How to Keep the Word Central in Busy Seasons | Ep. 109

The calendar gets louder, but your soul doesn’t have to. In this episode, we get honest about holiday busyness and how to keep the Word central without adding pressure or guilt. Learn three simple rhythms—unplug, unattach, and unwind—that protect your attention and bring peace back to your days. Discover how a five-minute Scripture + journaling rhythm can root you in grace, not performance. Breathe easier, slow down, and find joy in walking with God through every season.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Community Invitation
• 1:03 Email Challenges And Free Resource
• 1:57 Naming The Holiday Busy Season
• 3:22 Relationship Over Checklist
• 4:58 Refocusing From Distractions
• 6:58 Mary And Martha: Choose The Portion
• 8:32 Three Simple Rhythms: Unplug, Unattach, Unwind
• 12:32 Journaling And Five‑Minute Challenge
• 13:30 Closing And Join The Community

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

This is episode 109, and this is your host, Letoya. And this is Equip the Next, where you get equipped to lead, disciple, and move the mission forward. So you want to know how to keep the word central in a busy season? You don't want to miss this. If you are returning, returning, sorry, thank you for coming back. So, anywho, I forgot to mention the challenge last week. We had such an in-depth conversation, it completely slipped my mind. But if you are subscribed, if you've joined the community, then I usually will share a challenge in the email. I send out weekly emails that go along with the um, you know, podcast and just share some updates when we have lives, all that good stuff. So I just encourage you to just join us. You can also grab the five Bible study guardrails for confidence ebook, and you can find that at equipthenext.com forward slash freebie. Just scroll all the way to the bottom, subscribe, and you're in. And I promise I will not bug you. But I would love to see your face, especially if you've been coming for a while. I just love to see new faces. So yeah, don't forget to do that anywho. Um, I thought it was fitting to talk about how to keep the word central in a busy season or busy seasons, because we are approaching the holiday season, depending on where you are in the world. But typically, um, you know, these seasons that are the holidays that are coming up, in some way, shape, or form, we are all kind of celebrating them, whatever that looks like. Um, even if it's taking holiday or, you know, taking some time off, um, whatever it is, things kind of slow down a little bit, and then they're busy at the same time. You know, you're on vacation, it seems like everyone bugs you, you know, and then you need a vacation from the vacation. Or perhaps you have a time where you like to gather to remember um friends and family that have gone on to be with the Lord, or perhaps you gather to spend time with your family who are here, you know, or friends. Um, it's just busy around this time. Let's just let's just keep it real. It's just busy. And so I wanted to kind of give some tips on what to do because I want to make sure that you know that busy doesn't equal Bibleess. Okay, just because you're busy doesn't mean like you're a bad Christian or anything like that. You know, things happen, change happens in family, and God understands. Also, being busy doesn't equal your faith warrior, meaning, like, you know, you have a lot of people who are extra busy and they think that that's a merit badge or something, like, yeah, I'm busy, and you know, it doesn't equal that either. Um, you always have to know that we are all we all have different seasons, and God understands whether you're a single mother, whether you are um a foster parent, whether you have a very busy job, God understands. Um, He's blessed you in that capacity. Um, and so I wanted to share what do we do in that so that we're not discouraged. I I want to make sure that we note that relationship is better than a task list. So once you understand that it's better that you have relationship and it's a lifestyle, walking with Christ is a lifestyle, then you'll take the check, they gotta check this off the box list. You'll you'll you'll take that out of the equation, and you'll understand that because Christ lives in you, it's an ongoing fellowship and an ongoing relationship, and you'll want to check in, you'll want to have that fellowship with him. But you want to make sure that in that there's prayer that then also pours into that fellowship, and you can pray anywhere. You can pray sometimes. I'll pray in my car, sometimes I'll pray when I'm washing dishes. You know what I'm saying? It's a it's a you're having a conversation with him. You're you can worship anytime, you can praise him anytime. So I just don't want you to lose yourself in the hype that you have probably already seen, which is stuff that's on social media, you know, materialistic things. There's nothing wrong with giving, of course, and treating yourself and all that stuff, but sometimes we can get lost in that. We we're busy, but