Spiritual Fatigue

We often talk about being physically exhausted, but what about those times when we feel spiritually drained? Today, we delve into the gritty truth about spiritual fatigue. We discuss those hollow moments when faith seems just beyond our grasp and confront the cookie-cutter expectations of spiritual bliss. We dissect the concept of happiness, advocating for a spiritual satisfaction rooted in gratitude, a positive outlook, and reaching out beyond ourselves. Join us for this episode as we spark meaningful conversations, sprinkle in some humor, and perhaps help guide you back to spiritual vibrancy. Today's episode is 'Spiritual Fatigue,' and we're so glad you're here.

This Week's Challenge
We challenge you to set aside quiet time this week to truly connect with God. Identify things you need to stop doing or do less of, allowing Him to add more of what's best for you. By prioritizing what matters most and recognizing it, you'll create more room and space to realize your truest and fullest potential. Partner with God to find spiritual strength.

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Show Notes

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Transcript

Episode 51 - Spiritual Fatigue

Cydni: [00:00:00] this is 

Sher: Cydni and I'm Sher.

 And each week we get together to share with you a message of hope.

Cydni: It is through 

our own study and our personal experiences that we offer the reminder to not only seek the light, 

Sher: but be the light. You can find peace and there is hope

Cydni: and as long as one of us is slightly caffeinated, there will be laughter. 

Sher: Today's episode is spiritual fatigue.

Cydni: And we're so glad you are here So we're going to talk about spiritual fatigue this week, but first of all, let's start with what is it?

Sher: What are we talking about with spiritual fatigue? 

Cydni: I thought about this and here's what came to my mind, one after another, I'm just going to tell you. when the light is green but you don't go. you reply to a funny text with like eight laughing emojis, but you actually never even cracked a smile.

When everyone in your home had the flu and then you were fine, but the next day you wake up with a sore throat. It's [00:01:00] spending all day at the trampoline park and picking up fast food for the kids only to have them tell you that they're bored. And it's that feeling when you need to cry, but there's no tears falling out because you're dried up and hollow inside.

That's what came to me immediately. 

Sher: I suddenly feel bad for you. I need to be nicer to you. My kids need to be nicer to me. 

Cydni: But I also thought of Psalms 13. This is what it says. How long will thou forget me, O Lord, forever? How long will thou hide thy face from me?

How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? That's all I'll read from it. We're not going to get to the happy ending because we're only talking about fatigue. 

Sher: We're just going to be depressed by the time this is over. 

Cydni: This is a different episode.

Sher: I'm looking really forward to it.

Cydni: We're going to make you feel to the core fatigue. 

Sher: I'm leaving and Cydni's just going to take over from here on out. 

Cydni: No, stay. We got this. honestly, when I thought of fatigue and spiritual fatigue, I did not [00:02:00] feel happy thoughts. I felt like it's a real f eeling and I also thought I don't know if I've ever had a lesson at church on spiritual fatigue I cannot remember it and yet I think it's something we all Face and feel but I don't know. Have you ever had the lesson on this before? 

Sher: Not really . I mean, I think , we touch around the edges of it, but we don't really dive in and talk about it.

Cydni: It's not titled Spiritual Fatigue, but this podcast is, so you should listen to it and send it to your friends. 

Sher: Just so that we're all on the same page. We're talking about you are just burned out spiritually and you're feeling like a disconnect from the gospel and from God. we Want to talk about why that happens and then how can we fix it? One of the examples that they give in the scriptures is in the Book of Mormon in Enos verse 2, Enos says And I will tell you of the wrestle which I had before God, before I received a remission of my sins. Now that word wrestle is very intriguing to me because my brothers and my nephews [00:03:00] were All wrestlers in high school my brother even wrestled in college and from the many hours upon hours upon hours and days and weeks and months and years that I have spent watching them wrestle, I can say this with 100 percent that it's a very exhausting sport. It requires maximum effort, for six minutes. It's a complete full body workout because someone's trying to beat you up and throw you on your back. you have to give all this effort and spend all this energy so that you don't get beat up in front of all these people. Obviously that's exhausting.

