to defend their faith. Yeah. For me, I'm kind of the opposite. I brought my Bible, but I didn't bring, well, I brought a like Christian living book.
I brought a another gospel by Alyssa Childers. Um, which I still haven't read, but I packed it with me, but we got to the airport and I started walking through the Hudson news thing or whatever. And I re I just don't read fiction. I think I talked about this in the Christian bubble episode. But I typically don't read fiction.
And so I just kind of started thumbing through some of those books and I saw one that looked kind of interesting. And so, I downloaded that onto my iPad and I said, I'm going to read this book while I'm on vacation. I still haven't finished it. But, um, but my idea there was it was weird. So for me, I think because so much of what I read is theology is Christian living stuff like that.
I felt like it was almost good for me to find something different to read. And I don't mean that in the sense of like, [00:09:00] I don't know, it's weird, but, um, in some way it was like, I should try to. Not loosen up. I don't think that's the right word to use, but find other interests, explore something, just disconnect a little bit more and not like a disconnecting from my faith, but just like explore the world around me a little bit more, a little bit more culture, something like that, you know?
So, um, which was interesting for me. It's just, I think the struggle that I run into, and I think I mentioned this in that previous conversation is I have a really hard time reading something. If it doesn't feel like it adds anything to my life, like if it's just a story that it's like, okay, that's a story.
But it doesn't change anything about my life, then that's, that's a hard sell for me. But I was committed to it. I did read a lot. I'm almost done with it. But it was still like, it just took a little bit of extra effort for me to be like, I'm gonna pick this up and read it because I didn't see the direct interest.
So I brought my Bible with me and I was reading through it, but it wasn't, it wasn't nearly as consistent as I would have liked it to have been.
I would have liked for it to have been a daily thing, but, it's so funny. So you've been doing [00:10:00] Duolingo for a while now and would you like to know? Yeah. What's your streak up to? Uh, 85 days. 85 days. So, but you, you, Um, so talk to us a little bit because you shared this with me, but talk to us a little bit about, doing Duolingo and what's kept you consistent with that.
So, I promise this is relevant to the person who's listening. I. I have like the widget on my home screen from like for Duolingo and there's this little owl who gets like progressively more emotional as the day goes on of you need to save your streak. So right now it's like this owl laying on the ground crying like with tears in his eyes and he's like please practice to save your streak.
, By 11 30 tonight when I have 30 minutes left to save My streak it like turns into like devil out. It's like angry like slanted eyeballs. Everything's red It's got like a countdown timer to midnight. Like you need to save your streak And it's motivating. [00:11:00] I feel a social media post coming on
So I was actually talking to some friends of ours and I was like I need the same widget for the Bible app. I need like Jesus with tears in his eyes on the Bible app widget. Like, please, please read your Bible. And then like the countdown to midnight where he's like, he turns red and he's like, you're going to lose your streak.
Um, there is a streak function in the Bible app, but you don't get the like. But there's so much grace with it, you know? It is! Like, you don't see it until you get into the app. And I think your phone kind of buzzes, and it shows you that little lightning bolt. But there's no like widget that's like, you're gonna lose your streak in the Bible app if you don't open it right now.
I can tell there's probably some people who are judging us already, because they're like, okay, you guys haven't posted anything in about three weeks, so you're saying you took about a three week break. Did you really not read your Bible at all during that time? But this is, this is, we're going to talk about this a little bit more, but this is what [00:12:00] I'm talking about when I say it, stay connected to your faith.
Right? I don't think staying connected to your faith looks only one certain way. I think connecting with your Bible, reading your Bible is definitely a spiritual discipline that's super helpful. And it's very. easily quantifiable of, yeah, I was able to do that. But man, I have a friend who always says that it's not as important that you're in the word every day as much as the word is in you every day.
And I love that because it's the idea of man, is there still a closeness to Christ? Is there still, , a life,, centered around Jesus that you're living every single day? And I would say that during our time, even on vacation, that was the case. I don't think that at any point did we I like to call it clocking out of your faith, you know, where you're like, okay, I'm on vacation for three weeks.
