Trading Hustle for Happy

So, I think every marriage has a gap. Gap. Yeah. The gap between what we expect and what we get. Right.

What's the gap? You started it. I wanted you to take it there.

Well, I would say this. When we got married, I honestly thought you'd run around the house and lingerie every day the rest of my life. Wait, I did do that. Uh, for maybe an hour on our honeymoon. And then it became flat.

No, it became sweatpants. I mean, what'd you expect me? I thought you would be having your Bible out all the time and we'd be talking about God's Word. Which I did. For a while.

Then in replacement of that, it was this remote control and ESPN. Okay. I thought we'd have kids that would be obedient and sleep through the night. Oh, man, that didn't happen.

And I was like, what happened? They're defiant. They're not what we expected.

Yeah. And honestly, we could do this for the whole program because there's so many expectations. You could do that with work. But don't match up with reality. I'm thinking even like we've been taking care of our aging parents.

I never thought about that in my 30s. Like, what's that going to be like? And that has been really hard. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. So the question is, what do you do with the gap with the gap when life doesn't match your expectations?

And we don't know what to do. So we actually hails to come back in and tell us because she's lived this life and wrote a book about it. Welcome back to Family Life Today. Thank you. It's so fun to be here.

Yeah, you're over there laughing every time. I know. It just hits.

Your story is just hit very close to home. I get it. Well, probably because you're a pastor's wife.

You have your doctorate and you have four kids. Which makes you so much smarter than we are. I know. It's like she's going to solve our problem.

Yeah, in English, of all things. Let me ask you this, though, before we get into it. Because I know you're your mom. You got four kids. Your husband is a church planter. We did the church planning thing. So we know a little bit of your life.

And the book, A Spacious Life, trading hustle and hurry for the goodness of limits. But here's what I know about you a little bit. I did a little research. I'm supposed to ask you this. So how do you do your laundry? What's your laundry routine? Yeah, so I always ask my guests on the Finding Holy podcast what their laundry routine is.

Yeah, I saw that. I'm like, what is that about? Why did I ask that question? Or what my laundry routine is? No, why do you ask it?

I ask the question. It really comes from Kathleen Norris. She's a spiritual writer, and she writes a lot about how we meet, actually, God in the mundane. She wrote this lecture a few decades ago about, she came back to the Christian faith because she saw the priest washing out the dishes. And she's like, God's concerned about the dishes. Okay, maybe I should give this God a chance. And so I love asking people about their laundry routines because I'm convinced we meet God in our everyday-ness, too. Not just like the retreat or the vacation or the business trip, but that we actually meet him in our chores.

Oh, that's really beautiful. And I feel like, as a mom, I remember those days when our kids were little. I called them the desert years. And I felt like it's dry. I'm in the desert. I'm looking for water.

I'm looking for that oasis. You were in the laundry room all day. I was in the laundry room all the time. But I found God in the desert. And I found that he is the oasis. And I learned how to bring God into all those different phases of life, where I may not have an hour with him on my chair, on the deck or whatever.

But all day long, I would commune and talk to him, as Paul said, to pray without ceasing. I learned how to do that in those desert years because I couldn't survive without him. What's your laundry routine? Well, my husband does our laundry because he's very particular about laundry. And I'm not. I am impressed with your husband.

I know. And we've made all of our children do their own laundry. And so it's usually me bugging everybody to do the laundry.

And then I just do the sheets and towels. But what's your podcast again? What's it called? It's called the Finding Holy Podcast. That's a great title. And your topic is about?

Well, I try to help talk with folks, often writers and pastors and professors, who are trying to help connect the dots between issues that we see out in culture, in the world, and then what does that look like in a practical, spiritual formation, day-to-day sense. Now, as you heard us talk about the gap, what's your gap? What do you remember? What do you even experience now in the gap between what you thought and what reality is?

Yeah. You know, I think there's so many gaps in different periods of my life. I would say there's definitely the gap of expectation after graduate school. We kind of thought we would change the world, that we'd be kind of headed towards this, you know, really significant gospel ministry. And yet we found ourselves at various times jobless or interning or moving to a place we didn't expect. And so all of those kind of moves in different chapters of our lives has felt like gaps.