President Spencer W. Kimball, said that Enos had strayed. And while he was out hunting in the forest, he was thinking about what his dad taught him about God and the gospel, and also about where he was. And there was a gap. There was a disconnect between those two and so President Kimball said that memory was both cruel and kind, [00:04:00] recalling not only pleasantness, but also ugliness.

And so, This is where that fatigue, that spiritual fatigue is going to start with him. He is going to start wrestling and trying to fix that spiritual fatigue or disconnect with God. And it's going to be exhausting. It's going to take a lot of mental and physical exertion because he's not where he needs to be.

President Kimball, Further said, so precious to him was communication with and approval of his redeemer that his determined soul pressed on without ceasing. So here's somebody that had messed up. He knew he had messed up, and so he begins this internal. wrestling match with himself, really between good and evil, and who is going to win.

 But he wanted so badly to be right with God that he's going to continue the battle, because to him it was worth it to fix his soul. So this was A full body workout with Enos. He's getting rid of the ugliness, and he's turning his heart back to God. [00:05:00] He did have spiritual fatigue, and he wanted to get back to where he knew he should be.

Cydni: There's also in the Bible an example of wrestling with God. And this is with Jacob and it's interesting because so much of it is the same Jacob got to a place in his life because of conflict that he was beat down. He was worn out and he was just not in a very great place when the wrestling with God starts.

And something that I have found interesting because Jordan Peterson talks about wrestle with God as well. And he makes it pretty clear that wrestling with God is your, inner battle. It is basically the idea of you are wrestling with who you know you are, what you know you are capable of, but then the reality of what you're doing and how you're spending your time and just going the wrong direction, which we all do.

It is a battle that of good versus evil. It's a battle of potential with reality. And so that is what we see in both of the stories, whether it's Jacob or [00:06:00] Enos, that they are in a wrestle with who they're supposed to be. And God is allowing them to make their own choices and do their own thing.

But at a certain time, he Korn Novels them. That 

Sher: For those of you who didn't listen to the Short episode core novel to slap somebody with a fish, you know people would straighten up a lot more if they got slapped with a fish from God when they stepped out of line 

Cydni: Right. Why does that have to be so complicated with little still small voices slap me in the face with a fish. I will listen maybe but I was listening to Father Mike talk about Jacob wrestling with God. And I loved a few ideas that he had one. He said, when you think about wrestling, it's a full contact sport. He said that you don't have to be ashamed that you're wrestling with God, because if you're wrestling with God, you're in full contact. It's actually worse to walk away and not fight. It reminds me of the Neil A. Maxwell quote that not [00:07:00] shrinking is more important than surviving. so sometimes our not shrinking, Not backing away. Sometimes that means we're going to be in a very honest, raw moment of wrestle, which is full contact. And he also points out that picking a fight with God is different than wrestling with God. And he also pointed out something that I love so much. He said before the wrestle, he was Jacob and after he's Israel.

 He said that before the wrestle, God was God, the father of Abraham and Isaac. And after the wrestle, it was God, the father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Or Israel. 

I love that because I thought the wrestle when it comes down to our potential of who we could be, who we're supposed to be, and that feeling deep down the call to your adventure that you don't answer, there's going to be conflict if you don't answer it. And God loves us enough to go full contact wrestling with us to help us go in the right direction.

And that's a full contact. It's a one on one situation, [00:08:00] and it will help you become who you're supposed to be. God wrestled with Jacob who became Israel because he was the God of Abraham and Isaac and Israel, and he's the God of you and you are worth his time and worth fixing direction. And that is exhausting. 

Sher: That is exhausting because when you are spiritual fatigued you're going to end up on your back really fast. Just like in a real wrestling match. If you're fatigued physically, you're going to end up on your back if you're not in shape.

And if you're. fatigued spiritually, the same thing is going to happen to you. So it's worth the wrestle. It's worth the fight to get yourself right with God. 

Cydni: I love that. And I also was thinking with wrestling because my brothers are also wrestlers. Or they were 20 years ago when they went to high school.