I get to go do whatever it is that I want. Like it wasn't that I think both of us still live lives with Jesus at the center with our mind focused on him and still being obedient to him in our everyday thing. But it just looks different than it would in a normal quote unquote normal week where we have set routines and rhythms and that sort of thing.
Can I like brag on you for a second?
I don't [00:13:00] like that. Sure. Um, just like living. Lives following Jesus. I mean there was a moment in our vacation where we were sitting and eating and you saw somebody outside who Had holes in his socks and no shoes And so we're sitting there eating lunch and you're looking up places you can go Buy shoes in the area that we're in and you know, it's as soon as we get done eating that you're gonna take this guy to like go get a pair of shoes and yeah so we we finished eating and you just like jumped into action got this guy a pair of shoes and I think he came into the restaurant we were at asking for water so we ordered like the biggest water they would give us to go gave him that and yeah, like we very easily could have been like, it's vacation. We've got the next thing to go on to. We don't have time to do this, to serve this person or [00:14:00] see this person. , it was actually kind of the opposite, at least from my perspective in that. Let me address that point before I go any further and forget what I was going to say there, but it was kind of the opposite. It was our last day. We were in California. We're in downtown Pasadena and we really just checked out of our Airbnb and we had a couple of hours until we had to be at the airport and we really didn't have a plan for the day.
And, , I think a part of that just kind of led with this, like, well, why, like, what reason do you have not to do this? Like, it's not that you don't have the time, you know, it's not like you have somewhere else that you have to be. It's not like, like you're literally. The restaurant we were sitting in, we were there trying to kill some time.
So I think a part of that played a point, but I'm equally wish you wouldn't have said that. And I'm glad you brought it up because I do, I do think it kind of illustrates this point clearly. I remember sitting there at that table and this is the passage that came to mind for me. It's Matthew 25, uh, 40 through 45.
I'm just going to read verse 40. The King will apply. Truly. I tell you whatever you did for [00:15:00] one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. Then he will say to those on his left, apart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat.
I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. Verse 44, they also will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison?
And when did we not help you in the verse 45 Jesus says, he will reply, truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these. You did not do for me. And so, yeah, I think that's a prime example that like, man, I genuinely can't tell you the last time I read that passage. I remember teaching that passage probably over a year ago.
So it's probably been over a year since I've read that passage of scripture. And, but again, it was just like ringing in my ears the entire time sitting there. So I. I'm, I am glad you brought that up [00:16:00] because I think it's a prime example of like, it's not as important for you to be in the word if the word isn't in you, you know?
Yeah, and even me saying like, can I brag on you? This is not like a, oh, look at us, look at like what we did, um, for this person. It was There was definitely more I could have done for that guy. Yeah, um, or for all the other people. I mean, I ended up walking past somebody who , needed help. Something and I, I was tunnel vision.
So I don't know if this like we need this context. I have a tendency to share more details than we need, but we had rented an electric car and it was about to be done charging. And then if you're in the spot, after it's done charging, they start charging you idle fees. So you sent me on this thing was already charging us extra money anyway.
It was like auto drafting money from our credit card, which was like super wild. So here you are talking to this one guy trying to buy him shoes. And I'm head down trying to get back to the parking deck. So we're not being charged even more for a car, just sitting in a parking spot. and [00:17:00] this guy on the corner like stops and talks to me.
And, uh, I, I didn't see him as, as Jesus, in that moment. , and I was, because I was on such a mission to go move our car. Um, yeah. So here are two, two very different, , examples of. What we were doing in that moment. , all of that to say , I'm not, I didn't bring up that scenario just to be like, oh, look at how great Aaron is.
Like, he's so wonderful. I mean, he is, but , it's not a, we want recognition for what we did. It was , look at how having the word in you and spending time in the word and in that passage at some point in your life impacted the way you lived that day. , and then I thought of the same passage. And then look at what I did, , I just walked past somebody because I thought something else was more important.