Like, when is life really going to start? And we're disappointed in the gap. Exactly. We are. And I think it's okay to be disappointed if we're going to bring that disappointment to Jesus, right? You know, if we're going to press in and say, you are still better and you are still life and I'm still going to practice these kind of household tasks of faith. Or if we're going to just say, eh, like, you haven't given me what I want, God. I'm really treating you like a genie.

So some of those gaps, I think really just evidence in those desert spaces. Are we going to press in? Are we going to actually choose to find Jesus as our oasis?

Are we just going to throw up our hands and expect Him to serve us? And what do you do in the wait? I know you wrote about the waiting period, like the waiting room, I guess. It's like we were good for a while.

Okay. My reality is not matching with my expectation by next year or by next month where the pandemic will be over in 18 days to solve the pandemic. And here we are in life sort of feels like that. It's never it's rarely immediate.

How do we deal with the weight? Because it's a long wait sometimes. It's a good question to continually ask ourselves. Are we serving and loving Jesus for what He will do for us or what He might give us or how we might feel?

Or are we serving and loving Jesus for Him alone? Is that what you mean by instant pot? Yeah. So when I talk about that the spiritual life is not an instant pot, you know, I think I don't have one because I would probably think it was awesome and then not use it. That's what I've done.

That's exactly what I've done. But, you know, the idea about the instant pot is you can put everything in and then all of a sudden something that should take five hours takes like 45 minutes. And I think we think our spiritual life is a little bit should be like an instant pot. Like all of a sudden I should put it in and it should all come out like Rosie on the Jetsons. And instead, you know, it's slow and it's circular and it meanders. And we're like, God, why are you taking so long? I don't understand. Or why am I still struggling with this sin? Or how come you feel so far away and we can't conjure up change?

And do you think culturally speaking that's happening more? Because we do have instant gratification. I mean, think about Amazon.

I'm thinking about Christmas specials that we get on TV. Maybe as simple as the microwave. I've stood in front of my microwave going like, hurry up. Right.

A microwave. I mean, we used to. That's what I mean. We used to wait for things. And now there we don't wait for things. And I think of our kids who so often now want to be influencers because we have instant fame. And we can do that through our posts on YouTube that suddenly, you know, went viral.

Right. We don't realize to the extent that all of these things, of course, they make life convenient and easy. But how much they form us spiritually as well.

Because then we get used to that speed of asking Siri a question when we don't know. Or using our microwaves. But those form us too. And so when we have to wait on God, we ultimately are out of control. And that makes us feel nervous and scared and worried.

And so a lot of us choose to punt on Jesus and His church instead of traveling through that hard space with God. So, Ashley, how do you do it as a mom of four? How are you raising your kids? And you just moved again.

Yes, we did. So how are you teaching this to your kids? And how do you not give up on Jesus when it's been so long? Or maybe you've prayed the same prayer for so long. I think I'm just learning continually that the point of life is not like some yellow brick road to some beautiful place and experience.

But the point of life is Jesus Himself. And so in those days, you know, if we're not where we want to be financially. Or, you know, we're dealing with parenting struggles. Or the job situation isn't what we expected it to be. Whatever it is, given we've all had those desert years where we have learned to kind of press into Jesus.

That's the point. And so really He gets to tell me what my life is about. And I don't get to be the one to fashion it and curate it. So that looks like for parenting, a lot of that looks like we, you know, are trying to practice Sabbath as like a family discipline. So even though it's a work day for my husband when he's preaching. But we do stuff like we watch a family show together.

We go on a hike. Or we choose to eat dessert first because I love how the Hebrew children were woken up with honey on their tongues. So they would know that the Lord's Day is sweet.

And we want our kids, especially as pastors kids, to not resent the church. You know, and that this was actually something beautiful. It was a moment where time kind of stopped and we could savor the good gifts that God has given to us. And we practice waiting instead of like returning the email and keep working harder and harder, you know, on a Sunday.

