Arianna Molloy | Healthy Calling: Breaking Free from Workaholism and Finding True Rest

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I'm joined by Ariana Malloy, and she is a communication professor at Biola University. Now, she specializes in organizational communication, and Ariana, I'm just going to let you sort of navigate what that is. I think you'll do a better job of it than me. But welcome to Thinking Christian podcast. Thanks for being here today. Oh, I'm so glad to be here. Yeah, so organizational communication is basically communication in the workplace, so the communication that happens within work and then also communication about work. So any messages that we see externally about how we are to view work or how we think about work. And your new book is Healthy Calling, and so that's what we'll kind of be talking the most about today. But how would you connect healthy calling into organizational communication? Oh, yeah, I think I naturally assume that as a Christian, everything I do should be for the glory of God and that he's made each of us with specific skill sets and passions that we can apply in different places in our life. Now, that's not always going to be work. It could be in relationships. It could be in service. It could be in something altogether different. But when you do get to experience calling in the workplace, statistically, all the data backs up that you're actually the most motivated, most satisfied. You have the greatest ability to recover when there's organizational or societal change. You're the person they want in the room. So I love looking at what causes people to feel a sense of calling in the workplace and then how do they actually live that out, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So when you think about calling, because this is something I think I've sort of struggled with even myself over the years. For a long time, I was in academics. I was an academic dean, and I never really felt called to be an academic dean. It was the job I could get, right? But I always felt that there was a sense of calling with regard to Christian education. And so whatever role I could play within Christian education, I wanted to play that, and I wanted to play that really well. But then I would also say I had sort of a reformer bias, right? I would look at things, and I would say, this just isn't as good as it could be, and if we're going to be the best we can possibly be as an organization, why would we want to have this left where it is? Why not advance the ball down the court a little bit? So how, just given that jumbled mess of things, talk a little bit about maybe the difference between calling and vocation or even calling, vocation, and orientation, you know, personal proclivities. So as Christians, I believe we all have a calling, which is to love God and love others. Oz Guinness talks about this as our primary calling. Whoever we are, whatever we do, wherever we are, if we identify as a Christ follower, an apprentice of Jesus, then we are to love him, and how we love him is by loving others well so that they know who God is. So that's our primary calling. But there are secondary types of callings, and again, that's what we talked about just a little bit ago, and that's where there's a certain place in our life that ignites a specific skill set that you have and a passion that you have in a way that when you're doing this work, it almost feels worshipful. So many of us, when we go into whatever workspace we're in, whether it be paid or unpaid, whatever work we do, we should be bringing that desire to love God and love others and looking for opportunities that we can do that specifically. So it sounds like in the dean role, you exercised a lot of your great skills, but maybe it didn't exercise your passion completely. And so that's one of the key parts. So work calling has four components to it. Should I share those? Yeah, please. Go ahead. So the first one is that you can identify a caller. You register that someone, or for a non-Christian, perhaps some thing, may be calling you. So when I did my research with all these different participants, and as I continue to interview people, not everyone identifies as a Christian, but I think it's because we were hardwired to hear the call, right? So whether you're a Christian or not, there's this thirst to respond to a caller. And so I interviewed a musician who felt like his guitar was calling him, an artist who felt like her paintbrush was calling her. I've interviewed people who felt like the universe was calling them, but as Christians, we know it's God as the caller. You know, in scripture, we hear, my sheep know my voice, right? So that's the first thing, caller. The second is that it's meaningful work. It's more than simply like turning a light off and on. Although some people might find that meaningful. They might be like, hey, when I flip the switch, the light comes on, and that's amazing. I remember interviewing someone who worked at a beautician counter who did people's makeup, and she genuinely felt like she got to make people's lives better because they saw the beauty in themselves when she did their makeup. So someone else might not find that meaningful, but she did. So caller, meaningful. The third thing, and that's a real important one, is it's the combination of your skillset and your passion. Because we all know that when you're good at something, for a temporary amount of time, it feels good. It feels really good to be good at something. But if you don't, like, I'm pretty good at planning events. It is not my passion. It's just not the thing that, like, gets me up in the morning. But I can do it well. That is satisfying for a short period of time, but it's not a long-term satisfaction. There has to be passion, but passion alone is also not enough. Passion alone, as one CEO I interviewed said, makes you a great fan. Passion and skill set make you a great employee. And I think that mentality, that third component, that, you know, we've got the identified caller, meaningful work, passion and skill set, that really involves a willingness to learn and train and grow. Because someone could be called to be a doctor or a surgeon, but they don't go into the surgery room on day one, right? They have to learn. And we see this in the Bible all the time as people are being apprenticed. I don't think we have a great