Just [00:18:00] thinking, I know that situation specifically, I was thinking about what Jesus is. When did we ever see you asking for my Dodger hat? He did, he complimented my hat and I didn't give it to him and I was like, I could have given this guy my hat. That would have been easy. That takes zero, zero seconds to just be like, here, Take my hat, and I could have kept walking and still gotten the car out of the parking spot in time.
Yeah, but I would say that that's, , man, I think that's definitely a good way to try to stay connected to your faith. That's even, it feels like a weird phrase to keep using over and over again, but it's a way to live out your faith, really, ? , even when you're in those down times, even when you're outside of the routines, I actually heard I think it was Craig Rochelle years ago who said a routine can actually be a good thing.
It was. It was in his book Weird a long time ago. , he said a routine can be a good thing because when you're in a routine it gives space for God to disrupt it. And usually it's easier to notice, like when something's out of the norm, you actually notice it a little bit quicker. And so I would [00:19:00] say, man, if you find yourself in a week, that's not your typical week, like you're busy, you're hustling, you're on vacation, you're whatever, to be able to actually notice, okay, how is God still popping up opportunities in my life throughout this is huge.
And so, , keep an eye out for opportunities to serve other people. Because I know for me, like when I go on vacation, Usually I'm thinking of that time away as a means to serve me. I need to get away. I need to recharge. I need to reboot. I need to be comfortable all the time.
I need to. Be enjoying myself and being happy and I don't want to really worry about anybody else's happy happiness or anything like that So man, that's just not the way that like as believers. We don't move that way You know, we we always live lives that have hearts and minds and eyes that are supposed to be focused on others even in times that we're seeking our own rest and our own happiness at times so Uh, something else that was super helpful for me, , was our church is going through this period of doing 40 days of prayer, which this, it's [00:20:00] so funny.
This is like pros and cons and like does work and doesn't work of being in the routine thing. So we created this 40 days of prayer thing as like, it's basically like an audio podcast. Like every day you get a prompt, uh, it's about 40 days. Three to five minutes, you get to listen to a guided prayer and it kind of leads you to this guided prayer, whatever.
And when we created it, we created it in a way that it was designed for you to listen to on your daily commute to work. Well. When I lost the daily commute, I was like, Oh, well now I have to make time for this. Right. So that was interesting of , even this tool that's designed to be used as conveniently as possible, you still have to prioritize in the middle of that.
So I think I made it to like day 13 or something like that. And then fell off and then I had to go back and catch up some and then all this sort of stuff. But it's just interesting how, Like even today, I was driving to work and I listened to today's guided prayer because I had the space for it.
So it's so interesting how routine and, and not being your routine kind of works and all that sort of stuff. Can I get really weird and really vulnerable? [00:21:00] Sure. Um, because of the length of these guided prayers, typically, , bathroom trips. Like, oh, the time? Yeah. Like for the first, no, I bet. Actually, I think the first 10 days.
Mm-Hmm. , uh, it was just every morning I would wake up and I had to go to the bathroom and, you know, it just, the, the text was there. I opened it, I listened to it. And , there's something weird, , I think I'm just , no, can't talk to Jesus while I'm in the bathroom. I'm going to put this in the show notes, but we bought in our house, we have toilet paper holders to have a little ledge on top that you can keep like books and stuff on and we changed it out now.
So in our guest bathroom, there's like a bathroom guest book for people to fill out while they use the bathroom. But I used to have this book on that ledge. In our guest bathroom called, uh, what if Jesus was serious? I think the guy's name was Sky Jethony and they were these like really quick, almost like devotional style, like takes you two minutes to read, you know, whatever.
And so I went through a period [00:22:00] of, , leaving my phone outside of the bath. You ever go in the bathroom and not bring your phone with you and you're reading shampoo bottles and stuff. Um, so I was like, well, what if instead of the shampoo bottles, there was a book here. So pro tip, uh, leave something Jesus centered in your bathroom.
