Making Decisions with Our Limits in Mind

Jen Wilkin

I think if I were going to talk to younger me about this, what I would tell younger me is, there are yeses and there are nos, but there are also not right nows the Lord will not give me a gift or a calling that he’s going to let lie dormant.

Melissa Kruger

Hey, friends. My name is Melissa Krueger. I am here with my co host, Courtney doctor. This is the deep dish podcast where we like to have deep conversations about deep truth. And today is so fun because we have our friend Jen Wilkin with us. And we are

Jen Wilkin

so glad you’re here. I’m so glad to be here and

Melissa Kruger

well, first I’m gonna ask a question, but the first thing you have to tell us is, what’s your grandmother name? Oh, because everybody knows all the stuff, like you’ve written books, you do all these amazing things. You’re a Bible teacher. I know, yeah, we all know that, but the grandmother name is one of my favorites. I agree.

Unknown Speaker

I agree. So

Melissa Kruger

tell us that first.

Jen Wilkin

So my grandmother, name is sugar, because she’s so sweet, because it’s ironic. It’s meant to be ironic. No, I mean, when the kids were just like, that’s terrible, you cannot have that be your name. And I said, Oh no, it’s, I’m I’m doing it. I was like, I was not sweet with you, but I will be sweet with your children, yes. And so Henry, the oldest of the grandchildren, he calls me shugs, oh, so I would come down. They stayed with us this summer, and I would come downstairs in the morning. He’d go, Hi, shugs, I love

Courtney Doctor

it. It’s the best. Mine’s Cece and the there’s one grandson that says cease. And I’m just like, perfect, perfect. I’m like, yeah, yeah. Olivia calls me shoe shoe,

Melissa Kruger

right now, we’ll take that. Okay, I’m coming to y’all for advice when I need a grandma. Oh, I know your grandmother.

Courtney Doctor

Episode, perfect.

Melissa Kruger

Okay, today we are talking about the wisdom of quitting, and that seems kind of like maybe a counterintuitive topic. Normally it’s like, oh, how can we do all these amazing things for God, what are you dreaming of doing? And now we’re at the stage of life where maybe we say, what are you quitting? In fact, in fact, a mentor of mine, she said, after 50, her question every year is one, what is one thing I’m going to stop doing? Oh, that’s really fascinating. Yeah, I thought that was a fascinating thing. So Jen, walk us through a decision you’ve had to make something through the years you’ve had to stop doing maybe, so that it could open the door for you to do other things. But you just knew, Okay, I’m actually being called out of something,

Jen Wilkin

yeah, well, I mean, I have a fairly recent one. I had been working full time at my church. I was on staff at my church for 12 years total, and in my final iteration there, I had like, 30 people in my downline that I was overseeing and, you know, really big ministry area. And at the same time I had my parents were aging like I lost my mom while I was in that role, and then started to multiply grandkids all of a sudden, you know, kids were getting married and and it was just increasingly apparent to me that I needed to find anywhere to get margin. And it was hard, though, because, like, working in the local church meant a great deal to me. And you guys know, like it was a long trip for me to even finally be in a role where I felt like, Yes, this is what I have wanted to do for so long, and so it was weird to be not that old and realize I think this is coming to an end. And I remember when I told the church, hey, I’m gonna step back from this role, they said, Oh, you’re retiring.

Courtney Doctor

I am not. No,

Jen Wilkin

actually, this is so that I can pursue the things probably that only I can do. You know, that was what my good help, who were helping me process the decision. Kept saying to me is, you’re doing things in your role that only you can do in your role, but you’re not in a role that only can be done

Melissa Kruger

by you. That’s a good Say that again. Yeah, say that again. That there were

Jen Wilkin

aspects to how I was operating in my role that only I could do as the person in that role, but that it was not a role that could only be done by me. And I kind of didn’t want to hear that like everybody else. I wanted to feel a little bit like, Oh no, I’m really indispensable there, you know, because you’re pouring so much energy into it, yeah. And, and and then, you know, relationships with with the people on my team, the people I’ve worked with for a long time, I was a little worried maybe I’d never leave the house again once I wasn’t going into work. And actually, that may be true, but it doesn’t feel terrible at this point. So yeah, but I mean, it was a process. I would imagine you guys have a similar understanding of it, yeah, well, even

Courtney Doctor

just that aspect of there’s loss. And is there

Jen Wilkin

grief with, oh my gosh,

Courtney Doctor

yes, right? There’s the whole cycle of trying to kind of work through what it is to say no to something and to walk away, especially when you’ve poured yourself in and you spend

