Dwell Differently
If you were our friend, and if we could look you in the eyes and see your struggles and know you fully, and if we could only give you ONE thing—we'd give you God’s Word. There is more power and love and truth in one verse than in a thousand other words. So, let us help you memorize God's words in a simple, easy way. We hope you'll love listening in while we chat about what our verse means, why it matters, and how it intersects with our daily lives.
Dwell Differently
TRUTH When You Need Rest // A Summer Bonus Episode
"God is the one who refreshes us. He is the one who fills us up."
— Natalie Abbott
Today's episode: We all need to be filled up by Jesus before we can pour out anything. In today's episode, we're going to discover what true soul rest looks like. Vera and Natalie are discussing the difference between superficial rest and the soul rest of Christ, how we receive rest, and how we can experience rest even in the busiest of seasons. Today's episode is a crossover episode from Overcome: The Dwell Differently Book Podcast. In it, Natalie and Vera discuss 11 verses to help you overcome negative thinking.
Today's verses: “A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” — Proverbs 11:25
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." — Matthew 11:28
Read along with us: Get your copy of Dwell Differently: Overcome Negative Thinking with the Simple Practice of Memorizing God's Truth.
Links from today's show:
- Dwell Differently, by Natalie Abbott & Vera Schmitz
- Overcome: The Dwell Differently Book Podcast
- On Magic and Miracles, by Marian A. Jacobs.
- Everyday Gospel, by Paul David Tripp.
- Do Everything in Love Necklace
- Streetlights Bible App
- Dwell Differently Bible Study membership.
Follow Natalie & Vera at DwellDifferently.com and @dwelldifferenly.
Welcome back to the Dwell Differently podcast. I'm Natalie Abbott. Guys, it's the end of the month. This is our last episode. It's actually a bonus episode. I'm so excited about what we have to dive into today. Our verse this month is Proverbs 11, 25, and I hope you've already got it memorized. It says this, a generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. In that verse, as we've been discovering all month long, as we've been studying and talking about it, is this inherent idea that we ourselves would be refreshed. And one of the things that we discovered is that God is the one who refreshes us. He is the one who fills us up. And I'm reminded of one of my favorite verses from Matthew 11, 28. Might be familiar to you. It's a promise and an invitation from Jesus. It says this, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Let me read it one more time. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. What a beautiful invitation for us in whatever season we're in to be filled up with Jesus, to find rest in Jesus. And I wanted to share with you in today's bonus episode, an episode from another podcast that Vera and I hosted. It was just a short season based on a book that we wrote called Dwell Differently, Overcome Negative Thinking with a Simple Practice of Memorizing God's Truth. In that book, we have a verse for every chapter and this Matthew 11, 28 verses in And in this episode, we talk about what does it look like to find real soul rest? What are we doing when we seek shallow rest? What does that look like in our lives? How often do we kind of run after things that aren't really going to give us true rest when Jesus himself is holding out this real soul rest for us? And here's a hint. This rest isn't lying on a beach, although sometimes we find rest when we're lying on a beach. It's not bad. But how do we find real soul rest in Jesus, even in the midst of a really busy season? It's a great episode. I hope that it encourages you. And if you would like to get your own copy of our Dwell Differently book, I will have a link to it in the show notes. So without further ado, here's that episode. Hey, welcome back to the Overcome Podcast.
SPEAKER_01:I'm Natalie Abbott. And I'm Vera Schmitz. And guys, today we are talking about rest. Truth, when you need rest. This is an awesome verse. It comes from Matthew 11, verse 28, and it says this, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Who doesn't need that message today? Oh, my gosh. Yes. Natalie, I think this is the chapter you were most excited to receive for yourself.
SPEAKER_00:It is. You know, it's funny because I write things, and then later sometimes I read them, and I'm like, oh... I wrote that for me. That's for me. Like, I'm not smart enough to remember all the things that I even write, you know? And there's just so much content kind of pouring out sometimes that it's just like, did I say that? Oh, well, that was really helpful to me. It's like whoever wrote this knows me really well.
SPEAKER_01:And you're like, oh, wait, I wrote this. I wrote it. That's so funny. That's so good. Okay, well, let's talk about rest, Nat.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so the question I have at the end of the chapter that I really want to tackle with you, Vera, is how, let me read it. What are some of the ways you seek superficial rest when you really need the sole rest of Christ? How can you seek him first for the deep rest you need the next time you find yourself seeking shallow rest somewhere else?