understanding of apprenticeship these days, you know? So then the fourth part is actually the key. This is what makes it different than a hobby. This is that you make a positive impact on those around you. So it's what we call pro-social behavior. So calling in the workplace is not just about you feeling good. It's about feeling like what you're doing makes a difference. And then the tension with that is that if we feel that way, when we start to feel burnt out, oh, there's a whole other layer of shame and exhaustion that comes with that. Yeah, and that's really what your book starts to deal with, right? It's how does your calling, which I think those four points, by the way, are excellent. That helps clarify a lot of things. Yeah. But you do tend to move toward how this calling can become oppressive in many ways because your calling can't be the secondary calling, maybe we should say. The secondary calling can't become your whole life. Your whole life can't skew in that direction because it isn't a sustainable, that sort of work, even when it's very purposeful and you're very good at it, simply is not sustainable. So talk a little bit about how that maybe, how you go off the edge. Like, what are some signs, maybe, that you're going off the edge with regard to your calling? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that, again, the data backs up. There's sort of three approaches to work. There's, you approach it like just a job. And this is where it pays the bills. And so you're glad to go to work because you can, like, have a vacation or you're waiting for the weekend, you know, you're counting off the days. And you might feel like your work's fine, but it doesn't really satisfy you that much, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of people, there's a high privilege in being able to talk about paying the bills. That's one, just a job. The second is a career. And in this regard, you can see, like, oh, there's upward trajectory. What's my 15-year plan, you know? Where am I going to go next in the promotion? And you might feel really satisfied by seeing external rewards, like, I have a new office. I can buy my parents a car. I can take my family on vacation, all those things. Then the third part is the calling, where we approach work as a calling, and we experience this deep sense of purposefulness of, like, ah, I get to help make things better. And so that's really key. How does it slide off the rails? So research shows of all those categories, those who feel called are most prone to burnout. Why is that? It's because we see and we feel a relational pull, not just for ourselves, not just because we like the work, but because the work we do makes life better for others, and the work we do is in

What are the signs? So there's a lot that we don't have control over. We don't have control over organizational manipulation. We don't have control over being marginalized or exploited all the time. Like sometimes those people have power over us and we have to kind of say yes or figure out a way to do it. We don't have control over those things. I think we also don't have control over life burnout. Like I, about a couple of years ago, I had family members who went through some pretty serious health things and that impacted my own work in terms of, I was just exhausted from life. We don't have control over that all the time. But the two things we have control over are workaholism and job idolatry. And James, that's where when we start to have it be like, it's no longer a focus on the caller and that relationship, the primary focus is on the calling. And when the calling becomes more important than the caller, danger signs. Okay. That makes sense. I'm interested. I'll circle back around to a few things because I think you said a lot there that was really interesting. One is, you know, when we think about organizational manipulation, my mind sort of goes to a spectrum anywhere from, you know, an organizational communication that says, hey, we have this fantastic mission. We'd like everybody to be on board. And so there's almost this sort of, I don't even think it's purposeful necessarily. I mean, organizations need to reaffirm their missions and have that sort of rah, rah moment, right? But I think there's also a way for that to become a bit of a, I don't know, a point of shame for people. Yes. If you say no, you're like, right. Oh, then I can't say no to this because the mission, right? So that innocent side of the spectrum can be there, but then like on the other side is, you know, a boss who's saying, well, I know you love your job and you'll do this, or you won't have a job anymore. Right. That sort of hard sort of manipulation. Is that an appropriate way to think about that? Organizational manipulation kind of idea. Absolutely. And I, I don't even think most people that are on the sending end of the manipulation mean for it to be, especially within the Christian context. I think leaders often want people to know, Hey, I've prayed about this decision. It's not just me. So they might say something like, you know, we've really prayed about it and we've got to let 33 people go, you know? And it's like this combination of like, oh, am I allowed to say ouch or that hurts, or I don't agree because you prayed about it. And I don't think that there's an intention behind the leaders. Often I don't think to be malicious or manipulative, but when we use spiritual language to explain why we've made organizational decisions that harm people, we're doing something called spiritual commodification, which is when we assign expectations of work in a spiritual way or spiritual labor. So we've got to be careful of that. Even like using words like, Hey, we all need to sacrifice right now. I would suggest not using that word. We could say we all have a responsibility. That's a, that's a fair terminology, but to sacrifice means to willingly give up something without any expectation of return of your own volition. It's a very spiritual language. And when we ask people to do that, who are like expecting payment and there's certain, you know, guideposts into how long they can work. It just gets really convoluted. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed with inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty? More families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA during uncertain times. Many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation. Sanctuary metals makes it easy to get started. Text guide to nine four eight seven eight to receive your free retirement defense guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text guide to nine four eight seven eight or call 888-958-6579. It's a really interesting dynamic because I could see that playing out from not only a boss or an authority within the organization to employees, but also the other way. Yeah. You know, having worked in, you know, more of a shared governance system, you do tend to see some organizational decisions being questioned from a spiritual basis, which was always quite challenging. But then I'd also wonder if some of this sort of molds into like the sort of self-talk that would lead the calling to become more important than the caller. Yeah. So in other words, as we're spiritualizing our work, we're, we're pumping it up almost into this sort of idolatrous thing. And so I'm wondering if that self-talk, if the same sort of conversation happens in one's head when they're thinking about their calling and ultimately elevating that above the caller. That is such a smart observation. And so within calling, we've interpersonal communication, communication with others, but also intrapersonal communication, which is communication with ourselves. So yeah, as we're talking and thinking about work, we have to be careful. And let me just go back. There was one nonprofit that I studied that did a phenomenal job of balancing their faith-based values and their business values. They had a prayer memo once a month that they sent out that was literally called prayer memo. And they talked about God as the CEO above the CEO. But what was great about it is that it was consistently used. It was not only used when hard decisions had to be made. It was used throughout the entire everyday process. And that is not organizational manipulation. That's integrated faith. If we only use spiritual language when hard things have to happen, that's when I get a little bit cautious about what's happening. So going back to your question, I think that's where workaholism and job idolatry. Oh man, they're just so, they creep in so much. It's like my son, unfortunately, he's, we found out he's allergic to dust mites recently. And it's like, oh my gosh, dust mites are everywhere. You know, so now washing his sheets every week and we got this like HEPA filter vacuum and all these things. And I sort of feel like job idolatry and workaholism tendencies are kind of like dust mites. They're everywhere. So I think part of it is paying attention to the beginning of those happening. Workaholism is an addiction to work and we tend to even honor people by calling them a workaholic, which is just such a mistake. They're the people that show up that, you know, answer the call after hours that are like, oh no, I get people on that extra project. And so they get really rewarded for this addictive behavior, but it becomes an addiction when we do the work to avoid the bad feelings when we're not doing the work. It becomes an addiction when it's a compulsion where you have that margin room, five minutes of margin, and you can't help yourself, but respond to more work emails. It becomes an addiction when we don't know how to operate without it, which is really hard because people have a high capacity. It's great to have high capacity. In fact, that would be the thing I would use to compliment someone. You have a great high capacity instead of like, oh, you're such a workaholic. Having a high capacity is great. I also think talking about high capacity means not everyone has the same capacity and that's okay too. But workaholism is dangerous. Job idolization, I think, can happen more organizationally in a Christian institution in particular where it just becomes the ultimate priority. It's where, it's we make decisions based on what's going to happen in our work. We don't show up for people because of a work thing. We use work as the compass for every other part of our life. And it's really easy to do. I mean, I was working with some executives at a hospital and they were saying, hey, when we don't show up, people literally die. Like when there are certain people that, you know, try to take some time off, people literally die. And so talking about burnout with them and how to take time off, that's a whole other challenge. We still need to talk about it because we're not machines. Yeah, my wife's in healthcare. So I get that. You know, she's one of those employees that if there's, you know, three feet of snow on the ground, we figure out how to get her to work, you know, It's kind of one of those things. And so that is sort of a part of, I think, what you take on in healthcare, but then it can become unhealthy to a certain degree. And I think what one of the things we've experienced now, I have a son who's working in healthcare and, you know, my wife's kind of like, well, you just, you have to make it to work, right? And that's just sort of the baseline idea of responsibility. But then what we've run into is the people who don't make it to work. How do we think about them? Right. And so there's a whole interesting dynamic around that. But you know, you talk about, you talk about workaholism and I wanted to ask just, you know, there's a really interesting articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, um, sort of by a guy named Mark Lewis. I don't know that you're familiar with it, but he talked about, um, addiction