Old losers. I'm just kidding. 

Sher: That'd be my nephews now. 20 years ago when my nephews were in high school. 50 years when my brothers were in high school. 78 years ago when my brothers went to high school. 

Cydni: Old farts. Some of us never age, [00:09:00] I thought though that you are put against an opponent who has similar strengths and you become more like who you wrestle with.

And I thought this was interesting because Rock did try wrestling for a few. days and he hated going and he said he hated to go wrestle because he's such a big tall kid that everyone else in his group was so small and they didn't want to put rock with the smaller kids. And so rock had to wrestle the coach and the coach is a massive man and rock hated it.

And we would tell him, Rock, the more you wrestle with that coach, that sounds so inappropriate, huh?

Okay. And that we told rock, you know, if you were to go to continue and wrestle with a bigger person, you're going to get stronger. You're going to get better. You will become like who you wrestle with. And I thought, okay, well, if that's the case for that sport, how is that not the case for us? If we're going to wrestle someone, then why not?

It'd be God. Maybe we'll become more like him. There's more than [00:10:00] one ways to get to God. One is like a graceful ladylike. Path and another is we're going to wrestle and your hip is going to go out of place. That's what happened to jacob. 

Sher: So the next thing we thought about is why does this happen? How do we get spiritually fatigued? And we thought of a huge long list, which would take an episode in itself, but we decided to stick with two. And the first one is sometimes we set unfair expectations for ourselves.

And the second one. is we just get distracted with things that are good, but we stop prioritizing what's most important. So the first one, let's talk about unfair expectations. this is when you put pressure on yourself. And set unrealistic expectations . And then when things don't work out the way you think they should, then you start to get spiritually fatigued. Because things didn't work out perfectly. And you're not fitting in that perfect little box that you think that you should fit in. An example of this is In my church callings, [00:11:00] I've got the great opportunity to work with young women over and over and over again.

And one of the things that we do in Young Women's is we set a lot of goals. We talk about focusing on their issues. happiness, their spiritual strength. How are they going to get closer to God? What are they going to do to work on their talents? And it was really fun talking about this and working with the girls and setting these goals , and trying to become better individuals.

 But one of the things that I heard over and over again, now remember, we're talking about focusing on your inner happiness, your spiritual strength. How are you going to get closer to God? One of the things that they would say that they wanted to do was that they wanted to graduate from high school. They wanted to marry a returned missionary in the temple.

Then they're going to have kids and live happily ever after. And then that's where it ended. then I would always say to them, but what if that doesn't work out? And they would look at me like I had four heads and didn't know what I was talking about. But I would tell them, I'm like, look at me, things didn't work out that way for [00:12:00] me.

So what if you don't get married? What if your husband's a jerk? What if you get divorced? What if heaven forbid he dies? What if something happens? What are you doing to prepare yourself? this is what I would try so hard to get him to understand is that your spiritual happiness doesn't rely on another person.

That's not what you should be relying on. You should be relying on You and God, that's how you get over spiritual fatigue. That's how you get that spiritual happiness. so as I was thinking about this, I just Googled, LDS, how to be happy. And guess what? The first thing that popped up was, you ready for this? 

Cydni: Get a second wife. We're hiring. 

Sher: How did you know? 

Cydni: Because I just need someone to come help me with laundry so bad. Someone DM me. 

Sher: someone's really going to and that's going to be a really awkward conversation.

Cydni: I'll be so jealous and mad at Ben for this. I'll be like, Ben, this is all your fault. He'll be like, what? 

Sher: 

[00:13:00] Anyway. The very first thing that popped up when I Googled LDS, how to be happy. Was come unto Christ. That's it. That's where our expectation should be. And so then I clicked on the link 

and then it said, how to be happy is come unto Christ. And then it listed five things. Trust in God, focus on Jesus, be thankful, choose optimism. Look outside yourself. So here we are putting these unfair unrealistic expectations of how we think our life should be how we think we should be happy and It fatigues us physically mentally and spiritually when it doesn't work out the way We think it should be When we don't fit in that box 

if that doesn't work out, that becomes fatiguing. that's not what God wants, God wants us to keep his commandments. He wants us to keep our covenants that we've made with him. And then trust in God, focus on Jesus, be thankful, choose look outside yourself. Nowhere in there , does it say then that life will be [00:14:00] perfect and you can have spiritual strength and you'll never get spiritual fatigued.