SPEAKER_01:I never do this. Nope, doesn't, that's not me. I'm not a superficial rest seeker at 8.30 at night whenever I'm wiped and my kids are finally in bed. I never choose the superficial rest. So yeah, if I'm answering that, the ways I seek superficial rest typically is in the form of like flipping on a Netflix documentary or...
SPEAKER_00:Documentary? Did you just say
SPEAKER_01:documentary? I like documentaries. You're a secret nerd.
SPEAKER_00:I thought I was, I mean, I'm an out loud real nerd and apparently you have a secret nerdiness in you.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe, maybe.
SPEAKER_00:We maybe need to explore that later.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Or actually it's like, I just want to laugh. So I'll put on something that I've seen before that I know is going to get a chuckle out of me. It's like, I'm just so tired. I just want a little giggle. Yes. But the second part is the hard part. How can you seek him first for the deep rest you need the next time you find yourself seeking shallow rest somewhere else? I mean, honestly, I have to be pretty hardcore with myself if I'm actually going to do this. I know myself too well and I know my habits too well that if I actually want to do something like seek soul rest, having a habit of like, We've gone through seasons like this before where Matt and I will be like, yeah, we're not gonna touch our phones after the, you know, from he'll like put his phone in a box at five o'clock when he gets, or 5.30 when he gets home from work. And we might pop them out, you know, when the kids go to bed for a minute, but then we try to put them away again and just like read a book or chat with each other because those things actually do give me quite a bit more soul rest. And sometimes this is gonna sound real churchy. Don't be scared. I do sometimes read my Bible at night. Yeah, yeah. When I really just need some soul rest. Now that's, like I said, you got to remember my first part of the answer. These are not my normal ways. It's like take some real habit forming for me to actually choose soul rest over superficial rest. What about you, Nat?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely. I think you're right. There are habits that I get into, especially during particularly busy seasons where, you know, I've got four kids at home and five, technically, ones in college. He will never not be my child, but I don't have to drive in places. But we have... track season is right now and soccer season. And so we are just in the chaos and we don't eat dinner at the same time. And it can be nine o'clock before I'm actually sitting down for the first time all day long. And I will tell you in those seasons, it's very easy for my husband and I both to get into a pattern of unhealthy rest seeking. But You know what I've been doing recently? And some people, this is gonna sound real edgy because some people don't like this show. And I understand that it's not like, you know, the actual Bible, but I love the show, The Chosen. Mm-hmm, me too. I actually love it. And it makes me cry every single time. I think they do a really brilliant job of displaying the heart of Jesus for people who are burdened and weary. Mm-hmm. And he just, it's beautiful. It helps me understand sort of a more intimate, emotional part of Jesus that sometimes I think I don't understand fully. Like he was fully human. And for him to be fully human is to interact with humans and being fully God is to interact with humans in a perfect way. And something about that just is so wonderful because I may be exhausted and tired, but I can turn that show on and for half an hour, however long, it just ministers to my soul and Another thing that I'll do if I'm really exhausted is I'll be listening to like a Christian book, for instance, or the Bible. I cannot open up a real book usually late at night because it's just too much. My eyes are tired and my body is tired. But I can put in my AirPods and even just listen to a little piece of scripture or some Christian music. And it really is something that's helpful to me.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Guys, I am so excited to tell you a book that I personally cannot wait to read. It's called On Magic and Miracles by Marian A. Jacobs. It tackles everything from Narnia to Harry Potter. These questions that believers have wondered for years, like what do we do with magic in fiction? Is it harmless fun or a slippery slope? And what's the difference between a miracle and magic? Is all magic bad or just some? Could fantasy books actually lead to the occult? And how do we help our kids think through all of this? Guys, If you've ever wondered how to make sense of fantasy through a biblical lens, then this is the guidebook for you. And the hope here is that you would discover how imaginative stories can point us to the true story and honor the God who made us creative. So if you're looking for a book like this, guys, get your copy at onmagicandmiracles.com. That's onmagicandmiracles.com. There's a link in the show note. Be sure to check it out. This episode of Dwell Differently is brought to you in part by Crossway Publisher of Everyday Gospel by Paul David Tripp, one of my personal favorite authors. Guys, we know that reading the Bible is important, but sometimes it feels more like a chore than like joy. And Everyday Gospel is a great way to help us with that. It's a daily devotional that walks us through the whole Bible in 365 short, practical reflections. And guys, Paul David Tripp is just so relatable, such a great author. He connects scripture to real life. So if you want to get a copy, you can do so wherever books are sold. And if you have trouble remembering that, just go to our show notes and you can click on that link.