And when you get bored, leave your phone outside of the room. And when you're bored, just find a way for Jesus to interrupt your day like that. I think it'd be really cool. Yeah. If you're a part of our church family, you know. Bathroom trips. It's a great time. It is a great time. Knock out your 40 days of prayer.
Uh, let's see. What else do we have? Oh, one of the other things we did too, um, that I didn't think about until just now was we visited another church while we were on vacation. So there was a church that I used to intern at in Ventura, California. , and so, yeah, we, that Sunday, we went to a church service there and.
Yeah, I think that's really cool to , that's one of the things that for us, because we, I mean, I work at our church, [00:23:00] you serve in our church, it's our church. , obviously that's where we're going to be every weekend. But man, there's something really cool about when you travel, trying to find another church and not going in with this secret shopper mentality of , I'm here to judge everything, but going in with a, like, no, this is just a, This is the family believers.
Like this is my brother and sister in Christ who I've never met before, but they are still worshiping the same God. So let me go in and hang out in that space for a little bit. And it was cool. I mean, obviously we caught up with a few people who we know, but we met a couple of people who we don't know.
, which was really cool, but it was just cool that like, even the people that we just met, it's like, we have the most important thing in the world in common. And so, uh, I encourage you to do that. I know sometimes when you're on vacation, like, Oh, cool. A break from church. Or if your church does the online thing, you watch online, which I mean, by all means do that.
It's cool to stay connected. We did that. We listened to the messages from our church while we were away. Um, But it is really cool to, to just like touch grass, be, [00:24:00] to be in tune with what God is doing outside, like just to get outside of your, we're talking about the Christian bubble, but like your individual church bubble to even see the way that other people worship is just really cool.
So. Yeah, I think for us, like, it's just nice to experience church. Mm hmm. Just go and not have to do anything. Yeah, like for you working, like, your brain, you were able to turn off. Like, you weren't thinking about the person giving the message. As part of the teaching team at our church, you weren't having to think about, like, oh, I've got to give this person feedback when they get off stage.
Or, , I wasn't thinking about, like, smiling at people while we walk in the door. Like, I need to be at this door to, , greet people or things. So, it was almost like we got to, , church. Check out of like those roles that we have that are wonderful roles. This is not me complaining by any means of like the work you do or the serving that I do.
We both love that. , but it is really cool to kind of like take a break and, um, get to be just a regular church attender. Yeah. Even, even worship, for example, obviously I'm not involved with [00:25:00] worship at our church, but I wasn't, There was no part of me that considered the performance side of it.
You know what I mean? There was no part of me that's like, oh, are they going over time or not? It was really cool just to be able to yeah, it was really cool just to be like I don't think I knew any of the songs that they did that sunday But it was cool to actually be able to sit in the lyrics and pay attention and think about them and reflect on Them and stuff.
So that was really cool. So I highly encourage you. Yeah, yeah, I don't yeah That's that's something I would highly recommend if you haven't had a chance to go to a church other than your own Um and just meet Some people there and let them know your story. Hey, I'm, you know, I'm just here on vacation and thought I'd just drop by.
We actually, you were talking about the coffee shop that we went to. We were there and there was a table of girls sitting behind us and they came and like borrowed one of our chairs or something, but they saw, I had my Bible in front of me and they were like, Oh, what are you reading? They're like, Oh, we're a church youth or a small group, , from a church around here or whatever.
So even that little, thing, that little connection was just like, man, this is just cool to talk to other people who love Jesus and like a passing way, you know, so another [00:26:00] cool thing about going to a different church, especially this weekend that we went, it was crazy to see the series that they were in and some of the things they were talking about were like talking directly to some of the things that I've been like walking through or just.
Thinking a lot about and I think that just shows us how big our God is and how Intent intentional he is about those things that you took me out of my typical context of My church series that we're in and dropped me into what week 10 of a series that this church is in.