It doesn't say that. It's saying this is how you start. This is how you work on getting that spiritual strength So that spiritual fatigue happens less. 

Cydni: And I was thinking that My life kind of does fit the box because I did graduate and I did get married and I did have children and then I stay home.

Sher: suddenly I'm feeling attacked. Thank you, Cydni. let's rub your face in that Sher. No, you're taking this wrong. I'm 

Cydni: going to cobnobble you. I have a fish. I brought one just in case. 

Sher: Why? Because I don't fit in the box? Thank you. I want it now. I deserve to get slapped with a fish because I don't fit your cute little box.

I didn't say the box is cute. That's the whole point. Continue your point to make me feel bad about myself. 

Cydni: Ugh, you're so I'm going to look up a word on Urban Dictionary and I'm going to tell you what you are when I'm ready. Okay. Okay, bye. No, I wanted to say though, because some people do those things, but here's the thing is nobody tells [00:15:00] you you learn the hard way because you think, okay, I'm going to do this to do list. But . In that list and in that life, there's a whole lot. Of conflict, and there's a whole lot of heartbreak, there's a whole lot of stress, and it feels sometimes, I think some of the fatigue, like you said, it's these expectations. I feel like there's the one side where, okay, what if you don't do those things, and what if , it doesn't work out that way.

But what if you do those things and things still don't work out? There's also fatigue there. What if you end up with a divorce? What if you fight and you have conflict, so what I'm trying to say though is The box is messy. No matter what the box is messy. Life is messy. Life is hard. I think, especially hard sometimes when you feel like you're trying to do everything right, but the boxes are not working. No matter what. Whether you're trying so hard to find a great soulmate who's gonna bring you all the joy in the world, , and that doesn't work out.

Or if you do find a great soul mate and they bring you, oh my gosh, so many headaches. I'm speaking for Ben. 

Sher: this goes back to what I was trying to tell the girls is that your [00:16:00] spiritual happiness does not ever rely on somebody else other than God. That's who the wrestle is with.

That's where the learning process and that learning to be happy is you take it to God, not another person. They'll never be able to fill that gap. 

Cydni: That's perfect for both examples. Even if your marriage is difficult at the time, or if you're on your third divorce or whatever the situation may be, and you're trying so hard to make things work.

It is, this is the point. The wrestle is with you and with God. Let the world fall apart around you, because it probably 

Sher: will. I don't know why I'm laughing at that, Let's laugh as it goes down. 

Cydni: I just had the visual of like, A fire like a house burning down behind you and you laughing like that little girl.

Have you ever seen that meme? Yeah, that's what I saw. , so i'm like so distracted. I'm like she did it, right? It's all gonna burn down But I came across a great story to illustrate. All of this. It's about banana bread. And the story goes that there was a young mother who was home with her very young [00:17:00] Children when she had a very strong impression when a woman in her neighborhood came into her mind that she thought of this other mother she just had a feeling that maybe she could do something for her and maybe there's something going on in her life that she could use a little bit of encouragement or love. And she said to herself, I'm going to follow through with this impression immediately. And then she noticed on her counter that there were some ripe bananas. And she said to herself, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make that lady some banana bread. That's what she needs. And so she put her baby down for a nap and she entertained her toddler with something else. And she quickly tried to put together some banana bread And Right. When she was supposed to take out the banana bread. The baby started to cry and woke up from the nap and needed attention. And then when she came back to the banana bread, it was burnt, which I would like to say that it was just yesterday or two days ago, one of them, that I burnt banana bread thoroughly, I cut off the edges and the top and the bottom and the kids still ate the middle. That's how low their expectations are. Our [00:18:00] neighbor boy said, honestly, it's not that bad if you put enough butter on it. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. That works for anything. This is for their future spouses. They will have such low expectations. I am doing a solid. 