we're not busy enough to pull away from like social media and things like that, and so we spend our time endlessly scrolling, and that actually sucks up a lot of our time. Or maybe we're bombarded with the gift list or the table settings we have to do if you're having food over your house. We can get bombarded and lost in that, and we can distance ourselves or think that we've distanced ourselves from fellowshipping with him, but we have to remember that he is the reason for the season, he is, and you and he lives in you, and so I just want to kind of kind of share some some tips to help you during this busy season. But first, I want to highlight Luke 10 40 and 41. You know about uh Mary and Martha. It says, but Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. I'm gonna keep um going to verse 42. But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. You see, you might be feeling anxious and troubled around this time, and it might cause you to just feel like just burnt out. Let's just say what call it what it is. When all the Lord wants you to do is sit at his feet. To sit at his feet and be like Mary. And have you know, sometimes you just have to develop simple rhythms that you can apply when you have a busy season. So even though you're busy, there's still time in there. I'm guilty of this too. Like I'm in school right now, and then I do other stuff and then have family. And so I understand, and sometimes I can feel like, man, did I even check in? You know what I'm saying? With all of the other readings and stuff I have to do, that I get just a personal downtime with him, and that's when the Holy Spirit will quicken me and I will stop and praise him, stop and worship him, stop and make sure that I check in. So he understands. I'm gonna give you, though, I want to share with you quickly just some simple rhythms that actually, in my opinion, work. They're very simple. They're stuff that you can apply today, going through the season. Okay. Um, one is to unplug. Unplug. Unplug from social media and all digital devices. Like give yourself a cutoff time. Give yourself a cutoff day. You know, on the I have my my um phone on do not disturb um during the weekdays. It's usually on do not disturb around business hours. And on the weekends, I have them on do not disturb on um for an extended period period of time. So usually in the morning to like the evening, it's on do not disturb. That allows me time to just unwind, be with my family, and fellowship with the Lord. Read or catch up on some stuff, do the podcast, you know, all these things, and I don't have the distractions, nor do I have that itch to want to scroll. So do yourself a favor and set up some unplug time where you unplug from all of those social media and those social and device, all those devices and the phone calls. I mean, there's people that may call me, I'm not gonna answer at a certain time. Because I need to unplug. The next one is to unattach and to attach to God. So after you've unplugged, now you have to still kind of like separate yourself from your work and from busy life, and just you have to be able to like have that boundary and that cutoff point, and then attach it to attach to God, give the burden to Him, release it, let it go. All the stress, let it go. I know it might seem um easier said than done, but if you create a rhythm, it'll get easier every time. A little easier every time. And before you know it, it'll be a habit. And I must admit that it also helps you sleep better too if you aren't sleeping that well. But this one segues into the next, which is to unwind. Unwind. How do you unwind? Journaling is very key. We just did a um a couple weeks ago, we did a journal, journaling party kind of thing. Um, and we just journaled and mapped out briefly what we see um for our goals for 2026, but we put God in it. We let him lead. It was a great time of fellowship. Um I encourage you guys to again sign up because we have stuff like this. I just randomly will do something. So you never know with me. But journaling is good because you especially before you go to bed, because you can really just unpack and just take everything out of your head and just put it on paper. If you journal and you love to write your prayers out, that's beautiful too. If you journal and pray before and or after, that's beautiful. But it allows you to just unwind. You need that time. You need to be able to unplug, unattach, and unwind. Think about those rhythms. Apply them if you can. I'm gonna give you a challenge though, since I forgot last week's challenge, and I challenge you just to read five minutes a day this week. Just five minutes a day. Journal for five minutes this week. Just five minutes, just journal and just really sit at his feet. That's it. Well, thanks so much for listening to Equit the Next. Listen, if you're ready to go to the next step, if you want to be a part of a community, feel free to grab your five Bible study guardrails for confidence at equitthenext.com forward slash freebie, and guess what? You'll be a part of the community. Love to see you. Bless you.