Noticing God in Our Work and Rest with Ruth Haley Barton

17 snips

Jan 29, 2025

Ruth Haley Barton, a Doctor of Divinity and the founding president of the Transforming Center, shares her insights on balancing work and rest. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing our human limitations in a productivity-driven culture. The conversation delves into the biblical vision of Sabbath as a time for rest and renewal. Barton discusses overcoming societal pressures, fostering spiritual awareness, and finding true joy in God's presence. Listeners gain practical strategies for embracing intentional rhythms of rest in their daily lives.

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INSIGHT

Sources of Exhaustion

Exhaustion among leaders stems from over-functioning, performance orientation, and external pressures.
These pressures are exacerbated by social media, curated images, and the constant need for relevance.

ANECDOTE

Pastoral Pressures Then and Now

Ruth Haley Barton's father, a pastor, didn't face the same pressures as modern pastors due to a less competitive environment.
Social media, publications, and a performance-driven culture contribute to comparison and exhaustion.

INSIGHT

Embracing Limits

Facing limitations requires humility, acknowledging our humanity and mortality.
This challenges our pride and the desire to be God-like, embracing dependence on God.

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In a culture that prizes living on the verge of burnout, God invites us to embrace our human limitations and recover delight.

While performative spirituality distracts us from God’s true purposes for our lives, partnering with God in a regular practice of Sabbath can help renew our hearts to perceive his voice, counter the pressures of our productivity-driven culture, and reinvigorate the meaning of our work.

In this episode, host Jay Y. Kim speaks with Ruth Haley Barton (Doctor of Divinity, Northern Seminary), founding president of the Transforming Center, a spiritual formation ministry to pastors and Christian leaders. As a spiritual director and retreat leader, Barton has authored several books and resources on the spiritual life, including Invitation to Retreat and Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest.

In this conversation, Kim and Barton reflect on God’s vision for Sabbath as an opportunity to cease from work, rest, worship, and delight in God and his good gifts. Through recounting their personal histories with burnout, they emphasize that regular rhythms of pause and rest foster our trust in God and awareness of his presence in our everyday life.

Tune in for practical wisdom on forming intentional rhythms of rest.

This episode highlights the following themes:

Resisting external pressures to instead heed God’s voice
The freedom found in embracing human limitations
The biblical vision of Sabbath as a renewing act of trust in God

Links from this episode:

Read Barton’s books, Invitation to Retreat and Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest
Check out more of Ruth Haley Barton’s books here
Read the transcript here

God is present; do we notice him? As the world gets louder, listening to God’s voice becomes increasingly challenging. We are bombarded by the chaos of our feeds, by distractions both inside and out, and by the everyday cacophony that drowns out the calm of a life lived in close communion with God. In this season of The Digital Examen, pastor and author Jay Y. Kim guides us toward reorienting our lives so that we can notice God with the entirety of our beings—heart, soul, mind, strength—in both the mundane and majestic moments of everyday life.

Learn more about The Digital Examen

Learn more about your host, Jay Y. Kim

Read Analog Church and Analog Christian by Jay Y. Kim

Listen to Meditations from The Digital Examen

Download a Guide to The Examen.

Links and Credits

✅ Special offer: Visit ivpress.com and use the code IVPOD25 for 25% off any IVP resource mentioned in this episode.

✅ Consulting Producer: Helen Lee

✅ Producers: Christine Pelliccio Melo and Travis Albritton

✅ Production Assistant: Jack Reece

✅ Sound Engineering: Honest Podcasts

✅ Social Media Managers: Allie Noble and Makayla Payne

✅ Podcast Art: Kate Lillard and Elsbette San Blas

✅ Theme Song: "For They Will Inherit the Earth" by Stephen Keech

Disclaimer: The comments, views, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the host and/or the guests featured on the podcast and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of InterVarsity Press or InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

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