Sher: You are. 

Cydni: Okay, well, me and the lady and the story both burnt our banana bread. And so she thought, oh my gosh, what I need to do is start making a whole nother loaf. So she made a whole nother loaf, put it in. When it came out, the older kids came in from school. She handed them a crying baby and told them to watch the toddler. And she said, I've got to go take care of this lady in the neighborhood. She needs me. so she quickly took over the banana bread, came back in to straighten it out. Chaos. Kids were crying. There was disasters. There was messes. And she felt like she could cry. She ran upstairs, shut the door, knelt down and prayed.

And she said, God, I cannot minister to other people right now. Life is too hard. There's too much going on. I am too busy. And she said that she heard clearly asked you to make banana bread. Oh, snap. And I loved that [00:19:00] so much because I think we have this idea that we have to do things a certain way.

I loved a question that one of the sisters asked in this. It was during a conference where they just sat down and had a conversation. And she said, how many times are we guilty? Filling an impression and then filling this need to add to that impression. What if she just sent a text? What if she picked up the phone and called her?

What if she showed up with her baby and toddler and said, Hey, you're just on my mind. In the same conversation, I loved so much what Sister Tracy Y. Browning said. I sometimes worry that just my willingness to be obedient is not enough. I feel like I need to add extra to my personality, extra to my offering. I need to get some flowers. I need to bring something in my hands. And then she concluded that we need to understand that our willingness to be obedient and our willingness to listen to the spirit and follow through is enough.

A phone call, a text is enough. Our personality, our gifts, our talents, it is enough. We do not have to make the loaf of bread. [00:20:00] We do not have to bring cookies. We don't have to stop by and get flowers. We don't need to be so busy with extra things that we miss the actual point. one more thing that Sister Browning said about this is that if we are looking for more understanding of what we need to do less of, the direction needs to come from our Savior.

Sometimes our spiritual Fatigue, exhaustion, overwhelm comes from doing too many good things and not the best thing. And I love so much that she added to include the savior into our decision of what are the best things that we should be doing right now.

Sher: Cydni just rolled us right into our second one. So first of all, our spiritual fatigue is caused because we put too much pressure on ourselves. We have certain expectations, unrealistic expectations that we need to take banana bread or whatever it is that we Think that we should be doing, and at the same time, the second way we get spiritually fatigued is that we just get distracted. We have all these things that are good going on, but we're not [00:21:00] prioritizing what's most important.

Maybe you're putting good things but you're trying to pile on too many things all at the same time all of which are good, but then add just things that happen like callings at church or sickness or working full time life happens. So it makes it so that you're just hanging on. But as Cydni just mentioned, the key is turn to the Savior. All of the spiritual happiness, getting rid of all of that spiritual fatigue relies on the relationship that you have with your Savior. That's what will bring that peace into your souls and into your heart.

Cydni: One word that came to both of our minds when , we were preparing this was the word burnout. I listened to a few TED talks on burnout and they were all centered on work related burnout, which I thought was very interesting because I think we get burnout in a lot of different places in our life like spiritually or just in our day to day life.

We feel burnout and something that struck a chord with me is one of the speakers. He said. That we might find ourselves [00:22:00] engaged, but exhausted, dedicated, but depleted. And I thought, how many times do we feel that in our church family where you want to, you want to give everything you have to give, but there might not be that much there.

Or as a mother, I have felt this where I feel I'm trying so hard to be engaged and dedicated, but I am depleted. And in listening to this, I came across a man who talked about energizing your brain, how to revamp, or President Nelson uses, how to build spiritual momentum. One of the speakers, he talked about when your brain is exhausted that you can replenish it. And he brought up a study that was done with different mammals. But, he also said, don't forget, you are a mammal, so this applies to you. The study was done to measure oxytocin. So let me try to connect this for you. He said that when you create a connection between two mammals, connection releases oxytocin. Now, why does it matter? about oxytocin and spiritual fatigue. I will tell you, because [00:23:00] oxytocin, when it is released, it produces trust, rapport, and bonding. And remember, you are a mammal. So if you create a connection between two people, then you are creating oxytocin, which produces trust, rapport, and bonding. And he also says that dopamine is a big part of this as well. And so What they found is what releases dopamine is when an animal had food before it, it got excited and ready to go he uses the word because he senses possibility.

so, when dopamine is released, something powerful happens. Motivation, creativity. And goals start to pump through their brain because they have something that they want. With this information of oxytocin and with dopamine, he asked, Is there something you could do to release dopamine inside another person?