SPEAKER_01:If anybody's like, I can't do... scripture reading or i've tried that um check out the streetlights yes you can actually also i've recently found out that um you can find them on spotify but it is just a little bit more vibey if you want to say um to listen to scripture and i i legit i work out to some of the tracks i i Well, at the end of the day, when I'm like washing dishes, I'll put my AirPods in and listen to scripture that way. And there's just something about listening to scripture that it really does bring me some rest. Natalie, I have a question though, because I think a lot of us have this idea of like, if I'm at rest, then I'm not at work. Yes. And there's like kind of this, you know, I just want to lay on a beach somewhere and go away. Yeah. And mind you, I also want to say like, there's nothing wrong with watching a show here and there, and there's nothing wrong with getting a beach vacation and scheduled and that kind of thing. Those are not bad things. It's just when we continually choose those things and don't face what we're actually dealing with. Yeah. So anyway, can you talk to us a little bit about soul work and soul rest and how they actually are compatible?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:They are compatible. If you read the whole passage or if you read the chapter, I kind of explain in the chapter how this passage where Jesus says, come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. He goes on and says, take my yoke upon you for my burden is easy and my yoke is light. Like that is a weird imagery, right? That somehow we have this duality of one, I'm giving up my burdens and And two, I'm taking on this new burden that Jesus gives me. But it's not a burden in the same way that the other one was. I think human people, we are made for work. So oftentimes, in fact, we were having a conversation with one of my kids about heaven the other day. And I was like, oh, you need to ask your dad about that. Because one of the things that my husband says is that, you know, we are made to do things. to be purposeful. And sometimes we have this picture of heaven or of rest in this instance, where it looks like laying on a beach or, you know, having a harp in the clouds, you know, with the angels singing all day long. We are made for purposeful work. You know, Adam and Eve were intended to do things and to tend the garden and to manage everything. the whole world. And so there's this idea though, that when we are working in the way that God calls us to work, we are able to then rest because he is carrying that burden. with us, that it's actually his burden instead of our burden. And I think the differentiation I would make there is that when it's our burden and we're carrying it, we're stressing about it, we're in control, we're the ones that everything hangs on, it's all on our shoulders, right? Whereas when we take up Jesus's yoke, he's on the other side of that yoke with us. And reality is like, he don't need us. at all but he allows us to participate in his work and because of that it's beautiful because it's in his strength and in his power and in his control his timing all of those things and so there is a rest that really comes from a beautiful rest that comes from even in those busy seasons of our life knowing that hey I'm doing the thing that Jesus is calling me to do I might be really busy right now but I can rest in the fact that he's the one who is actually bringing about the good things.
SPEAKER_01:That's so good, Nat. And I think just like, I just love the kindness of the invite there of come to me, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. I just pray that this would be a verse that we memorize and that we can remind ourselves of in those busy times of like, this burden is not mine. We can actually have real soul rest. So good. Guys, we are so excited. We have one more verse, one more chapter that we're going to tackle on our next episode. It's truth when you have troubles. The verse that we are memorizing comes from John chapter 16. And guys, this one's maybe, it's arguably my favorite one in here. So don't miss it. We'll see you here next time. Awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks, Vera. Guys, I'm jumping out of my seat to tell you about our new Dwell necklace. It's 1 Corinthians 16, 14. Do everything in love. What a beautiful reminder for us as we consider what we're doing as we go about our days. What a beautiful thing to share with somebody who asks us what our necklace means. More than that, our necklaces are made with love by our partners at Starfish Project who help trafficked and exploited women and girls experience freedom, establish independence, and develop careers you can feel good about. buying this necklace. More than that, it's tarnish proof. It's 14 karat gold plated stainless steel. So it is not going to tarnish. And it's just amazing. I hope that you love it. Go over to dwelledifferently.com and check it out.