Your family doesn't right or you're the only way you make sense of your family is through your job. Well, I have to provide, you know, a living. And so your job becomes the sense-making apparatus by which you manage all the rest of your relationships. Is that sort of what you mean when you're when you're talking about workaholism? Like you become a workaholic. Yes. And another way to think about it is, generally speaking, we can control our work lives a lot better than the rest of our lives. And so whether it's right out of college and there's a lot of uncertainty about what does it mean to be an adult and okay, a bunch of people are getting married right away or backpacking in Europe or looking for a job or moving back home. And if you have work, you can control that to a high extent in midlife when your kids are teenagers and they're making different choices and things might feel out of control for you, work is controllable. When we think about aging and and our sense of worth in the world, work is a measurable outcome. And so actually I read an interesting article about folks who are retired, which I think retirement is a strange mythology that we actually kind of have to question, you know, because we're purposeful creatures made in the image of a purposeful God and therefore a sense of working in a in a good way is something we naturally want. And if we don't make space for that in the retirement sector, it can be challenging. And actually, research has shown that that's the most depressed population currently that exists. Yeah. And there's a lot of factors into that, but we should be doing better as a church with that. As an aside, one of my favorite movies is the movie Intern. Have you seen it? It's with, oh my God, Robert De Niro. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And it's this guy who's retired and but he's like kind of bored, right? He's like done all these other things. So he signs up for this like internship program for people who, I don't know if they call it like a geriatric internship or it was something terrible, but basically you can be an intern at a company after you've retired. What a brilliant idea for people who want it, you know? Yeah. So just going back to your question, I think workaholism is a way of controlling when you feel like everything else is uncontrollable. And like anything else, maybe I'm assuming some things, but I'd be interested to get your take on it. It seems like we put an awful lot, and when I say we, the United States, and I would say even probably the church, having worked in some churches and seen sort of the necessity of working the number of hours that many pastors actually work. There is a sense in which that becomes that sort of sacrificial act. But it also seems like we really do value productivity. We value success. We value upward social mobility, those kind of ideas. And so I'm wondering, have you seen in the research how our society sort of structures this in in ways that aren't particularly great for us? Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good question. And I will say most of my research is that within American dynamics and Western culture in particular. There have been studies in other cultures, specifically Asian cultures, that still kind of show the same work ethic with a slightly different take. There's a little more emphasis on family calling, like inheriting family calling. And so my husband is a second generation, wonderful, incredibly handsome man from Taiwan. And but he, like part of his sense of calling growing up was to do well in school so that he could help care for his family and continue the legacy and reputation of that. So there is and there's a really great study by Virginia Sanchez that talks about that sense of like first gen, second generation immigrant sense of calling. So there's that. But I think if you look at Max Weber or Max Weber's capitalistic work ethic, it's ingrained in that process. American culture is that sense of, you know, working for that and demonstrating productivity. And I think there's a lot of good in that. And I think there's a lot of potential challenge and harm in that. Even going back to Scripture, you can think about how do we know that we follow Jesus? It's by the fruit, right? But the fruit itself does not actually represent our faith. It's just evidence of faith. So it gets very complicated. Yeah, and I think when you're trying to sort of draw this line, because, you know, what you're trying to say is calling is a good thing, but a good thing when taken to the nth degree can also become bad. And so how do you how do you how would you counsel people to say, you know, is it about building a cadence into your week? Is it about being intentional about taking breaks even when you don't feel like you need them? You know, like, how do you guard against that? Because the line isn't just stark and clear. Like, here's where I'm stepping over it. Right. It's it seems very difficult to maneuver and understand when I'm about to cross over that line. Yeah. And you always want to stop before you cross over the line. Usually, yeah. And that's really hard. So part of it is with burnout. It's not a category. We think tend to think of it in a category. I'm burnt out or I'm not burnt out. We have to disrupt that. It is a spectrum where on one side is a sense of healthy approach to work and the other side is burnout. Where are you on the spectrum? So you begin thinking, oh, I'm feeling this way. My cynicism has increased. I maybe need to take a look at what's going on. I'm not as patient and compassionate with other people. I need to take a look at what's going on. Where am I on the spectrum of burnout? Because when you think about it that way, A, it's not failing or succeeding. B, it's more about maintaining. And that's so much more part of life. You know, we have to brush our teeth and floss and take showers and put on deodorant and go to sleep and eat food. And all of those things are about maintaining a sense of health. And in the same way, healthy calling is that. So in my research, how I've what I've looked at it, all the different things. The biggest way to maintain a sense of healthy calling is to pursue humility, which I realize is not a very sexy term. It feels very abstract, but there's actually three ways that humility is broken down in how you can enact it. It's broken down that way from social science perspective, but also biblically you could see those if you look at Jesus's way of living. And so those three ways of understanding what does it mean to live a life of humility help keep you on the side of healthy calling and check you when you get closer to that burnout place. Interesting. It's so like I always find it fascinating when it's sort of the simple answers and I don't know that humility is really simple, but be humble and build humility into your life. Isn't probably the answer most people are expecting. You know, it's more of like some sort of management technique. Isn't there something I could do? No, I have to actually become something. I have to practice humility. And so that's really fascinating. We talked a little bit about before the episode, I'm just interested to hear your thoughts on this. I told you I did my PhD in