And this was done so that maybe if you were a manager or a leader at work, you could motivate your staff. But I was thinking in the mindset of what if you are a mother or a partner or [00:24:00] a teacher or a leader in your community, can you help people release dopamine? And he says, yes, what you need to do is you need to help other people realize their potential and opportunities. And then I had this thought. He said that if you really want to help your staff, that what you need to do is help them realize their potential. You need to partner with them for progress. And after listening to all of this, I suddenly had the thought. What if we partner with God? What if we create a connection between yourself and God?

That would release oxytocin. And if you released oxytocin with your connection with God, you're going to produce trust, rapport, and bonding with God. And then, when you do that, you create a relationship that will help you to realize your creativity, it will help you realize your goals, and it will help you realize your ultimate potential.

And I thought to myself, if this is how you re energize your brain is by building these connections with other people [00:25:00] around you, and it's how you re energize your work environment or your home life or your community, then how powerful would it be if you took this science in your relationship with God, that if you went in quietly and Spent time building a connection with God.

The kind of trust, the kind of bonding that would be created would be incredibly powerful and replenishing to your soul. And there are several accounts in the scriptures where Christ would step away from crowds or where he would disappear into the mountains so he could connect with God.

And we likewise need to do the same. We need to have that be a priority that we spend the time connecting with God on a real level, not a quick prayer, because that is going to be like what I do, which is I go get 10 worth of gas because I'm in a hurry and then my car is never full. And I thought, is that any different than spending a quick second reading my scriptures or a quick moment saying a quick repetitive prayer? Or what would happen if I actually filled up the tank all of the way making your relationship [00:26:00] with God a priority, not only scientifically will replenish your brain and re energize your brain, it will also refresh your soul and it will give you a connection with a real Father in heaven who loves you, who knows your potential, who will provide everything that you need physically and spiritually. He will fill your soul that it will not hunger. once had a tweet, I guess an ex, formally known as a tweet, that went viral because I think of the point of it. I said if your iPhone or if your smartphone was at 1 percent battery, that you would do anything.

anything necessary to find a charger to plug it in and to charge it. I know because I've had it be that low before and I am frantic and I'm dedicated to the cause of recharging my phone. But Are we like that with ourselves? Do we put in the same energy of finding a charger for our phone as we do as finding ways to charge ourself?

I don't think we do. I think we just try to see how much longer it will go. How much longer can you drive with no gas in the tank? [00:27:00] We do that to ourselves. We have to make ourselves a priority so that we can give more and that we can feel more and we can reach our potential more. 

Sher: After we thought about our questions we thought about why is it important to refuel ourselves spiritually? This reminded us of a quote that President Nelson said.

He said that in the coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.

 He continued on to say choose to do the spiritual work required to enjoy the gift of the Holy Ghost and hear the voice of the Spirit more frequently and more clearly. So what we learned from this is having the Holy Ghost with you at all times prevents spiritual fatigue and helps you to stay connected with God.

Remember spiritual Fatigue is getting burned out and getting that disconnect with God. But having the Holy Ghost with you and learning how to have the Holy Ghost with you at all times is what will bridge that gap and will prevent spiritual [00:28:00] fatigue . Now, if I may, I would like to go on a rant.

 Shall I call it a shant? I like that. 

Cydni: I like it. 

Sher: Here is my charante the day. Again, this is why it's important to have that spiritual strength. Back in the day after the American Revolution, our founders were trying to put the Constitution together, put our country together and write this new constitution, and it was not going well.