So those are some things that we hope will shape our family life. And, you know, for me personally, a lot of it looks just like rhythms of prayer throughout the day because I still don't have loads of time, you know, to spend. But to say, OK, I'm going to pause a few times a day and pray or read the Psalms to reorient my vision on what is actually the point instead of, OK, well, if I can just check everything off my do list, then I've had a successful day. And how have you found, because you were saying earlier, I'm going to say it different than you said it, but I think this is what you were saying, like Jesus is enough.

And we agree. And I think even a lot of listeners would say, oh, yes, that's theologically true. He is all we need. But I've often felt and even heard from other men, Jesus is enough, but I don't know him well enough for him to be enough. It's like, why do I keep going to these other things, success, whatever, even my marriage, if Jesus is enough?

I don't really know him intimately in such a way that he is all I need. Talk about that, because as I'm listening to him, I'm like, man, you've sensed a depth of relationship with Christ that satisfies and fulfills you. How does that happen? You know, I don't think it happens with just like us by ourselves either. I think it really happens in our local churches with people like that.

We are the hands and feet of the Church of Christ. And, you know, I love the idea that God calls his people salt. And I was watching this Netflix documentary by Samin Nosrat, Salt, Fat, Acid and Heat.

And she goes and she travels around and she eats like amazing tacos and soy sauce. And she has a whole episode on salt. And, you know, she talks about how salt makes food taste how it should taste. And I love that because that's one of Jesus's words that he used to talk about the church. Like that we can help make the world taste like it should taste.

And I think that's just such a beautiful mission. You need lots of salt, right, to make a difference. Like one little salt crystal by itself isn't going to do anything. And you can't have too much salt.

You're just going to overpower your dish. And so I just think that's such a beautiful image for us to remember. Like we do need each other. And so as much as we can experience individually the presence of Christ and the Holy Spirit working in our lives, it's like as we gather for worship, as we're encouraging one another, as we're eating around tables together, that actually we begin to, you know, hear, oh, what's God doing in your life?

That's amazing. And like, you know, and you're reaching out to this person. Can you bring me with you? Because that feels scary to me. We actually are the hands and feet of Christ, not only to a watching world, but also to each other. I mean, that's an interesting answer.

Yeah. Because I, you know, you sort of expect that question is going to be answered with, will you get alone in solitude with God, which obviously we should. There's a discipline and a practice. But there's some of us that are wired, like the way you answered that, it's like, oh, that's how I often hear God, see God is in community. And COVID has really hurt that because we've been pulled away from it. And we're watching church even on a screen. We're not sitting in a room with people. And you can feel God made us for community. But what we often don't understand is we experience God in community. Now, I'm not saying solitude is a bad thing. It's a beautiful thing.

It's awesome. And some people that is really powerful, but others are wired this way. And it's like, wow, I can experience that Jesus is enough in the people of God who are discovering that as well. Well, just just two nights ago, I was with probably one hundred and twenty women where God's word was spoken. We worshiped together. We prayed together. And then we prayed over each other and we told our stories.

Just a few women told their stories. And women were crying so hard because there's something about, oh, I'm not alone. I'm not the only one that feels like this. I'm not the only one struggling. There is hope in Jesus and the gospel.

And he is enough. But I also need my sisters who are locking arms with me. And I love that that's necessary because I can't do it alone. And when I'm in my own thoughts, I can go to places where, like, I'm just feeling so sorry for myself or I'm belittling myself and I'm in shame.

But there's something when you're with Jesus and a friend where they both lift up your head if you center on Christ. And I thought it was interesting, too, because as I was thinking about this, you talked about how we go into this cycle of production and escape. And I was reading this.

I was so convicted because I thought, oh, this is exactly what we do. We're overscheduled and overworked. And then we collapse in exhaustion. And we want chocolate. Right.

And on Netflix. Yeah, for sure. And I feel like that's what most of us do.