Old Testament theology and my dissertation was actually on the Sabbath. And so I'm interested just to hear your thoughts on Sabbath and rest and the idea of finding these spaces where we maybe in the language you're using in the book, maybe the best way to put it is Sabbath is a time where we focus on the color and set aside the calling. Yes. You know, that kind of idea. Yeah, I love that. I mean, I could talk about Sabbath all day long, every day. So we should just jam it out, you know, at some point. But yeah, so just real quick, I'll talk on the first two, just the two parts of the criteria of humility. And then the third criteria is Sabbathing. So just as a, we can circle back if you want to, but humility is knowing your strengths and your weaknesses and not being distracted by either one. You know yourself. So you think about this, Jesus, who's humble. He wasn't confused about who he was. We tend to mix up modesty and humility. They're not at all the same thing. So a modest person who's done a great job at work, you might say, hey, good job. That was a really great presentation or project. And they might put their head down, like, oh, thanks. You know, shrug their shoulder. But a humble person might look at you confidently with an open face and say, thanks so much. I really appreciate that. And there's a real important distinction there because you don't want to work with someone in the workplace who doesn't know what they're good at. That's a real weakness. But of course, you don't want to work with someone who's so consumed with what they're good at that they like don't have places to grow. So that's the first one is know your capacity and not be distracted by either one. And really the way to do that is to come from a place of gratitude, knowing that it all comes from the Lord. Right. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed with inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty? More families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. 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You know, I love that Jesus is called rabbi. I love that he's teacher. I love that we get to learn from him. To be a learner means you know there's more to learn. You know that you don't know everything, which means you're not defensive, which means you know how to delegate, which means you have shared space. So those are the first two. But that third one, James, the third part of humility is the ability to walk away for a while, the ability to say, I am not the God of my universe. I know who I am. I know my place in all of this. I'm gonna take a designated time, just like we would tithe our money. I'm gonna tithe my time to the author of time, to my caller, and remind myself where I fit in all of this. You know, as you know, because, I mean, wow, super cool degree, the Sabbath was the first thing that God called holy in the Bible. It's the very first thing. And he called holy and he did it. And so learning how to do that has been a big journey for me. My parents are phenomenal. They taught me so much about the love of Jesus, but they worked for themselves. And although they taught me a lot about showing up for each other, we didn't really rest regularly as a family. It wasn't until I was in the first year of my PhD program, and I was always working so hard and I was in a new city or state and I didn't know anybody. And I ate some sushi from a gas station, so no one should do that. And I had really, really bad food poisoning. And I remember like crawling to the bathroom and just thinking I was going to die. I'd never had food poisoning before and it's real bad. And as I was like stretched on the floor with like my little bath mat over me, I remember feeling that tap of the Holy Spirit that just said, come away with me. And I'm like, okay, maybe after I'm through this part. The next week I hadn't backed things up on my computer and I lost all of my work for that semester in my first year of my doctorate program, like all the research, all the proposals, everything. And I got food poisoning for a second time. I don't know what happened. I don't know if I just had not recovered the first. It was awful. So there I am again on the floor of my bathroom and I just miserable. And I felt that Holy Spirit tap of come away with me. And then I thought, okay, Lord, I had been reading some scripture on Sabbath and he was already doing some work in my heart. So I'm like, okay, after I'm done with this semester, I'll do it. And then I felt that feeling of like, if you wait until there's a good time, there will never be one. So I decided to pursue Sabbath and I've been Sabbathing ever since. And I Sabbath as a single person. My husband and I Sabbath when we were newly married. We Sabbath now with a young kid and it's different. It looks different. It's not always physical rest, but it's always mental, emotional, and spiritual redirection. Yeah, interesting. But I'll circle back around to the three aspects of humility and then maybe we'll kind of land on Sabbath. But one of the things you said on the first aspect of humility, it's something I try to convey. I actually just tried to teach on it in a course I'm teaching on Genesis. But the idea of our constraints, when we think about our constraints, we often think of those in a negative light. The fact that I am constrained is a bad thing. That's the way we generally think about it. But if you take a step back and you say, no, our constraints actually allow us to do a lot of things. You know, we couldn't be having this conversation if we both weren't constrained by the English language and the grammar and syntax that that constrains us with. We wouldn't understand each other. So we wouldn't even be able to communicate if I was communicating in, you know, beeps and borks or whatever. We wouldn't be able to have a conversation. And so the constraint actually allows us to do things. And I think that if we, as we look at what we see in Scripture, we see that we are to be dependent on, not independent from God. And that is an appropriate constraint for us that allows us to flourish to the maximum. And really Sabbath drives right into that. It's this moment where we say, nope, I am a dependent creature. And this dependency is not hindering me. It's actually driving me forward. It's actually good for me. It's actually allowing me to flourish. And so it's a really