They're arguing, yelling, fighting, saying this needs to go in. This needs to go out, and they couldn't make anything work. finally Benjamin Franklin got up and he pointed out that when this same group of men were fighting Britain in the American Revolution, they prayed non stop every single day for divine protection.

And it was because literally their necks were on the line. so they prayed and prayed and prayed for God's protection. But now while they're trying to put the country together, they Just started arguing all the time and Benjamin Franklin got up and he said this, I have lived a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I [00:29:00] see of this truth that God governs in the affairs of men.

 And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, Is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured in the sacred writings that except the Lord build, they labor in vain that build it.

I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to the future age.

 The reason this is my shrant for the day is this, if we can heal our spirit, that is going to heal ourselves, our inner core. If we can build that spiritual muscle. If we can heal ourselves, we have the possibility of healing our families.

And if we can heal our families, we can heal our communities. And if we can heal our communities, we can [00:30:00] heal our country. And if we can heal our country, we have the possibility of healing the world. And if we do this. We won't get divided into little interests, and our projects won't be confounded, and we won't become a reproach and a byword down to future but it takes us as individuals building our spiritual muscles, and as someone who loves history.

It is not a matter of being on the right side of history in all of our little political choices. It's a matter of being on the right side of God. That's what's important and that's what matters. And the reason that we want to work on not being spiritually fatigued is because this is the way we not only save our souls, but it is the way that we're on the right side of God and will heal this country.

Cydni: Now that is a charrant. Amen! 

Sher: And I don't want to be a reproach and a byword to future history, so pull our crap together, people.

Cydni: Yeah, no bywords. 

Sher: So our final thoughts. Spiritual fatigue means that [00:31:00] you're burned out, you feel disconnected from God, and it's exhausting when you feel that way.

There are a ton of reasons of how and why this happens, but we don't have to continue to feel that spiritual fatigue. We can turn to God who keeps it simple. Come unto Christ. Keep my commandments. Keep the covenants you've made with me. Trust in God.

Focus on Jesus. Be thankful. Choose optimism. Look outside yourself. It's important for each of our individual souls and for our well being, but this is also how we save our families, how we save our community, our country, and the world.

So choose to be on God's side because that always, always, always, always is the right side of history.

Cydni: Our challenge this week is for you to put on your wrestling singlet. 

Sher: And post it on Instagram for us. And post it on 

Cydni: gets the most likes a t shirt signed by me. Okay. We challenge you to make quiet time to [00:32:00] truly connect with God so that you can figure out things that you need to stop doing, things you need to do less of so that he could add more of the best for you. If you can prioritize what matters most to you and identify what that is, you will have more room and more space to realize your truest and fullest potential. And if you partner with God you will find spiritual strength.

 Sometimes partnering with God does look more like a wrestle than a nice little walk, but we challenge you to be willing to be honest with how you're feeling and wrestle with God and then work with God, understanding that like a long marathon that you just don't know if you could cross, that He will be right there with you, getting you through to the finish line. This is our prayer from Cydni and Sher . [00:33:00] 

Sher: And Ben, I'm not defending you. I'm not going to after, viciously being attacked on Sunday. 

Cydni: But that is in a different segment, so you might not be able to put that in there. Oh yeah, crap.

You can add it to the bloopers I liked what you said. I liked how you took it so personally. You're welcome. You're so easy to communicate with, Sher journal about this later. And then she noticed on her counter that there were some ripe bananas.

I almost said ripe potatoes and that proves how bad I am at baking. Mine. Mine. Why doesn't my banana, bread ever work out? Why? Why is it so hard? I need some carbs. I have had the thought many times. I'm like, I wonder how many people have walked to our front door, heard the chaos inside and just slowly backed away and never came. I appreciate you leaving. , Julie, you're a really good cook. And I 

Sher: love your caramels too. since you just 

Cydni: tied it together, what if I just like untie it? And then pour gasoline and set it on fire. Weird. is that fine? Yeah, it's fine. I'm just trying to think of how to make this so hard for you to edit. Just a [00:34:00] second of grace, please. From 

Cydni and Sharon . Have a good week. Bye.