We have like this crazy schedule and then we're just going to fall apart. Right. Are you saying that's not healthy? I'm not saying you, like, have to give up Netflix, but I am saying where do we actually go to comfort for to comfort and where do we go to rest? And I think what's so beautiful about, like, you know, the Hebrew scriptures is like the day actually starts in the night. Right. It starts and we start numbering the hours in the middle of the night. And what that means then is that we don't start into like the production of the day and then rest, which is what we tend to do or not even rest.

Probably we're just falling into exhaustion. But like if actually rest is the first word. And that's like the Sabbath. Exactly.

Starts in the evening. Yes. And so if rest when we're vulnerable and it's dark and we can't control things is how the world starts and how grace starts. How revolutionary would that be for us to feel like I'm going to rest first because I know God's in control and I don't hold the world up and I don't need to keep it spinning.

And then my work can be a response to that rest that Jesus has given to me. And as a sense, when I hear that, I think our most natural response is I don't have time to rest. Right.

And young moms are like, who has time for that? Right. And part of that, at least from a non-mom guy, me, you know, not thinking about the kids even part, I'm thinking I don't have time to rest because I need to work to provide.

Right. And what I'm really saying is I can't trust God enough to take a day or take an hour or an evening and say, you know what? I don't have to make a phone call. I don't have to work.

I don't have to make money right now. I'm going to trust God and obey. And we know this. One of the Ten Commandments. Right.

That's how big it was to God. Rest. Because I think he's saying what you do. Productive work comes out of rest, not rest should be after work.

Rest sets you up to work in a productive way and he'll take care of the rest. Right. I think that's exactly right. That we can easily confuse the order. And when we confuse the order, we set ourselves up to be little gods instead of under God's authority.

And I'll just add this for one last thought. And this is the pastor of me coming out, probably your husband prices. Same thing is we do the same thing with money.

Yeah. It's like I can't give to God until I know all the bills are paid. And when it's ever left over, maybe I'll give him a little bit rather than, you know what, I'm going to give a tithe. What?

Ten percent at the beginning and trust that God will make it work. And he does because we've done that. But it's hard because it comes back to is Jesus enough? Yeah. What we talked about earlier. Well, you know, it's interesting. All through your book, every chapter is an invitation too because limits in your life can be restricting or an invitation.

Yeah. And one on we haven't talked about that I think we have time to talk about an invitation to delight. What is that all about? What is so great is about as we consider a spacious life is that it's really helping us remember like in our bodies and our bones, what does it look like to be a child of God? And as self-made kind of individuals, it can be really hard to return to that kind of sense of childlike faith. And what is so beautiful about delight and play is that's something that children do. And if we are children of God, that means we have the invitation to practice things like delight and play.

Instead of saying basically our real identity is it's like working machines, you know, thinking of ourselves like our iPhones that we plug in every night to recharge so we can keep working. But it's really it's self-confident children who can risk and play and delight. It is interesting.

I don't know exactly if I'm getting the stat right, but the average child laughs. Do you know? I don't know. It's over 100 times a day. OK. The average adult laughs less than 15. Oh, wow.

A day. And it's interesting. You know, you often hear adults saying, hey, grow up.

Right. Guess what happens when you grow up? You lose delight. You tend to become more serious, which obviously there's some benefits to that. But I think there's something that would help almost every marriage. And this woman, my wife, brings it into our marriage. Play. Just play is something that brings life back to a marriage when you just say, you know what? We're just going to play whatever that looks like. Just enjoy one another in a moment of laughter changes a marriage.

Totally. And I think when you bring joy into your home and laughter. And I'm going to say, too, there are certain times that I don't feel like, hey, let's play. I can remember thinking, do you know how much I have to do? Because that's what we all have so much to do.

And so I think it's a choice. And we have to be intentional of creating moments and memories where we're just going to relax. We're going to play.

We're going to laugh. At one time, I'm trying to remember if I'm getting this right, where you said you were doing the dishes. And Cody or somebody, one of the boys wanted you to come out and see the sunset. No, they wanted me to come out and play with them. And Dave was out of town. And I'm doing the dishes thinking, I just want them to get in the house, get their baths, and get in bed.