interesting dynamic when we think about that independence and as you're talking about it, the humility to really recognize that we are independent or interdependent creatures who require not only God, but other folks. Love that so much. I agree with you. I think that we have this whole idea, mantra that pain is weakness leaving the body. That's a terrible slogan. And, you know, I, I fell in love with my husband learning how to marathon. He's a marathon runner. So I understand that. Yeah. You have to push through sometimes. That's called grit or perseverance. But when you confuse perseverance with denial and do that, we get in trouble. You know, perseverance is the ability to say, here's my goal. I might need to change plans as I work my way towards that goal based on what's happening right now, based on my own limitations and capacities. But denial is here's my goal. I'm not changing anything. I'm just going to go after it. So that's what's happening. And I think that we do tend to look at our limitations as weakness. And I think that's a, not the right way to think about it. Yeah. There's there, there are boundary lines and there's boundary ways of saying, you know, we need to look to the Lord for this. And I will tell you almost every Sabbath, I fail miserably. I begin to think about work. I'm a strategy person. So I'm like organizing things in my mind for the next week. And, you know, and I'm, I tend to worry a little bit. And so I like let my worries escape and kind of get bigger. But what's wonderful about Sabbath is that if you feel rested at the end, that's a great, like a side thing, but that's not the point. The point is that heart attitude adjustment to remind yourself, oh, we are in the father's hands. His way is not our way. He loves us more than we could understand. When we've reached the end of a road, he tears down the walls, usually by rejoicing. He is the one who makes a way. He is the way maker. And we don't see that when we are in the hustle and the hurry and the absence of margin, we certainly can't take time to reflect and reflection is required in repentance. And we definitely can't grow in our compassion for ourselves and others if we don't slow way, way down. Yeah. And it almost becomes an antidote to workaholism. For sure. Right. Because you, you have to broaden your view. It can't get narrowed into just work. I love Deuteronomy 8. You know, God is warning the Israelites when they go in and they're living in these beautiful houses that they didn't build and drinking from cisterns they didn't dig. To not forget that he's the one who got all this for them, that he's the one who gives them the power and the strength to do everything that they're doing. And it's this call and reminder, I think, again, I love that language to look back beyond the calling back to the caller and to remember that this thing that you're doing here, that you get so much meaning out of and you have so much passion for, this was even given to you by God. And so he is all of this is sort of nested in him. And he's got to be the bigger picture that we constantly refer back to. Yeah. I love that. And I think something that I started doing about five years ago is the day before we Sabbath, I go for a walk in the early, early morning by myself for about 30 minutes. And I just think about the whole week, things I'm proud of, things I wish I would have changed, and I offer it up to the Lord. And I think about my final push of a work day before we try to take a day off. And I just sort of let my heart be redirected. And I've actually found that a pregame Sabbath strategy is really essential because sometimes we try to do like a hard stop in Sabbath and then we're like, it's like a belly flop in the water or we approach Sabbath like the kitchen sink or that drawer, that junk drawer. Sabbath is not meant to take care of all the needs that you have for physical rest. It's not the day where you just like do all your tasks and errands. It is a day in which we intentionally remind ourselves of who the caller is, who we are and what he's actually asked us to do. It's a day in which we slow down and say, you are the author of time. Here's everything on my plate. I trust in you. I am not in control. And we offer that to him over and over again because I don't know about you, but like it's a gravitational pull for me to want to take control. And it's a gravitational pull for me to get distracted by my calling. Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, I think that's the same for me. And I, I like what you said there because it does suggest there's, there's a way to build these cadences into your life, into your weeks, into your days where you're actually prepping yourself to have these Sabbath moments and really guarding against that sort of workaholism that allows you to just endlessly pursue a calling to the point where you are getting

Where my mind kept going to was how easy is it to squeeze Sabbath out? Yes. Because it's not asking for anything. Like nobody's requiring it. It's just you and your commitment to doing it, right? And I don't mean that in a personalized, like, this is my individual goal or something like that. But God obviously wants us to do that. He wants us to give all glory to Him. But He isn't the taskmaster that, you know, sometimes your work is or you yourself are when it comes to your work. And so there is this sort of real sense in which I think you have to build almost a, I would hesitate to say, habit. Like, because you don't want it just to become like that rote thing, but more of a ritualistic kind of idea where there is real symbolic value in all of it for you. And so that by the time you're doing it, it's a part of your week that you need, sort of like air. Yeah, I love that so much. I think you're right on. And I know depending on the semester and my class schedule, I've learned that I actually have to put on my workout clothes before I head home so that I'm more prone to work out when I get home. Because if I come home and I come into the door and my son comes over and gives me a hug and, oh, it's so nice and warm and cozy and I just want to stay. But no, if I'm wearing my workout clothes, it's like time. And I think in the same way with Sabbath, having a pregame strategy where you take the day before and you kind of think about everything, you prepare for the day after Sabbath when you're going