Jen Wilkin

it for. Long time. And, you know, I know that, like, people are like, Oh, you’re not supposed to find your identity and your work. And I’m like, Well, okay, I mean, I don’t know that I would be doing the job the way that I want to if I wasn’t really working, you know, I really bothered me with motherhood. It was like, don’t love your kids more than you love God, you know. And I was like, What can I love my kids. Can I love God by loving my kids? And I feel the same way about some of the ministry opportunities that have come my way. And so no, it doesn’t define who I am, but it does tend to define us for a season. And it’s that whole trick of knowing is this season over? Yes, because they don’t always end with a bang. Sometimes they sort of taper,

Melissa Kruger

taper down. Well, that’s another question. Have you ever stayed too long Courtney? Because that’s a whole different question. Like I felt like I had to make one transition at one point, and I so believed in what I was doing, but the signs were probably all around me that it was time to go. I just didn’t want to go. So there can be and that can sometimes lead to really negative things if you do stay in a role too long,

Jen Wilkin

wait. Now, do you guys had it? What’s your relationship to change? Do you like it? That

Courtney Doctor

plays a part like change? Well, I mean, I can’t say I just love it, but I’m not change averse. Okay, you

Jen Wilkin

know it’s like I’m a hobby,

Unknown Speaker

but yeah,

Melissa Kruger

I, you know, I need Gandalf to come and make me go on an adventure. Yeah?

Jen Wilkin

Like, we talking for the adventure,

Courtney Doctor

and I would be like, me, oh, that, you know, they like, chose to go on, yeah, sure, yeah, sneaking behind. I

Jen Wilkin

know it’s so true. I think that impacts the way we think about these contents. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger

yeah, it does so in that. So that’s that’s part of discernment, right? Even knowing who you are. So how would you walk a younger woman through a decision? Yeah, and this is really a discernment thing. It’s not just it’s not one size fits all. So we always say in these things, it’s always good to talk to an older woman who actually knows you, yeah, but just general wisdom. How would you walk a younger woman through the decision to stop something, yeah, that she actually loves, you know, that she’s doing that she loves, but she’s feeling like, oh, I don’t know if I’m supposed to keep doing this or just how do you do that? Do you make a pro con list? It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t

Courtney Doctor

hurt to do the pro con list, and definitely in the presence of many counselors that you are doing it within, you know, the context of community, inviting other people in, especially in your local church, church leaders asking them to speak into it and showing them your pro con list. And kind of you looking for, you know, my husband and I talk a lot about looking for the confirmation of the body in our decisions. And, you know, we made a huge change in our early 40s. And we, you know, we say we sold the farm and moved to St Louis, literally, literally. And that was that was not a decision made lightly, but it was confirmed in so many different ways. And so I think you look for that, you you ask the Lord to show you, and then you ask other people, and then you look for the conference. We needed some we needed to sell the farm. We needed to there were some practical things that had to fall in place for the Lord to confirm that that was where we were supposed to be. And so it’s not formulaic, but I do think there are certain things that we do as we’re trying to discern. Is this a time of ending and a time of starting? Time of saying no, time of saying yes, like we have to, we have to do some of them. We have to pray about it. We have to ask other people, and we have to look at the way the circumstances are playing out. I

Jen Wilkin

think you can also have some deal breakers, you know, sort of like, this is a definite off ramp for me. If this happens, then I know it’s time to start triggering the off ramp, you know? But a lot of times those don’t happen. And so then you’re like, Well, I guess, Am I just supposed to die in this role or doing what I’m currently because I don’t change, you know? I’m not looking to change things up. And it takes a lot of of, you know, oh yeah, it’s time for me to actually make the move. And that’s usually in the person of Jeff Wilkins saying you’ve had three jobs for 10 years, when are you going to have one or two? You know, that kind of a thing, I think you need a truth teller, right? Yes, or more than one, and someone who’s outside of the immediate situation, who can give more of an objective read on things, because, like in my if I had written my pro con list, I would have needed honestly for it to be graded by my mentor, yeah, who’s like, this list is wrong? Okay, explain

Courtney Doctor

that a little bit more, because that’s really helpful, because sometimes we just

Jen Wilkin

do the pro con list, yeah, because I think I would, I would overvalue some of the things I had on the pros and under undervalue, you know, sort of like diminish some of the cons, because I’m invested. Interested in not changing anything, and so I needed to be nudged toward, hang on. Hang on. I need you to read this list again. You know these, some of these are really significant. There was some of that. But I, you know, the other thing that we did is Jeff and I would do, anytime we’ve had a big decision, you know, where you’re like, I think this might be ending, but I’m not sure is we would have sort of like a regularly scheduled touch base, you know. And it would be, it’s not scientific, but it was like, How are you feeling compared to the last time we talked about this, has it gotten better, or has it gotten worse? And by that, that measure might be your stress level, you know, or your frustration level, or your exhaustion level, you know. And just kind of like taking the temperature of it, especially, I think, when you’re talking about church work. And you know, I was in a role in a in a church one time, where the frustration level just kept growing and growing, growing to the point where I couldn’t be a church member. Yeah, you know what I’m saying, yes, yes, and, and that’s not good. And so either there needs to be a way to fix that, or you got to start looking.