, so wrapping up probably like a weird spot to be in if you haven't been there for the nine weeks prior, but there was just so many moments where I was like, Whoa, I needed to hear that. Um, so that was really cool, too. That is really neat. That is really cool. So those are just some of the things that we did, some of the things that were helpful for us.
Um, yeah, keeping an eye out for just other people around us, [00:27:00] attending church, making sure that we have the word in us, even if we're not in the word every day. Although I do recommend you get in the word as much as possible. That's never a bad idea. Um, uh, praying, all that sort of stuff, just trying to stay connected to.
Not necessarily your routine, but just being open to man, God, I still want to experience you here now, wherever you are, as we get ready to wrap this up, Morgan, I want to ask you what would, and you can answer for both of us if you want, or just answer for yourself personally, but what would you have done differently?
When it comes to, okay, you're looking back, you were only on vacation for two weeks. You went back to work a week before I did, but you're on vacation for two weeks. When you look back over that time, is there anything that you're like, man, I wish I would've honed in on this a little bit more or tried a little bit harder in this area or given some more attention to this.
I think for the most part, I'm happy with the way I spent vacation. , If anything, at the end of vacation, I always like to [00:28:00] have a little bit of time to get back into. The routine, , and flying from the West coast to the East coast. I mean, we came back on a Thursday and basically just slept all day Thursday.
Um, and as much as it would have sucked to , stay awake. I wish I had used that time to try to adjust back to East coast time. , but also, um, and giving myself a whole lot of grace. Um, yeah, to try to get into a better routine of waking up at a certain time and, um, almost mocking, what my work week schedule would look like.
Uh, but. Yeah, just kind of like setting those place markers. Okay, I'm gonna wake up at this time and I'm gonna go in here and I'm gonna make my cup of coffee and I'm gonna sit in this spot and I'm gonna spend my time in the word and journaling and use Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday to set myself up for Monday when I had to be back [00:29:00] in the constraints of I need to be at my desk by 830 or I'm gonna feel like people are judging me.
No, that's good for me. I didn't learn this this time around, but it was actually something I learned. So, okay. I have to share this because it's just a lot of fun. I always love sharing this. So. Our staff at our church has a vacation policy that I think is super dope. So I think it's the next best thing to having unlimited PTO.
So everybody on our church staff gets four weeks off for vacation, and they really want to encourage everyone to take two weeks off consecutively because. There's just some science out there that shows that you need about two weeks in order to have time to fully detach, actually be able to get some rest, not be thinking about work the entire time that you're away, that whole thing.
Legally, you can't make anybody take vacation. So instead, what they do is they incentivize it. So they say, well, we can't make you take two weeks back to back, but if you do, we'll give you another week of [00:30:00] vacation. So ultimately you can end up with five weeks of vacation. So now the common conversation around the office is, well, when are you taking your two weeks or how are you taking you two weeks or I'm sorry, how were your two weeks?
And I remember the first year that we rolled this out, which was last year, two years ago, we did Europe last year. Yes. So two years ago, uh, my two weeks was horrible. It was really bad. And I was like, we didn't go on vacation. I was just around the house. Yeah. And I was like, I'm just going to get some rest and, you know, try to chill out, whatever.
But I remember the, there's kind of like this little parable that I felt like I was taught during that season. There was one day I was in bed, which could have been any of the days. I feel like I just stayed in bed the whole time, but I was in bed and my phone was on my nightstand. , but it wasn't plugged into the charger.
And I remember I slept through the night. I woke up, I went to go and grab my phone off the nightstand and the battery was dead. And I'm like, how dumb is that? That my battery is dead, but I haven't been using my phone. Like it just [00:31:00] felt dumb to me. And I just kind of had this moment cause I was feeling really crummy coming out of vacation where I'm like, man, I don't think I did that right.
