Josiah: Why do we need rest?
Nathan: What a great question. And I think it’s a question worth answering. For years, I spent time in the corporate world for a bit and in the ministry world. We never talked about this kind of stuff. Or if you did, it was on the fringes. And you were the weirdo guy over here that was like, we all need a rest in some way, shape, or form. And we’re just, you know, nose to the grindstone going forward. We’re trying to create, build, do all these kinds of things. But I think it goes back to design. So you have to ask yourself, like, how was I originally designed? And you were designed for rest. It’s built into the DNA of who you are as a human being to have seasons of rest and seasons of work. So if one of those is out of balance, if you just rest all the time, then we call you lazy. But if you work all the time, we go, “Well done, Josiah. Great job. Why don’t you burn yourself out and have a very short career?” What gives here? So I think for me, the why was, how can we strike a balance? And especially in our world with ministry leaders, how can we strike that balance between work and rest, between the being and doing side of being a human being? And I think for me, I watched so many of my good friends. I watched my own narrative in life, and I’m like, is there a better way to do this? There’s a great biblical verse that says, there’s a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to death. And you’re like, well, it seems right. So working all the time and achieving seems right. I’m getting affirmed. I may be getting, you know, monetarily affirmed in some way, shape, or form. but something in my soul is starting to wither and die. So I think, and our organization thinks, that we can discover that through rest, that rest, retreat, encouragement, safety, transformation literally changes everything.
Josiah: So that’s the big why for us. I love it. I’m sold. And even throughout this year, there have been moments where I’ve been close to burnout, where I love what I do, but you can kind of reach the end of your rope, and you kind of just feel like I need to stop and rest. I’m curious what you’ve learned about how do you rest well? It sounds like a simple, stupid question, but let’s say you take some time to disconnect from work. What do you do then to get in a state where you can really rest?
Nathan: Yeah, I think we’re so used to producing, and I’m speaking to myself here. I value the production that I can bring to the table. And I think, again, we often get affirmed by what we produce. What do you do when you’re not producing? And how do you peel away from a moment in time where you leave the work unfinished and allow yourself to recharge and refresh in some way, shape, or form? I think a lot of this stuff and you know, we don’t need to lay on a couch and talk about all of it, but it’s like we are modeled this in home, our home environments sometimes drive this whole idea of undo expectations and I got to be on all the time. And I’ve got to be, it’s more like what I do is who I am. Well, that’s not true. I don’t even introduce myself as the executive director of Oasis Rest. I introduced myself as Nathan and I have this amazing wife of 27 years and I have these four incredible kids and I have beautiful daughter-in-laws and I have an amazing grandchild and we’ll get to the work thing in a bit. But it’s like identity sometimes comes through what we do. What if we could get identity by just being? Like just being a son or a daughter or just being in a space to fill your own soul up. And it feels selfish. This is the thing I find with high producers. If I ask them like what drains them, they can tell me a million things. If I ask you what fills you, you don’t know. Okay, so all you do, and again, we say this with tongue in cheek, but all you do is pour out and you never pour in. How long is that going to last? Well, it feels so selfish to be, right, right, right, right. But I mean, you go back to the adage of, you know, the airplane of like putting your own oxygen mask on first. Well, yeah, duh. But what about life? How do you refuel? How do you rekindle? How do you refresh? Because you’re going to be asked to pour out. How do you get poured into? So I think it’s, you know, people are like, is there one way? Is there two ways? No, it’s kind of based on your personality. For some people, it’s, I just love to curl up by the fire with a good book. Great. That’s refreshing to you. Yeah, but it feels selfish. But are you a better human being when you come out of that moment? Well, yeah, people tell me I am. So do it. Oh, I get refreshed by going out and working in the woods or, you know, messing around in the yard or whatever it is. Did you feel better after you come out of that? Yeah, I love it. So why don’t you do it more often? So I think, again, for me, it’s like, how do you find opportunities to refresh your own soul? And then how do you get people around you who can ask you, hey, Josiah, when’s the last time you took a refreshing retreat? And you just watch people blank stare you, you know, that nervous tick of, two years ago, you’re like, okay, so you’re running at an unsustainable pace. Why don’t you peel off for a little bit and get refreshed and renewed?
Josiah: So, yeah. I love that piece about having people around you that will call this out, right? But it’s also something we can do as friends, as people, coworkers, right? It’s kind of noticing this of others. I want to get to how you’re doing this in your work today, but I’m curious for yourself: can you recall a recent example of a time that you took a break, you got some rest and How did that feel for you?
Nathan: It’s rejuvenating. And again, as the, as a guy who leads a rest organization, I am in danger sometimes of becoming a victim of the very thing that I’m trying to, you know, advocate against like busyness and crazy and burning out all that kind of stuff. But I think for me personally, when I can peel away, we’ve got three and a half acres here just North of Atlanta that we live in. And it’s, I love being in nature. So if you can peel me out of nature, even if that means I jump on a Zoom call and literally, for the 15 minutes between the next Zoom call, I just take a lap around our property, that’s pretty low-hanging fruit. I can do that. I could also do 20 million things in that 15 minutes because I’ve got them to do. But I’m like, I want to be very present for this next moment. So you can do small rejuvenation-type things like that if you’ve got a place to tuck away or get some quiet. You can do bigger episodic-type deals where it’s a little more planned out. I always try to encourage people, if you’re going to go away and do a retreat, don’t go somewhere crazy exotic; that’s got a million moving parts to it because you’re going to be just more stressed out when you get there than before. Find a quiet place. Maybe that’s an Airbnb close by or a hotel that’s nearby that you can just go, peel away. And here’s the big one for me, Josiah. I have to be in a place where I don’t have any responsibilities. In other words, take care of me. Let me be in a hospitable place where somebody else is literally setting the table. Somebody else is providing the environment, and I can just walk into it and just be. That’s rejuvenating for my soul.