Melissa Kruger

I love what you said about taking the temperature at multiple occasions, because I’m sure we’ve all had days when we’re like, I’m done,

Unknown Speaker

yeah, yes. That’s

Unknown Speaker

not the day to make a bad decision, not the day to make the big

Melissa Kruger

decision. I hate everyone yes and all the things and so how do you what? What would be some advice you would give, even, on how to know if you’re just too busy? What if you’ve said yes to too many things? Because we all have that tendency, right? Like some of us, well, I fall in the people pleaser crowd. So it’s not just that I don’t like change, right? I don’t want to disappoint anyone, right? And so I can find that I’m just busy with lots of good things, yeah, and I, you know, so are there any measurements you take to say, Okay, this is a sign that too many yeses have been given, and some no’s need to be given. I don’t know if you have any like, for me, I have, I have some certain things I look to and I’m like, Oh, that’s a sign, yeah. I

Courtney Doctor

tend to think almost of life in like, concentric circles. And so the Lord my because he’s given me a husband, so I have to

Jen Wilkin

go put him in

Courtney Doctor

there. Yes. And then the children, like he’s given not, but everybody has their concentric circles, right? My local church kind of move out, right? But, but it’s it’s not trying to put me at the center of that, but what it’s saying is, is my relationship with the Lord, characterized by health, by intimacy, by flourishing, is my relate and then I move out, is my relationship with the people that he’s put in my life. So for me, it’s my husband and and then my children. Is it characterized? Right? We all go through seasons where it might not be characterized by flourishing, but for the most part, am I spending the time it takes, or am I pushing my relationship with God, my relationship with my family, my relationship with my local church out of the way so that I can go, do you know something that’s a that’s a lot further out there in my in my view of the concentric circles? And so sometimes it’s just even the prioritization of the things that that are the non negotiables. There are some things that we they’re not optional. Yeah. And so most of what we’re talking about are honestly optional.

Jen Wilkin

What did you say? You said you had a way of thinking about

Melissa Kruger

this. My first one is, actually, am I not prioritizing time with the Lord, it’s a sneaky little one, yeah, because you can, oh, but what I’m doing so important, you know, I’m serving people or whatever. That’s the first kind of check. The other one actually is Mike. I’m like you. Mike is really good one at telling me to say no, but he’s also really good at pushing me out of the door. He’s kind of the Gandalf to

Unknown Speaker

my proto

Melissa Kruger

because I can, you know, I can. There were, there were certain seasons of life, I would say, particularly when I had young children. When I had young children, I could have some fearful yeses, you know, and think, Oh, I’m not supposed to do that right now or whatever. And he was like, You should totally do that. And so having that person who’s telling you, yeah, go do it. But also, I remember one time really distinctly, and it was a really nice offer for someone to to work on this series of books type thing. I mean, you think this might not come again? It was early on, yeah, in publishing, I really didn’t know how many offers I would have. You just don’t know where you are. And so somebody came offered this thing, and he looked at me, he goes, Do you really want to do that? It’s not really your lane. And he was exactly right, and it was a good, healthy No. And so having people who really know you and can say say no, but sometimes I’ll say this, some friends who are well meaning, I. Want you just to say no all the time, like they just want it like, I think in the Christian we just want it to be easy for everyone. So are there times for sacrificial yeses? How do we just, you

Jen Wilkin

know, I mean, I don’t know. You’re probably asking the wrong person. I’m still working on my nose.

Courtney Doctor

Question is one I keep getting asked, don’t

Jen Wilkin

you? I just remember, I think we would all three say we’ve had an experience of having too many good options. Yes, you know, at a weird stage of life and an unexpected too many good options. And I feel such a debt of gratitude to my mentor and my pastor, you know, for the last 17 years who I could say? What do you think I’d say, they want me to do X, Y or Z? And he’d go, tell them no. Well, they want me to tell them no. Well, tell them no. Tell them no. But what if? And he’d say, tell them no, because he knew, you know, he had been in the same spaces, and he understood and and I think what would I have done if I hadn’t had the voice of someone who is further along. And then it occurs to me, this is, this is the case in any you know situation in life, is who, who has, who has been down this road before. And it doesn’t mean that you always agree with the tell them no. There might be times where you go. I think I want to say yes to this, but knowing my personality, I need way more encouragement to say no than I do to say yes. And it sounds like you’re maybe coming from and a lot of this really is knowing your own disposition toward decision making. That’s right. That’s right. Well, and

Courtney Doctor

I think that whole idea that women are saying this opportunity may never come again, yeah, even though maybe they know deep in their souls, or they’re having people say, this is not a great time in your life to say yes to this the fear of but I want this is the kind of thing I want to do, and if I don’t say yes now, so I think all of us could testify to the nose that if the Lord has it for you, it will find you want to Come back. I mean, whatever it is that it’s those fear based I just kind of walked with a woman through this. Those fear based yeses are are really worth stopping and saying. In fact, you know one of my favorite, I mean, you’ve heard me say this 1000 times, but one of my favorite quotes is from, I think it’s the leadership handbook Heifetz, and we’ll put it in the show notes. But it’s leadership is learning to disappoint people at a rate they can absorb.