to dive back in, you look at what's happening that day. It's really essential. I also think that we have to be okay with that Sabbath sadness that tends to surface. I don't know if you've heard that term, but it's something that people talk about where when you finally slow down, there's something called Sabbath sadness where all the things you've pushed down that week rise to the surface. And so a lot of especially high-capacity folks get really uncomfortable. They're like, well, rest doesn't work for me. I just end up feeling bad. I'm not rested at all. And I think part of that is realizing, first of all, being rested, physically rest, I mean, that can be a great consequence, but that's not the most important thing. But secondly, sadness from Sabbath is a tunnel of emotion you have to get through. You can't go around it, can't go over it, can't go under it. You've got to go through it to get to the other side. And actually, it's not a bad thing. Sadness can feel like a really bad thing. You're not meant to stay there, but you have to go through it to the other side. And so I think that we have to be ready for those bad feelings to surface, kind of like when you're working out. You haven't worked out in a while and you're like, this is hard. And then you wake up the next day and you're sore, but it's a good sore. You know, it's like, and in the same way, if you let those feelings surface in Sabbath and you say, Father God, I am feeling terrible about this, then you actually identify some things that are already existing and you can give it a name. And when you name something, it loses its control over you. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Yeah, really interesting stuff. Any sort of parting thoughts for folks? Like, I remember when I was in the throes of workaholism, and I think the only thing that sort of knocked me out of it was just my wife going, you know, it's time for you to leave. Like, you're not handling this well. It's consuming your entire life. I was very out of shape. I was in, you know, I was in horrible condition all over the place, just mentally, physically, everything. And it was because I just kept plowing back into work. And she's like, look what it's doing to you, right? Like, it's time to be done. Like, you're not handling this well. You need a break. And so, I mean, I know that's what did it for me, sort of broke me out of that cycle. But how do you, how would you counsel people to sort of break out of that cycle for themselves? Yeah. Burnout doesn't go away on its own. Yeah. It won't. So if we think, I just need to get through this one next thing, or I just need to do this final thing, or get through, it's not going to go away. Now, there are normal seasons of stress. We all know that. And stress, there's good stress. There's stress that we need for extra momentum to get through a seasonal thing. But when we live in a place of sustained stress, sustained stress is the genesis of burnout. And so we have to pay real attention to it and not wait for it to get worse. I think what you did was beautiful. You listened to counsel and you trusted that counsel. So I would say, especially if you're in a job that requires high intensity, it's maybe high peopleing, where you're like having to deal with a lot of people, really make sure you have accountability. Really make sure you have mentors or people in your life who you regularly meet with who kind of take your pulse like a doctor would at a doctor's office and say, mm, your heartbeat is not, it's not the pace it should be. Or, hey, you may want to think about this. So that would be the first thing. And then I would also say, run hard and fast after routine Sabbath and do not say you don't have time for it. You just make the time. It is a sacrifice. It's a sacrifice worth making. It may not feel good. It will likely be messy. I make mistakes all the time. There's always a reason not to do it, but it is essential to be humble and humility is the linchpin to a healthy calling. So I think I would say those things. One other small, actually two more small things. One is, research shows that you actually don't experience full vacation until after the eighth day. So we tend to, in American culture, have like a three-day weekend and be like, good job, self. But actually, our bodies do not physically restart in that mentality until the eighth day, which means that a nine, 10-day vacation once a year, if you can do it, is great. Even if you just decide, hey, for nine or 10 days, I'm going to stop doing this one thing that's causing some of that stress and burnout, right? So I would say that. The other thing is, if you haven't investigated the seven types of rest, I would highly recommend Googling it because a doctor came up with it. It's on a TED Talk. And there's seven ways in which we restore. And so we sometimes tend to think of rest as only one thing, of like being still. Now, frankly, being still is very restful for me, or being in nature. But my husband, he's an achiever. For him, resting is playing. And if I asked him to rest in the same way that I rest, he would not feel rested. If he asked me to rest in the same way that he rests, I would not feel rested. So I think learning to investigate the things that make us feel rested is really important. That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, my wife and I always took different vacations when we go. We always had different components to them because I do like to, you know, if there's a challenging mountain hike or something like that, I'm all in. And she's like, I'll be on the beach. It's cool. But I wanted to circle around to one thing, and then we'll kind of, so we're getting close to the end of time. I want to ask a couple more questions. But when you mentioned accountability, one of the things that I've found when I've had accountability groups, especially with men, is that it tends to focus on moral failure type issues. Now, I have no problem with dealing with moral failure type issues. Like, that's fine. But for this particular aspect of accountability, I suppose you could look at moral failure type issues, but really I'm thinking you're looking more at just basic orientation and posture during your day. Like that kind of temperament, temperament kind of issues, like you mentioned patience before, like probing those sort of what we, I even hate, like, I don't even know how to describe them, but like lower level sort of problems. Does that, or indicators? Yeah. Yeah. So I would, I love that you highlighted that. I'd never really thought about that. And I think you're right. Makes me think of the concept of deceit. Deceit is that slow, puffy white cloud that gently causes you to drift away from your goal. And so yeah,

