S06E006, Take a Breather, Endurance

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This week, Steven and Nathan are looking at taking breaks. They expound some examples from the Bible, including one from Jesus.

Endurance is your weekly spiritual workout, whether you think of yourself as a beginner, an intermediate, or advanced!

#GoDeeper

For GoDeeper this week, Steven relates taking a breather during a workout to having a break in everyday life. He unpacks an example of a breather in the Bible, and he points us to the example of Jesus who often took breaks.

Steven points out that when taking a break during a run you shouldn’t just stop suddenly, but rather slow to a walk. In addition to this, he gives some ideas of what to do during a break, such as pray or eat a chocolate bar.

You can read the GoDeeper transcript here.

#GoDo

For the final segment, Nathan and Steven discuss talk about taking a breather:

1. Taking a break is actually quite important, isn’t it?
2. I suppose we need to apply wisdom when taking breaks.

Watch this episode to hear what they discussed.

Steven and Nathan

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Nathan: So hello and welcome to another episode of Endurance. This one is titled Take a Breather, which basically means take a break, have a moment's rest, get some r and r. And it's very important in exercise that we do take a breather now and then. We make sure that we have plenty of time to rest and relax between exercising.

[00:00:43] Nathan: And it's the same in our spiritual walk. We need to ensure that we have times to rest. We can't constantly be working and labouring we need to make sure we get times for rest to allow ourselves to recover and recuperate. And so Steven's going to open up this topic for us and help us [00:01:00] to understand just what that looks like both in exercise and in our spiritual journey.

[00:01:04] Nathan: How do we take a breather in the right way and how do we make the most of those times we take a break. And also what does that mean from a Biblical perspective. Obviously, if you want to keep up to date with all that we produce, including Endurance, you can sign up to our newsletter by going to www.Berrybunch.family.

[00:01:25] Nathan: Enjoy this episode. I'm Nathan.

[00:01:30] Nathan: You can't win if you are not willing to lose. #speaktruth

[00:01:46] Jo: You'll never guess what? Dave the Dog has his own show and it's called Dave Unleashed.

[00:01:52] Steven: Are we sure about this?

[00:01:53] Jo: Well, I'm gonna be there on hand. I'm gonna help him.

[00:01:59] Steven: [00:02:00] What, what mayhem are we to expect?

[00:02:02] Jo: Well, to keep him on track. He's got story time, he's got art time, so you know, and I'll be there to help him.

[00:02:09] Steven: What could possibly go wrong?

#GoDeeper Transcript

[00:02:31] Steven: So here we are for the bit of Endurance, where we go deeper into the topic. And of course the topic for this week is take a breather. So we're looking at the idea of taking a breather. So like in exercise, if you were to do a workout or go for a run and you get to a point where you run outta steam, then you would take a breather.

[00:02:50] Steven: But the way that breather looks is a bit different than you might expect. For instance, if you're out running, it's better to slow down to a walk rather than to just stop completely. [00:03:00] So during that breather that you still active, you're still catching your breath, but you're not going as fast as before.

[00:03:07] Steven: And the same goes for life. In work or anything, when things get too much, we'll take a break, we'll have a Kit Kat or, or whatever your preferred chocolate bar of choice is, and we will take a breather. And of course, the Bible has lots to say on this topic, as always. It's got stuff for everything the Bible, honestly.

[00:03:26] Steven: 1 Kings 19, verses 3 through to 9. After the incident where prophets are being killed, Elijah sort of legs it and this is that passage. So Elijah then became afraid and immediately ran for his life. This is, I forget who it is that's trying to kill him, but there's some people trying to kill him.

[00:03:42] Steven: So he run legs it. When he came to bear, Beer-Sheba, that belonged to Judah. He left his servant there, but he went on a day's journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. He said, I've had enough, Lord, take my life for I am no better than my ancestors. Then [00:04:00] he laid down and slept under the broom tree.

[00:04:02] Steven: Suddenly an angel touched him. The angel told him, get up and eat. Then he looked and there at his head was a loaf of bread baked over hot stones and a jug of water. So he ate and drunk, and laid down again. Then the angel of the Lord returned for a second time and touched him. He said, get up and eat or the journey will be much too hard for you.

[00:04:21] Steven: So he got up, ate and drank. Then on the strength from that food, he walked 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. That passage has been used so many times to point out how much a bit of food, a bite to eat, some rest will go a long way in a stressful day. It just, it doesn't take much. And also we can look at Jesus' example.

[00:04:45] Steven: He often took moments alone, a breather as it were from preaching the gospel, from healing the sick, healing the wounded. There's lots of accounts of that. And there's one particular incident where he learned of John the Baptist's death, and he immediately went to a quiet [00:05:00] place alone. And this is that bit.

[00:05:02] Steven: When Jesus heard about it, he withdrew from there by boat to a remote place to be alone. When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a large crowd, had compassion on them and healed they're sick. So his breather wasn't very long. It wasn't long before he had crowds following him, and he had compassion on them.