Melissa Kruger

It’s it’s true, right? Because I was laughing when you said it, say it again, that

Courtney Doctor

leadership is learning to disappoint people at a rate they can absorb. And I think there’s just that was so freeing for me in leadership to say, I am going to disappoint you. I want to do it wisely. It doesn’t all need to be in the same day, like I don’t have to disappoint everything, you know, but, but that we slowly our nose, are disappointments to some people, they want us to say yes to that, and so that that confidence to say, I’m actually willing to disappoint you on that.

Jen Wilkin

But I think if I were going to talk to younger me about this, what I would tell younger me is there are yeses and there are nos, but there are also not right nows yes and a not right now is very different. It means at some point that’s going to be a yes, you know. But from what I can tell right now, when I think about that, it feels more stressful than life giving and when you are able to step out of a scarcity mindset around opportunities and realize, wait the Lord will not give me a gift or a calling that he’s going to let lie dormant like it will be used. Yes? Yeah, I could have used you. Yeah. I mean, think about really, think about how we paint the character of God when we say that that he’s and this actually gets into a lot of like, how we even think about the will of God for our lives. It’s like you get this one decision point and if you blow it, yeah. Well, that was true exactly, and that is just not my pastor said something a couple weeks ago in a sermon, he said, what if the will of God for your life is not a dot but a circle? And I’m like, that is so great. You know, in other words, there might be a number of ways that things could go. Morally neutral decision points that you could just pick one and trust the Lord, or say I don’t get to pick one right now and trust the Lord. And I just I know I’ve lived long enough now to know in the seasons where I thought, but I’m not using X, Y or Z, skill or gift, that I was actually growing internally in a way that meant when it was time to say yes, that those things were going to be used in the right season and in the right way,

Melissa Kruger

yeah. And I think we’re all kind of thankful for

Jen Wilkin

quieter years, yes, where they were thinking and ruminating. Marination,

Melissa Kruger

yeah. And had time, yeah. You know, to develop. Have you ever seen an instance where. Or No, allowed someone else to say yes, and it actually was part of their sanctification. Does that make sense? I think we think, Oh, but if I say no, it won’t happen. Yeah. But sometimes our no to do something good create space for someone else to say yes,

Jen Wilkin

yeah, my yeses are always around seizing control. And so when I have to say, you know, it’s like, well, I’m going to do it, because I’ll do it better than you. And then when I, you know, when I’m at the brim, and I have to say, no, and then someone else steps in, I’m like, shoot, they did it better than I would have done it. We’re actually, they were really, really great at it. Supposed to be doing this. Yeah, yeah. Have you guys seen that? Please don’t leave me out here alone. Well,

Melissa Kruger

one thing I’ve loved. I remember when I used to we would do adult Sunday school, and which we have since always like you Presbyterian.

Jen Wilkin

Sorry, I’m fine.

Melissa Kruger

And one thing I would always do, it was actually a way to bring other people along. I wouldn’t ask them to teach the whole unit, let’s say it was eight weeks, but allowing two of those to be taught by a younger woman, giving her this way, she didn’t have to develop the whole scope and sequence, but she could start the process then the next time around, letting her teach more. And I mean to be honest, for me, this was helping me, because I felt like I had too much to do in women’s ministry. But it takes time to develop other leaders, and it means actually looking at I am worn out. I am exhausted. Who can I start to train so that they can help do some of this? So I felt like the no to teaching all eight weeks, right? Actually allowed someone else to be trained. So then eventually they can teach all eight weeks. And

Courtney Doctor

I think we see that in churches way too often, where, you know, one woman kind of owns the whole thing. She’s always, she hosts every, you know, shower, she teaches every Bible study. She and it’s like man, make room,

Jen Wilkin

make say noticeable, because if she leaves, you know, well, if she leaves, shuts down. Has to be rebuilt.