The people that you love, that you're accountable to, could you ask them this week, where have I missed you? Where did I miss seeing you? And what's something I could do next week that would help you feel seen? I think looking at your calendar and with your accountability and saying, hey, have you built in some moments where you're not doing that? Or even just talking through practices. So like my husband and I, in January, we go for a walk at the beginning of the year and we set some goals and a new goal for us is between 5:30 and 8:30, our phones go in a little unplugged box because we have almost six-year-olds and just 5:30 to 8:30, he's home. We're all home. We don't need to be on our phones. If we need to check our phones, we walk over to the box. We check our phones. It's not like we can't, but we really try to focus on each other. I made another goal recently that if it's 10 minutes or less, when I'm at work and I'm in between classes or meetings, I am not on my phone. If it's more than 10 minutes, I'll check my email or texts or social media or whatever. But if it's 10 minutes or less, I am refusing to be on my phone. So what does that mean? Sometimes I'm staring out the window, which I don't think is the most exciting, but I'll tell you something that lets your heart settle. It also, that my face is looking up in case someone walks by and I have an interpersonal conversation that I would have missed out on if my face was directed at my phone. So I love that. I think having those accountability meetings where you intentionally ask questions about the value of your worth and your work and your caller, the relational questions, that would be really important. Yeah. And those are great examples of those type of questions. I love those questions. So thank you for clarifying that. That's helpful. Our last question, this is the one I ask all my guests and I usually save it for a surprise. And so you can go wherever you want with it, but I'm always interested in, you know, I have a lot of different authors in there in different spaces. And so like you do organizational communication. And so I'm interested to hear what you think the church is missing today. What you think the church maybe needs to be doing, paying attention to that they're not paying attention to that would help us be and make disciples more faithfully. First of all, I'm so grateful for the church. You know, it's so easy to like talk about all the things that we could do better and we should, but also like it's hard. It is so hard if you're directly working in the church, it is just a lot. And I just want to acknowledge that. You know, the two things that come to mind, I do think that we need to have more questions, like you just talked about, not just the moral failure questions, although those are important, but sort of the health living questions. I'd love to see sabbaticals be given to people besides the main pastor. I think kids pastors and small groups pastors and, you know, all the people involved, they all need some dedicated rest because really those who work in the church are spiritual first responders. And so they need some cyclical times of rest. And if we could prioritize that and make that a thing, I think that would dissolve some of the hierarchy of pastoral roles that I don't think need to be there. And I think it would also honor the work. The other thing I'll just say is that, this might be, I don't know. I hope it's okay to say. I think we need to stop only talking about families and married people. Like that's a really important part. That's essential. But people who are single, people whose kids are grown and out of the house, elderly, like all of the other people that exist in God's kingdom. We need to give examples for them too. And so it's really easy to point to family because when you're in it, oh, you're in it. I am in it. I have a young kid. We're both working. It's a lot. And that matters to me. But also other examples of what does it mean to live faithfully and follow Jesus, I think is really important because the family is not like the fourth trinity of the gospel, and I think we need to acknowledge the larger church body a bit more. That's very cool. I love those answers. And well, it's great having you here. I would highly recommend Healthy Calling. I have IVP has graciously given us a 20% discount code. So that'll go into the show description, everybody. If you're listening, go to the show description. You'll see the code there. All you have to do is go to the IVP press website, which will also have linked in the show description and check out Ariana Malloy's new book, Healthy Calling and the subtitle From Toxic Burnout to Sustainable Work. And by the way, I did the audio version as well. They made me try out for it. Fantastic. So if you don't have time to read it, you just want to listen to it as you're driving or working out, you can have that option too. So you read it yourself. I did. It was so much fun. That is that is challenging. That is like, Did you have fun doing it? I had so much fun. Yeah, I didn't picture those who were reading it and I just talked to them like we were sitting across a coffee, you know, coffee shop table and it was a delight actually. That's fantastic. Well, yeah, check out the audio book as well. But Ariana, thanks so much for being here. This was a fantastic conversation. I love the work and I love this emphasis that you're sort of driving into. So very much appreciate it. Awesome. My pleasure. Thank you. All right, everybody, we will catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care. Just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for working everything out for my good. Help me trust in your perfect plan. Amen. Father, thank you for loving and caring for me. With Christian Prayer Meditation, you can pray along to prayers based on specific topics. Go to lifeaudio.com or search your favorite podcast app for Christian Prayer Meditation. You can also download the Abide app for biblical meditations at abide.com.