So that I can rest and recharge to get all my work done. It's the cell phone. Instead, when he came out, please, mom, please come out. We're playing capture the flag. And I remember saying, guys, you know, I've got so much to do. They left.

And I remember thinking, how many more times will they come and ask me to play with them? And so I put the towel down. I did not want to. I just wanted you to know.

Sometimes I have to choose it. And I went out there and we laughed so hard. I fell down. My shoe came off. We won the game.

They thought it was amazing. It was this great memory. And I thought, oh, man, that's what our life is about.

We have to choose to walk with Jesus at times. We have to choose to engage and create joy and laughter in our homes. And that creates this setting of the spacious life.

I love that. I was going to say, it's your metaphor of the spacious life, really, from scripture, the Psalm, the spacious life. But that sun coming in was an invitation. And often we don't realize God's in that invitation.

There was a sun running in the kitchen. You don't realize. He invited you.

And guess what? Every invitation is a yes or no. And if you say no, sometimes you miss the spacious life. And there's sometimes you have to say no.

But often if we just say, you know what, I don't realize what I'm saying yes to right now. This is the life God's called us to live. Right. So, yeah, are you going to live in your given life? Are you going to pine for what you haven't had? Or are you going to just say, oh, that good life is way off in the future?

Yeah. So I would just say as we close, open your eyes today. Open your ears today and look for the invitation. I think I can say there's going to be one today.

Maybe several. Every day, guys. From God to the spacious life. And you can say yes. And I'm telling you, it's worth taking that.

A yes has consequences that are good. I had to thank listening to Dave and Ann Wilson and their conversation with Ashley Hales about the apostle Paul, who spent a lot of time in prison. You talk about the opposite of a spacious life.

Being in the Mamertine prison in Rome was completely different. And yet he said in Philippians Chapter four, I've learned the secret of being content. He had found the spacious life even in a prison cell. Ashley's book, A Spacious Life, is all about how we can find God's goodness in the midst of whatever circumstance we're in. It's a book we've got copies of in our Family Life Today Resource Center. You can go online to order, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY.

Again, the book is called A Spacious Life. Our website is familylifetoday.com. Order the book from us online at familylifetoday.com.

Or call to order at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. Now, we talked about this already this week, but I wanted to make sure you're all aware next week as you listen to Family Life Today, things will sound a little different at the end of the program, and that's because my friend Shelby Abbott is going to be stepping in to take over the responsibilities of being here each day and wrapping up the program. Shelby's here with us today, and I'm excited, Shelby, about this new role you're stepping into and the assignment that God has for you here.

Yeah, I'm excited too. I don't have too much experience with radio, but I have been doing stage MCing for over 20 years, and I'm excited to see how God is going to translate that into this. You have started a new podcast. Tell our listeners about that.

It's a podcast called Real Life Loading for 18 to 28-year-olds, and it's coming out very, very soon from Family Life. You're an author. Tell our listeners about the books you've written. I've written a couple books for the campus ministry of CREW, a dating book and a devotional on evangelism.

The latest two books that I've written, one was about doubt, the subject of doubt, seeing so many of these deconstruction stories handled poorly amongst many, many Christians. I wanted to write about that, and then I also wrote about cohabitation versus marriage for Family Life. Yeah, and how long have you been married? I've been married for 15 years, and my wife is on staff with the campus ministry of CREW.

She's a graphic designer. And children? Yeah, we have two daughters, a 10-year-old about to enter into sixth grade, God help me, and a second-grader, eight-year-old, and they're delightful. Well, I'm excited that our listeners are going to get an opportunity to get to know you in the weeks ahead, and I'm glad to have you stepping into this assignment. Yeah, me too. And we hope that our listeners have a great weekend.

I hope that you're able to worship at your local church. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I really ought to, I mean, I don't want to step on your toes, but I should do this one last time. Sure, it's your last one. Go ahead. Take it.

Roll with it. We do hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together in your local church this weekend. And I hope you can join us back on Monday. David and Meg Robbins are going to be here to talk about the steps necessary to get ready for the big day, the day you say, I do.

What does it look like to really prepare for marriage? That comes up Monday. Hope you can be with us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.