Courtney Doctor

There’s no room for, and I always say, look for those entry points. And if you, if you are invested, if you are embedded in the life of the church, and you are serving, look for the places that are easy entry points. And so I remember saying to my team one time, we’re having an event, and I said, you know, don’t ask anybody on the leadership team to bring the brownies. Yes, I got the phone call who said, can you bring the brownies? And I said, No. And she said, Well, I can’t find anybody to bring the brownies. I said, well, then let me find somebody. So I went through the directory called a woman. This is just God’s grace. This is one of those stories where it all works out. You know, it’s a great example, because it worked out the way I wanted it to. But she burst into tears, this woman that I called and said, I have been looking for a way to serve. All I asked her to do was bring the brownies. But what she did was she showed up early, and she helped set up, and she built relationships, and three years later, she was president of the of the women’s leadership team. Yeah, that’s a really good story, right? That’s a really good story that way. Yeah, they all go that way. If you just know when to say, No, you just don’t make the brownies. Just don’t make the brownies. Talked about

Jen Wilkin

like, ministry knows. I mean, we’re talking about ministry knows. But what about, like, just personal life, no’s like, what about no’s like, with your family or your, you know, neighbors or whatever. I mean, there are always a million things trying to find their ways onto our calendar. And do you have a process for making sure that your calendar stays

Courtney Doctor

I say no to cooking? Oh, nice, consistently. That’s a good no for me. So

Jen Wilkin

not just brownies, it’s all cooking that you confuse. Basically

Melissa Kruger

perfect. I think you hit actually on something I wanted to talk about, because one of my hardest is when I feel like I disappoint my kids. Okay, and and let me say this, I’m actually not disappointing them. I’m disappointing my own version of other ideas,

Jen Wilkin

let’s be honest, the idealized version I’m not

Melissa Kruger

living up to Melissa’s version of motherhood, which which often involves the food put before them in the lunches that they went to school with. And so it feels like I failed them with my now, or like being, you know, like they started packing their lunches way early, which means none of them eat vegetables on a regular basis. And it feels like, you know, a sense of failure. And I’ve had to say sometimes to myself, it was actually a category. I was okay failing at, yeah, like we we can’t say yes to everything. I wasn’t okay failing at getting the word into my kids lives, yeah, but sometimes we can’t do everything, even with our kids. And what I can say, I’m thankful to look back and say things I thought were going to be failures, like when I started working, I went back to work sooner than I would have liked in my ideal motherhood scenario. So. Hmm. And so I felt, I felt that rub. But my kids would all say to me, they say to me, now you having other things you were about actually helped me learn independence. I couldn’t see the beginning to the end. The Lord was actually doing something good for my kids by me not being able to give them every Yes, yeah, and, but, but I think we’re okay with that. When it comes to Yeah, you can’t have reach every toy, which totally fine with no. But when it involves, oh, I missed that sporting event because I was at a ministry event, or I was doing something else, that’s those are hard, hard things to miss. Or I

Courtney Doctor

missed that ministry event because I was at the sporting event. Like, it’s not formulaic. It’s not like, Oh, if it’s at church, it’s always the right, yes. I mean, I think sometimes the call is to it’s that tension, like, sometimes you tell your kids, I’m I’m not gonna be home for two hours because this is a really important discipleship opportunity. And other times you tell the person, I’m sorry I can’t meet with you tonight because I need to be home. So it’s not formulaic.

Jen Wilkin

One of the most famous Wilkin family knows was when our kids were little, we put them in awanas, you know, Scripture memory that who doesn’t want that for their kids, but they weren’t going to bed until like nine o’clock on a Wednesday night, and Thursdays were brutal, and so we pulled the kids out of Scripture memory, you know? Why? Because we hate the

Melissa Kruger

Bible. Well, I mean, you’re not big on biblical

Jen Wilkin

literacy. The other parents were just like, What is the matter with you, you know? And so that was a that was one of our probably most memorable ones. But I think there are other, like softer ones that maybe no one outside of your home is super aware of things. Like, I remember thinking, my house is just not going to be as clean as maybe it was in a former season of blood, and I’m going to need to be okay with that, because I’m going to lose my mind if I’m trying to manage something that I’m really the only one recognizing. I’m the one who is wrapped around the axle about this. My four year old does not care if the house is spotless. That’s me, and it was gonna impact my relationship. You know that when your stress level shoots up, and I think that’s with your concentric circles, it’s like, let’s say, even for the sake of argument, that everything fits on the calendar, but if I’m a terrible human trying to manage the calendar, then it doesn’t all fit on the calendar, but it’s hard, especially because we so often are comparing ourselves to someone else’s capacity, or someone else’s commitments,

Courtney Doctor

or the capacity that they’re highlighting on social media. Well,

Jen Wilkin

right? Well, like people will say to me, how did you write Bible studies when your kids were little? And I’m like, they don’t have baby books, right? My kids don’t have baby books. Mine don’t either

Melissa Kruger

actually have them, but they never look at them. So I

Jen Wilkin

wrote stuff that Calvin’s like, did you take one picture of me as a baby? You know? And there were, we just right, there were, there were always, there were trade offs, yeah. And, but, you know, I think we also forget that, like our family get to see the whole sweep of our lives, and we feel like we’ll be judged against one moment or one season or one thing we said no to is going to be the thing they’re always going to remember. And our relationships with our family, with our children, with our parents, with siblings, they’re the sum of 1000 cumulative events and so. But we tend to be really hard on ourselves for the one or two things that we we left undone or over committed to, or whatever said no to.