[00:05:20] Steven: It's interesting to note that a breather doesn't, isn't very long. It's just a small amount of time to recover, rest, have eat, a Kit Kat. The point of a breather is it's very short. It doesn't take long to recuperate just a little bit. That's exactly what Jesus did and often he went alone to pray.

[00:05:41] Steven: And we can learn from his example of what we do during a breather. If you're having a stressful day, you can stop and pray. Have a moment of silence before God. Maybe listen to some Christian music. When I say Christian music, I mean sort of worshipful music, cuz I know there's a lot of Christian heavy metal artists out there.

[00:05:55] Steven: What I mean is gentle, relaxing, soothing music from the likes of Chris Tomlin or something like that [00:06:00] to just refocus on God during a busy or difficult day. Just like in exercise, but any exercises I made the point earlier, we don't just stop mid run, we slow down to a walk. So perhaps a breather might look like just doing some gentler work.

[00:06:16] Steven: Just if you've got really intense, hard project, you've got to finish and you need a breather, do another project that's not quite so bad. So often, perhaps a bit of cleaning. You know, it's really useful as having a breather and it's something that I personally have done quite a few times when I've got loads of high priority work to do and I just need a breather, do something else completely different that isn't high priority or equally so just completely lounge on the couch and have a Kit Kat.

[00:06:43] Steven: I don't actually like Kit Kats that much, but as an example.

[00:06:48] Steven: So in a difficult time, difficult day, take a breather, pray, listen to the Holy Spirit, any of the above. That is taking a breather.[00:07:00]

[00:07:01] Andy B: Two minutes a day can change your world and In Just a Thought, that's kind of what I do because I take the ordinary moments of life and think, how can this apply to faith, to life, to moving through this world with people around us? How can a tiny spider or the handle of a microwavable rice pot affect our life and how can it help us learn something about ourselves and the world around us?

[00:07:25] Andy B: So here's what I thought, Have you ever wondered what red flags, shredded tires, persistence, holes, dishwater tea, rice maker handles, tape measures, giant spiders that are not and stripy fabric all have in common well you're not alone. And they actually link wonderfully together. As you will find out in the book.

[00:07:43] Andy B: I'm just gonna read this out from Reverend Johnny Douglas, who wrote the forward very kindly for me, Just a thought is a collection of pregnant brain thoughts, but it's so much more than this. Andy reflects a determination, character and grasp of God in his loving purpose and wise ways.

[00:07:58] Andy B: As we go through life, there's all [00:08:00] these things that go on, there's always exciting things of life, but actually it's the ordinary and it's the normal from which we can learn so, so much. Each little chapter will take you a few moments to read, but hopefully will get your brain working and ready for the day. Just a Thought.

[00:08:37] Nathan: Okay, so now it's time for me to ask Steven some questions about his talk.

[00:08:42] Steven: Is it? But why do we do this? Why must we do this? Do you have to ask me questions? You know, I could ask you questions just as easily.

[00:08:49] Nathan: Well yeah. But, I didn't talk about the subject.

[00:08:51] Steven: What's that gotta do with anything?

[00:08:55] Nathan: Well, it's, it's important to interview the person who's spoken to make sure we, we clear up any points they may [00:09:00] have missed or perhaps could have gone into more deeply.

[00:09:04] Steven: Do you know? That's a very, very strong argument. I can't argue with that.

[00:09:07] Nathan: Yeah, they are. You see, that's why I do the interviewing. Okay. So I was thinking from what you said, taking breaks is actually it's actually quite important, isn't it?

[00:09:16] Steven: Essential, I would say, to achieving anything. You need to take a breather.

[00:09:19] Nathan: Yeah, it's essential. And if Jesus did it, then clearly we need to do it as well.

[00:09:24] Steven: That is also a very strong argument. I can't argue with that.

[00:09:27] Nathan: Yeah. So obviously we need to take breaks not only because, well obviously God took a break, didn't he? On the seventh day.

[00:09:34] Steven: The seventh day.

[00:09:34] Nathan: On the seventh day God rested not because he was tired, but it's sets an example and precedent for something that we should do. We should take a break. We should make sure we don't over do it.

[00:09:45] Steven: Absolutely.

[00:09:46] Nathan: And that leads me nicely onto the second point because sometimes when we get tired, we might be tempted to think we should just push through. We should just endure. And, you know, that is true a lot of the time. We need to endure [00:10:00] even when it gets tough.

[00:10:01] Steven: There is a time to endure. Definitely.

[00:10:03] Nathan: But there is also a time to break, to give yourself some, some period of rest. To allow yourself to recover. And so I suppose we need to apply wisdom in choosing when to have a break and when to keep going.

[00:10:16] Steven: Yes, definitely.

[00:10:18] Nathan: Yeah. Okay. Well, I think that just about wraps it up. Wouldn't you? Yeah, it seems I didn't miss many points then.

[00:10:25] Nathan: No, no, no. It was very very thorough, I suppose.

[00:10:28] Steven: Oh, excellent.

[00:10:29] Nathan: Yeah. So in conclusion, really we need to apply wisdom in taking a breather at the appropriate moment. But we do know, however, that it is an important thing to do and it is a Godly thing to do because Jesus did it, and God commands us to rest.

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