Like I don't think I took my two weeks right. I don't think I, you know, cause I came back almost just as tired as I went in and all this sort of stuff. Well. I realized that for me, uh, my life was kind of like the phone where it's like, yeah, even if you're not doing anything, if you're not connected to anything, you're not going to feel recharged, which is what happened to my phone.
It was sitting there still, but it was still getting drained because it wasn't connected to the charger. And so I would say that for anybody who's taking a break, taking a rest, getting out of your normal routine or whatever, And you can't afford to take that time away from your faith because Jesus is still the source the source Jesus is still the source of our life.
He's still where we find true rest. He's still what we find True meaning and purpose and all that sort of stuff. So to disconnect from that man You're just gonna start spinning your tires and you can start living the way you were before you were saved Cuz then you're just [00:32:00] I'm just going to whatever I can to find rest and fulfillment and pleasure , as opposed to running to Jesus and letting him be the thing that fulfills me.
And so I'd say that works on a macro level, whether it's like you take a vacation time away, yada, yada. I think it works on a micro level if that's sabbath if that's small breaks in your day If that's your evening when you get home from work If that's your morning before you go into work, it's, it's not enough to just not do anything.
You have got to be connected to the source. This is John 15. , Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. You apart from him, you can do nothing. So don't live your life apart from Jesus. I think there's so much growth and stuff that can happen in that meantime. And so, uh, for me, uh, I think I did a better job of that this time.
I think I was intentional about trying to stay connected, , but I could have been connected more. So that's always going to be the goal. Just more of Jesus is always what I, what I want and what I need. And then I was just going to say the last week of your vacation, um, you've been [00:33:00] crushing it. Like, like to go back to the like life updates, you're like getting the nursery ready for the baby and working on it.
You have completely overhauled this room in the matter of two days. Yeah. Gave myself a gnarly headache cause. I locked myself in a room and was sniffing paint for two days straight, but yeah, I mean you like a ripped out carpet put down new floor painted, you know, like, you know what we need an accent wall with like rocking and rolling picture frame molding, well, thank you. That's good. Well, look, we are glad to be back. , we did enjoy the break, but we're glad to be back at this thing. And listen, I just want to let you know, We do this for you, for you, whoever's listening because we love you and we care and we love to see people follow Jesus.
Um, not by any means have we perfected it, but we're just learning stuff along the way. And we hope that by us sharing what we're learning along the way, that it'd be beneficial to somebody else out there. So we don't make any money off of this podcast. We don't do anything. You know, this adds [00:34:00] nothing to our lives except for joy and, uh, maybe treasures in heaven, who knows?
, but, , Listen, here is how we ask for some form of compensation. Not that this is why we do it, but if you are enjoying this, if this is a blessing to you in any way, if it's beneficial to you in any way, we just ask that you just it's this isn't even about us getting reviews and stuff. It's just about us knowing that people are listening.
We want to make sure that, you know, if we take the time out to do this, that people are listening and that it is a value to them. So , please feel free to leave a review, feel free to leave an honest five star review on whatever platform you're listening to. , I realized this is a thing as well. Make sure you're following us.
, so if you're looking on your, , I think on Spotify, there's actually a button that says follow. And then once you hit it, it changes to following. , if you're on, uh, What did I just say? Apple Podcasts or Spotify? You just said Spotify. Okay, yeah, that's Spotify. If you're on Apple Podcasts, there's like a little plus thing.
And I think once you hit the plus icon, it turns into a check mark or something to let them know that you're following. So, , go ahead and do [00:35:00] that for us. That, that means the world, , to us. Just to know that people are listening and that this is actually is being beneficial to you. Feel free to share it with your friends and stuff like that.
Leave those reviews, , and leave an honest five star review. Review. , don't forget if you would have done it, you'd be done by now. We used to say that a long time ago. , , I forgot that we used to say that, but yeah, it takes, it takes no time and it's free 99 to do it. So, , yeah, thank y'all so much for listening to another week of the true discipleship podcast.
My name is Aaron and I'm Morgan, and we will see you next week.