Melissa Kruger

I think you hit on a really good thing there, which is another sign, like road post, if I am a terrible human being. Meaning and what we mean really by that, if there’s no fruit in our good works, so you can bear like good works, but they have no fruit. There’s no fruitfulness in them, meaning, there’s no love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self control. Is not being born that that’s a sign that there needs to be a no somewhere. I would say something’s wrong, because the good work might there, but it actually says bearing fruit in every good work, yeah. And so it can look like, oh, but I’m doing all this important stuff, you know? I’m volunteering at the church, I’m helping at the school, I’m taking, you know, food to the soup kitchen. I’m doing all this, yeah, but we’re miserable to be around. Well, and that

Courtney Doctor

was another one of my concentric circles. Is, who am I in the kitchen when I’m making dinner and nobody’s watching? Well, yeah, the few times I make dinner and you know, who am I to my the people that are in that room. Am I a jerk because I’m trying to go do something else, because that’s another place? What is our private, you know, our private, hidden faithfulness, like not just our look what I’m doing, where everybody can see the things that are on the calendar that you’re out, that you’re out doing. So, yeah, yeah. What would you guys say about. About the role of social media in our yeses and our no

Jen Wilkin

it’s not a problem for me. I don’t know if it’s a problem for you guys.

Melissa Kruger

I’m kind of terrified when you really Yeah. I mean to look at how many hours it actually has a record.

Jen Wilkin

Yeah, oh yeah, if thou, O Lord, kept a record of sins, and

Courtney Doctor

then every week it pops up on your phone. This is how many hours you spent.

Melissa Kruger

You know, I probably silenced that little voice. But how

Courtney Doctor

many things do we say no to because we’ve said the Yes to the scrolling or then even the the images of how you know the person who has their life. I mean, they they have the chickens, they make the sourdough, they look great. They’re they can, they can, you know, teach you how to stay fit and do your hair and do your and do the chickens and do the kids, and it’s everything. And then you think, what are they saying no to in order to perpetuate that particular narrative that none of us can live

Melissa Kruger

up to, yeah, well, and the problem with social media, right? You see a little glimpse into all these different people’s lives, and then it’s just you kind of walk away feeling like a collective failure. Oh, I’m supposed to do that eating program. I’m supposed to do that sourdough bread, or whatever it’s it’s gonna be, and then that workout thing that she’s talking about, and make sure I have that new purse for the season, because that’s happening and so, I mean, how do we battle that? That is a real thing in our culture. I think that makes you feel busy. It’s almost like it’s calling out to you, and in a lot of ways, with false promises, if you have this, you know, then your life will be settled. I mean, that’s what marketing is kind of trying to do to you, you know, pull you in and say you really need this to have a satisfying life. How do we battle that lie? Well, I

Jen Wilkin

think, like a word I’ve learned to look for and be like, nope, is it says the viral fill in the blank, you know, like the viral recipe, or the viral cleanse, or the viral thing to hang your wreath on this Christmas, or whatever it is. Because what they’re implying is everybody’s doing this, yes, and then I’m like, right back in middle school again, you know where I’m in a I’m supposed to chase what everybody is doing. Well, if it’s viral, it must be amazing. And so I think some of it is I do think some people first. I think some people are better at this than others. And so again, self awareness is key, right? Like, I don’t feel a strong sense of, oh, this is what I’m supposed to do. And so I feel like I can, kind of like, duck in and peek at some of it and then be like, Y’all crazy, or, Oh, I will buy this one little thing here, you know. And there are times when I feel like I’m more susceptible to the pull of it than to then not. And a lot of that depends on my state of mind. And so I do again, like there, the action is interesting to me, but the motive is more interesting to me. And so I think when I’m using it sort of to self soothe, because I, you know, I do think about how you can find these historic images of people all on the subway in 1880 and no one is talking to each other. They’re all reading the paper so, and I think about how a lot of my social media use mimics what reading the paper used to be. That’s right, and so it’s not inherently bad. It’s what I need from it. And depending on the day, what I need from it might be innocuous or it might be potentially harmful. So,

Courtney Doctor

but the way it impacts our decision making? Well, yeah, way at impending patterns are going to say yes or no to and what we even feel like we have the freedom.

Jen Wilkin

It’s vying for our finite resources, and we we but it gives the the implication, it makes us think that they are not finite. I want all of your time and you’ve got plenty. I want all of your money you’ve got plenty. Yeah.

Melissa Kruger

Well, I think it’s interesting. We often think of budgeting money, yes, but we think of time as some doable resource, yes, and it’s actually, you can actually lose all your money and gain money. You can get it back. You can never get the time back. So are there any verses that y’all found that really speak that kind of form a check on your heart when you’re thinking about things like time and stewardship of that time.

Courtney Doctor

Yeah, I think in light of this conversation, knowing, discerning, trying to figure out what to say yes and no to, I mean, Ecclesiastes three, just the whole list of there is a time yes and a time for that. And they’re there. They’re positioned against each other. And so verse three a time to tear down and a time to build. And I think just even as we’re thinking about what we’re saying yes to and what we’re saying no to, that, there is a time for both. That’s it’s not formulaic. We keep saying that. But there is a time to say yes and there is a time to say no, and it could be for the exact same thing. Yeah. And so even in your life, it might be it’s not the time for you to say yes. And maybe in someone else’s life, it is the time to say yes for the exact same thing. And so that that freedom, even as you were saying the dot and the circle, I had a friend who said it’s a lot of us tend to view God’s will like a maze, and we’ve got to figure out almost like a puzzle, like, am I supposed to turn right here or left here? How do I get, you know, to the end of this thing? And he said, You know, it’s really more like a big field that this, it’s the same thing the circle there’s that that’s expanse of freedom within God’s will. Like, we know God’s will for us, first, Thessalonians, four, three is our sanctification. And so you know there are, there are things that are outside of God’s will, right? And we know that because we have his word, but within that there is the freedom to discern and to and he wants us to pray about it. He wants us to talk to other believers. He wants us to be dependent on each other in this process of knowing when to say yes or no, but, but even in Ecclesiastes, like it’s a time for for both of them. What about you, Jen? My

Jen Wilkin

I mean, I always think about Ephesians 516, which I had to memorize to go to summer camp. So that means I probably know it in the King James, but it’s Be careful then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise. Redeeming the time for the days are evil. I think that the the newer translations say making the most of the time or making the best use of the time, which indicates that there are better and worse ways to use our time, which I think is what we get into when people are talking about what’s God’s will for my life. And you know, I want to choose the thing that’s the best. I want to maximize my my time. But human decision making doesn’t really work like that, and I feel a lot of comfort in remembering the times where I have not made the best use of the time and the Lord still sanctified me. And so I do like just remembering that bad decision making as a believer is never a deal breaker. It can sometimes be the very means by which our sanctification occurs. And not only that, good decision making doesn’t always yield good fruit, right? It can yield self righteousness and and so I just think that we can’t make the assumption. I often think that we reduce the will of God to the gospel of good decision making, which is a false gospel. It’s karma, yeah, and so I think there’s a lot to be said for like, Oh, I do want to redeem the time, but that doesn’t mean that I always make the right choice. It means that if I make a choice that turns out to have not been great, then I seek wisdom again, and I look for how to live in light of it.

Melissa Kruger

I think that’s a good point, because it also you can actually make the exact right choice and everything go wrong. That’s right, yeah. And I think we’re really uncomfortable with that. We want to find out what God’s will is so because then he’s in a bargain with us now, now you got to make sure it’s going to be okay. Yes, yeah. Rather than listen to him say, Hey, don’t fear. Go forward. You don’t know how it’s gonna turn out. I will be with you wherever you go. And that’s

Courtney Doctor

true in the yeses and the notes, right?

Jen Wilkin

Yeah, my mom used to always say, I don’t want dog on my mom, she was lovely, but she would always say with decisions like, check your peace meter. Do you feel peace about it? And I’m like, I think it was really sweet. But sometimes you feel no peace, and you know, it’s the exact thing you should do, you know. And I always think about, like the life of Christ, He made every right choice, and look what happened to him. That’s right. So the idea that, and that is not to dismiss the wisdom tradition that says, When you choose well, it will go well for you, but not universally. So we don’t there’s not a God is not. God is not obligated to respond to your good behavior with with some Oh, and now everything’s gonna go smooth,

Courtney Doctor

well, and what it will go well for you. Means God gets to define that, not us. So we look at that and we’re like, oh, it’s gonna go well for me. Like, I know what I mean. Talk about what that’s gonna look like. And God’s like, no, actually, what’s what’s going to go well for you, going

Unknown Speaker

badly for you. You’re gonna be sanctified

Melissa Kruger

in the process. Yeah, that’s right, yeah. And, and then, and a lot of these verses that we even looked at, one thing we did we can say is that choosing to walk in opposition to God’s ways, while he, of course, is full of mercy and grace, in some ways, it’s the biggest waste of your time. Yes, I mean, like, we can just flat out say sin is always going to look enticing. I love, you know, precious remedies against Satan’s devices where he says, Satan shows the bait and hides the hook. And I think that’s a lot of the temptations. They’re not actually, like, sinful sometimes, I mean, like, Absolutely, like, oh, go have an affair. But it can just be squandering. Mean, because your time is sloth, yeah, sloth.

Jen Wilkin

I mean, you know, we really haven’t touched on sort of how decision making changes over the course of a lifetime too. Because in your earlier years, you’re faced with a million decisions, and in your latter years you have very few,

Melissa Kruger

and people are like, what are you good for anymore? Yeah, yeah, seriously, but

Jen Wilkin

you become obsolete. Thank you for joining us. But if you think about how you know when someone knows they don’t have a lot of time left, like say, they get a diagnosis, and this is actually it’s a they’ve done studies on this, they undergo the narrowing of priorities. If you were told you only have a year to live, you would know exactly how to clear your calendar Exactly, exactly. And so I don’t think it’s a bad mental exercise to sort of say, Okay, well, what if I didn’t have a lot of time left, what would I change? It doesn’t mean you would change everything if you literally only had a year, but I think it can help. And I also saw a thing, you know, on Instagram where I was not wasting my time, and she was talking about minimalism, you know, like, like, Maria. Maria condoing, Marie condoing, what’s her name? Marie sparking Joy, I don’t know. Getting your house decluttered is what it was about. And she said she’d been asking the wrong question that. The question she’d been asking was, do I need this? And the right question was, can I live without this? Because she’d look at, you know, all these and be like, yeah, I could live without that. Yeah, I could live without that. It was just a different way. And I thought, what if we did that with our calendars, you know, like, Yeah, I’m doing it. But could I live without it? Yes. And then in many cases, you start to go, not only could I, I really want to, it can be really clarifying.

Melissa Kruger

I think one thing I’m thankful for both of you, you’re both kind of one season ahead of me, and you really are.

Courtney Doctor

I don’t think it’s a whole season. I don’t think it’s I don’t think it’s okay.

Melissa Kruger

Yeah, I was, y’all are so much older, and realize what I will say, you’re just, you know, kind of like when you have kids that are three, and someone has kids who are eight, yeah, that that one’s better,

Jen Wilkin

yeah. Like sugar receive. How about you? CC, takes it.

Melissa Kruger

I’m in preschool. Y’all are in elementary school. Perfect. That type thing. Maybe third, it’s been really nice to be able to call you guys and say, Hey, what do you think about this? Yeah. And because all of us are in certain seasons, I remember you said to me, because I’m about, I’m on the edge of the empty nest, yeah. And you’re like, things are really going to change next year. You’re going to see that differently next year. And so I would just give an encouragement to anyone listening in your local life, maybe look for someone kind of that one, not one whole season,

Courtney Doctor

just a few little years, just a few little years. Yeah, next

Melissa Kruger

moment. And just ask that wisdom in person. Because what do you wish you had said no to? And the season just passed, yeah, and that it’s still going to be different, because we’re all living different lives, but we really do need one another.

Courtney Doctor

That’s a great question, though, what do you wish you had said no to? I really like that.

Jen Wilkin

Yeah, yeah. And also, it could be a parent who’s the person that you need to go talk to? I just, I think I was not quick to go and have those conversations with my parents, and it turned out they knew a whole lot of stuff. So it may be a mentor, or it may be like someone you’re actually related to who’s lived life longer than you, who knows you really, really well they really do. Honestly, my dad has been a huge help to me, just because he knows me,

Melissa Kruger

right? That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. Well, Jen, thank you for being here with us. There’s

Jen Wilkin

nowhere I’d rather be on the

Melissa Kruger

deep dish. And we’d like to close our session with a deep dish question that kind of gets into your life. And so where is a place if you could go back to and visit so, like somewhere you said yes to? Where would you say yes to? Again? You want to go

Jen Wilkin

back? You know, because I’ve been I have not stopped talking about it since we’ve been together. But I just got back from a trip to Ireland, and we got a house on the north coast, which I really think I kind of don’t want to tell everybody, because I don’t want everybody

Melissa Kruger

to go there, not put the Airbnb on the show notes.

Jen Wilkin

So great about it is you just feel like you’re at the edge of the world all by yourself. And we rented a house on the north coast. You could see Scotland from the house, and we just stared at the waves. Jeff and I and drank coffee, and it was just wonderful. And I would go back there. And a heartbeat, you guys want to come, let’s

Melissa Kruger

go. Yes, let’s go. Us. We can record podcasts

Jen Wilkin

there. Look at Instagram.

Melissa Kruger

Well, this has been such. A good conversation. Thank you both. And it’s good to say yes to things like that, because we do need to say yes to rest, and unless we didn’t even get to Sabbath, we’ll save that for another conversation. But thanks for joining us for this episode of the deep dish, and we look forward to seeing you next time you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai