60. You’re Not Too Late: Trusting God’s Timing with Rebecca George

You're listening to the podcast where we ask, how's all that working for you?

Because sometimes all you need to change your life is a moment of reflection.

In this space, we are done with sugarcoating and we embrace keeping it real.

I'm your host, Rachel D.

Baker, guiding you on this journey to create some breathing room, set healthy boundaries, and reclaim your time guilt free.

This is real talk with a bit of sass, and we are always seeking the truth in God's word.

I am so excited for today's episode.

We have our first return guest.

I loved our first chat with Rebecca George, and she's got a new book out for the masses.

It's so exciting.

I cannot wait.

We're going to really dive into it today, but in case you missed it, I will link our previous interview in the show notes, and I want to tell you a little bit about her before we get into the interview.

So, Rebecca George is the founder of Radical Radiance, a podcast community where listeners are equipped to blend what they love with the Jesus who makes them shine.

She's a podcaster, speaker, and author whose greatest joy in life is discipling others to pursue their passions in a way that builds the kingdom.

In her free time, you can find her running outside writing or trying a new recipe with 90s country playing in the background.

You can connect with her on Instagram at Rebecca George, author, or @radicalradiance live.

All right, let's jump into it.

Rebecca, you're back.

Welcome.

Oh, Rachel, I'm so happy to be here.

I woke up this morning excited to talk to you.

So I'm so excited about our conversation.

Yay.

Same the first time around that we chatted, which I said kind of in the intro.

I'm going to link that previous episode in the show notes because it was such a good conversation.

And I'm excited for this because Same, Rebecca, same.

Like, good message and word for our ladies.

But new book, a new topic and we.

I'm excited to dive in.

You gotta know, before we get real deep into the new stuff, I'm just gonna check in with you.

Cause it's been like about a year or so since we got on here and chatted.

So these days, what does breathing room look or feel like for you?

Do you feel like it's changed maybe since last year?

I think the thing I shared with you before we started recording is like the most profound thing I could probably share.

That has been working for me is just carving out the space to have breathing room because I know about myself and I know about my personality that, like, the work will come.

I will get the work done.

I will continue to push myself.

But what's working for me and giving me some oxygen right now is, like, literally on my calendar, I have a big box around a couple of days over the next couple of months that say, like, protect this day.

Do not schedule anything on that day.

Just set aside some time to get away with my husband and shared with you.

Tomorrow we're getting a couple's massage that we got for Valentine's Day for each other.

And so it's one of those seasons of, like, create it or it won't happen.

So that's giving me breathing room right now.

I love that, the intentional blocking off of time because I.

I do hear from so many and I've like, same girl, same where it feels selfish.

It feels like, well, I should be doing so many other things.

But I love that you've reached that point where, you know, I've got to protect some time for myself to regroup to or time with my husband.

Yeah.

So important.

So I love.

I love that it's on the calendar.

Yes.

Tomorrow is one of those days.

So I'm excited.

You caught me at a good time.

Yay.

Something to look forward to.

That's so fun.

Okay, so new book.

I want to hear all about it because we're talking about you're not too late.

It's the title of the book.

Right.

And that just.

Oh, what a comforting statement for one, just like, you are not too late.

And I think that can mean so many things to different people.

But I know in this new book you talk about the danger of the prosperity gospel.

Yeah, I'm familiar with this, but I know not everybody is.

So talk to us a little bit about, like, what that is.

What is the prosperity gospel, and how can that lead us to this burnout and disappointment?

Yeah, I love that you're jumping into literally the deepest of deep ends.

I love this so much.

Let's do this.

So I.

I love the way that you responded to just even hearing the title, you're not too late.

I think the subtitle gives it a little bit more color.

It's trusting God's timing in a hurry up world.

And just the way that you create breathing room for people I think is so aligned with, like, my heart for helping us slow down in this culture of hurry up.

And so I'm excited to dig into that.

But, yeah, I was praying and thinking through this as I was writing, and I kept thinking about all the messaging in Our culture, that would just tell us, like, if we pray harder, if we are more faithful, if we, like, fill in the blank, God will bless xyz.

You're right.

And what you said a second ago, our longing can look like a million different things.

It can be a relational longing to, let's say, get married, reconcile a relationship, expand our family, adopt whatever.

It can look like a vocational longing where we're starting a business or wanting to grow or whatever.

But the.

The danger.

The main danger, in my opinion, of the prosperity gospel, is that it's all on us to do more, to achieve X.

Right.

Versus really putting ourselves in the rightful place of realizing God is the eternal, infinite one.

We are very finite beings in the midst of a broken world.

Yeah.

Who experience all sorts of longing.

And I don't know about you, Rachel, but when I maybe take that next step, like, when I was single, I longed to be married.

When I got married, I longed to start a family.

Right.

Like, the longing never ends.

Longing just kind of leads to more.

And so I really challenged in myself to kind of step back and go, okay, where am I trying to make it happen for myself?

Vs total reliance on him and his provision, his character, who he is, his faithfulness, remembering his past faithfulness, and real realizing, like, man, that's how he showed up then.

And I'm trusting that he'll show up in a way that brings him the most glory and I trust, brings me the most good, even if that's not what I would have preferred for it to look like.

Yeah, we have to wrestle with that.

Right?

Right.

And so, yeah, I think that's a little bit of what it can look like.

And just kind of the danger there as we jump into the conversation about trusting God's timing.

I love that you started there.

Listen, we don't mess around here.

We don't mess around.

You know, if we're having a conversation, we're jumping into the good stuff.

And I love that you don't.

You.

You don't mess around with your stuff either.

I mean, like, there's so many good stories.

There's such good content in what you write and what you share.

But you also.

You don't skirt around.

I mean, your first book, like, do the Thing.

There was no, like, messing around in there.

And, you know, like you said earlier, we speak to one another's souls, I think, in these conversations, because we are very aligned in that.

And I do appreciate that about you as well.

So, yeah, we just jump right into it.

And I love how you do talk about that wrestling, I think we all.

Anyone who's, like, trying to do the good, like, follow Jesus life, we wrestle with that internal desire, which is not a bad thing.

God put desires in us to have.

And it's okay to want and to wish and to hope and all of those things.

But I think I know exactly what you're talking about.

Wanting to try to make the thing happen that I want to happen and do a little extra and I can look back on times in my life and see when I have tried to be the one in control to make the things happen or, like, things are hard.

I'm going to make this better.

Yeah.

I kind of have the personality of, like, everybody, just get out of my way.

I've got this.

Yeah.

I mean, Rachel, I don't relate to that at all.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I know you don't know what that's like, but there have been several times in my life when I feel like God has kind of like gently patted me on the head and was like, that's cute.

Sit down.

Yeah.

And I, you know, little humblers in.

In my life that I've had to go, oh, right, sorry, hand it back.

And that's.

That's a struggle.

It is.

But he's got it so much better than we ever could.

Right?

Yeah.

Amen.

I always come back to that.

So in all of this conversation of the.

The struggle and dealing with the burnout and the disappointment, and for the woman who's listening, she feels like she's absolutely fried because, you know, we got a.

We got a lot of those, and sometimes it's us.

Yeah, she's fried, but still isn't where she feels like she needs to be, should be, wants to be in life, whatever that looks like.

What encouragement or what advice do you have for her today?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The first piece of advice I would give is to step back a couple of steps and take inventory of your heart.

Like, what's maybe the root of what you're struggling with?

Is it despair over your season of life?

Is it you're doubting that God is at work behind the scenes in a way that you can't see?

Is it that you're fearful of the future or maybe the outcome that you're unsure of how it's going to work out?

Is it resentment?

And you've just let bitterness, like, stack on top of bitterness for years and you're mad at the Lord about it, you're mad at other people about it.

You're mad that you couldn't orchestrate it yourself.

Like, what is that thread?

And depending on our personality, it can look a little different.

Sometimes it's envy, dare I say it, Sometimes it's idolatry to jump in the deep end of just placing and elevating things above the.

The place of prominence meant for God alone.

And that can look a million different ways.

And so identifying, like, what is that maybe sin struggle that we're starting to swirl in and then really talking to the Lord about it.

Like, I'll give you an example.

I have a couple of friends who are pregnant right now, having babies, and my husband and I hope to grow our family one day.

But that is not something that we feel is like a today season of life for us.

And so that is a season of longing, just to get real transparent that I'm experiencing.

And so I'm getting to go to some baby showers right now, which, like, is an intentional choice for me to step back and go, you know what, Lord?

You know my heart better than I do.

You know that this is a longing of my heart that you put in my heart.

Right.

Like, the desire for marriage, the desire to have kids is a blessing from God, and he created the institution of marriage.

If that's something that you're, you know, maybe you're single and you're, you're struggling there.

It's.

It was created by God.

But where we get tripped up is looking around at everybody else's lives and feeling like, man, it's happening for them and it's not happening for me.

But when I step back and go, okay, God, you see that?

You know my heart, you know the deepest longings of my heart.

I'm asking that you would enable me to go to that baby shower and dare I say, like, give me the joy to celebrate my friend, this blessing that you've given in her life.

I can hold my longing and celebrate her.

Like, they don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Both can exist.

So I think recognizing the tension and being okay with the gray area of like, the both and is something that we have to kind of attention that we have to manage.

Yeah.

So that that's one way it can play out.

I, I think recognizing what it is that we're struggling with about it and then going to the Lord and being really honest, like, he can take it.

Right.

Like, go read the psalm.

Go read, go read.

David crying out to the Lord about his situation.

Like, how long, oh, Lord, before you're going to do this thing?

Or he's just crying out to The Lord.

And that's been such an encouragement to me as I've written the book of realizing, like, oh, I actually can be that honest with God about my waiting, you know?

Yes.

Yeah.

One of the books I read not too long ago, and I think I've mentioned it on here before, but, you know, like, the Old Testament prophets, we don't dig into a whole lot in a lot of church, you know, we're talking about Jesus all the time.

We don't dig into a lot of those little books.

And I just one day was like, I'm gonna read Habakkuk.

Who even, like, knows about Habakkuk?

Has anybody read this book?

You know?

Yeah.

That's not one that people reference a whole lot, I guess, or encourage you to read.

It's three little chapters, and it is one that, like, I feel like goes through all these things that you're talking about.

Yeah.

Lord.

It's hard, Lord.

How long.

Why?

You know, all that lamenting, which I think I'm gonna have to do a whole other episode on, but just lamenting in and of itself, I think is a form of worship.

I really do, I think, to acknowledge and come to God in that relationship anyway, I won't have to dive into that one separately, but.

But to take it to God and to have to wait.

To wait in it and recognize that at the end of the day, he's got it under control and he does love you.

And it's kind of like you said.

I've been talking.

I've got a couple friends lately that we've been having different conversations, different things in life going.

But I'm just constantly being reminded of the.

The.

And, like, I am sad and this is hard.

I feel this way with my health right now.

I am sad and I hurt, and it's hard.

And autoimmune disease is straight from the devil.

Why does my body attack itself?

Like, there is such grief in chronic illness and pain, and I can sit in that.

But also I am able to do X, Y, Z.

It's one of the reasons I start my day with gratitude.

And, like, what are three things I accomplished yesterday?

I do that every morning.

What are three things I accomplished yesterday?

And three things that I'm thankful for.

Yeah.

Because I think it's okay to be grateful and to celebrate and to have joy and grief and be disappointed.

And so I love that you.

There's a lot of contrasting.

Of needing to hurry and needing to rest and all of.

All the different feelings we go through.

I don't know why as you're talking about autoimmune and all those things, I keep thinking about Johnny Eareckson tada, have you ever connected with her, Read any of her writing?

Do you know her story?

Just a little bit.

Okay, so for listeners who are listening and don't know her story, she had a diving accident when she was a teenager that left her quadriplegic, and she now has, I think she's in her 60s.

She has this incredible ministry for disabled people and talks about chronic pain a lot.

And then her writing about suffering and pain.

One of the things that she said that like, changed my life forever was God will often allow what he hates to accomplish what he loves.

Oh, amen.

That's so good.

And man, when.

When I think about the areas of longing or pain or suffering or seasons of my life where I just don't understand the why holding the both and feels really difficult.

Yeah, those are often some of the greatest teachers and refiners of me in my life with Jesus ever.

Yes, yes.

If I'm on the mountaintop, it is a lot harder for me to be totally and completely reliant on the Lord.

But when I am just in the bottom of the pit trusting him and I have nowhere else to turn, it shows me his faithfulness, it shows me his kindness.

I'm.

I'm aware and able to see how he's at work in a way that I feel like I've got it all together when I'm on the mountaintop, you know?

And so does God love that you are in chronic pain?

No.

Does God love that season of suffering that our listener friend is going through as they're listening?

No.

But, man, may that be a teacher of who he is.

May that be a teacher of who we are in him and.

And allow us to more fully rely on Him.

So if you're looking for some.

Some teaching on chronic pain, suffering, and how to see that in a biblical way, Johnny Erickson TADA is always where I send people because I just love her perspective.

I always get off interviewing with her.

I've had her on my show a couple of times, and every time we hang up, I'm always like, man, I complain and gripe about the silliest things.

We all do listen.

We all do.

We all do.

But I'm always so challenged by her joy, you know, in the middle of her pains.

So, yeah, anyway, that's a little bit.

Of a rabbit trail, but I love it so much.

I love a good rabbit trail.

And now I'm like, well, maybe you need to connect us, maybe that I need to have her on.

That would be amazing.

You should.

You should.

She's incredible.

Man, this is so good.

And I know there are so many pieces of this book I would love to dive into, but we're going to try to not be here for an an hour or two today.

So as we wind down, are there any tools or strategies right now?

You've talked about the blocking off on your calendar, so maybe that's the thing.

But is there anything else you are currently using that is helping you manage your time or allow for that breathing room?

Oh, man.

I think a couple of things.

One, that is real practical, but.

And so take this and apply it to your life.

Listeners listening.

But I joined a bar studio, like a Pilates studio.

And when you take classes, you have to put your phone in like a little cubby hole.

You can't bring it in the studio.

I love that.

So for like a whole hour I'm without technology and just moving my body and not in a way that like increases my cortisol.

Like it's so low impact, but like really challenges me.

And I've gotten a lot stronger, which is a big deal for me.

I'm a runner, I'm a cardio queen.

And so the fact that I've done this much strength training is a big deal.

Yeah.

So that has been giving me a lot of life.

Love that blocking off my time we talked about.

And I'll give you this one too.

I am realizing my threshold of work.

So you and I are doing a podcast interview right now.

So for our friends who do different types of work, you can, I think, relate this to whatever you do.

But for me, if I do more than about three interviews in a day, I forget like, what stories I've told.

I'm not giving my best any longer.

Yeah, I'm out of words.

And so you start to begin to realize in these like, busy seasons of your work, no matter what your work looks like, what your threshold is, whether it's meetings, interviews, actual production of content, whatever.

So apply it to your own life.

But kind of stepping back and realizing what's my threshold and how do I manage my time such that I'm protecting that threshold as much as possible.

Life happens.

But I think getting honest with yourself about that can be really helpful a hundred percent.

We talk a lot in this space about knowing your capacity, and I think that's what you're talking about here.

Like, and this was a very hard thing for me to get to this point because we've talked earlier about, like, you look around and see what everybody else is doing and think I should.

And we've talked about shoulding on yourself.

It stinks.

Don't do it.

So we don't should on ourselves.

But I should be able to.

Well, that, like, that's not a thing.

Let's just kick that to the curb now.

What is your actual capacity?

Well, for me, with autoimmune disease, my capacity is going to be a whole lot lower than most people today.

I have capacity for physical therapy.

I went and did that.

I have this one interview and my kids are home for a snow day today.

I've got two teenagers in my house.

And so you're momming.

I am momming.

And that's a whole vibe.

Yeah, it's the whole thing.

Yeah.

And so that's about it.

Other than like answering a couple of emails, you know, doing things that I can do on my phone, on the couch.

Yeah.

I'm not gonna schedule a whole bunch of other work or meetings or any of those things.

I'm not gonna be having coffee with a friend.

I'm not.

Because I know now I don't have capacity for all of those things in one day.

But let me tell you, if you are someone who is listening and like.

Well, that.

I feel like I would be a lazy bum if that was my day or number one, my life is not your life and your life is not my life.

And I think we just have to speak that over each other.

That's right.

Number two, there's no should, there's no expectation.

I think a lot of our expectations we set for ourselves and then we get upset when we don't meet them or we're all like, I'm so tired.

I just need to push through.

I don't like pushing through, but I was the person burning myself to the ground.

Yeah.

On the regular.

Yeah.

And it just takes reaching that point where you say, I'm not doing that anymore.

I don't like that.

It doesn't feel good.

It doesn't serve me, it doesn't serve others.

It brings zero glory to the Lord when I am on fire and crying and screaming at everyone.

Right.

Yes.

So I love that you have things in place for your physical health, for your mental and emotional health, blocking off your time.

And all those things that you've mentioned, I think looking at yourself, you and God, when it comes down to you and God, what does that look like?

What do you actually have?

Capacity?

What is your threshold?

Yeah.

And sometimes we're forced into that Kind of like what you're saying, right?

Like, it's cute and all to be able to kind of tell you with maybe an ounce of wisdom what I'm doing now, that's working.

But it's only working because I have.

Ran myself into the ground a hundred percent.

Yes.

Right.

Like, to just very humbly say that I think is important because I am a high achiever.

Any personality test I've ever taken has told me that about myself.

I know that about me.

I know how I'm wired.

And for a lot of my life, I actually felt a lot of shame about that because, like, I have high capacity.

The problem with having high capacity is you begin to think about yourself as if you are infinite, like God, and we are not.

We are very finite.

We have very limited capacity.

And it's not until you reach the end of yourself and your capacity and blow past it that you kind of are forced to step back and go, okay, God, I'm.

I'm gonna let you sit on your rightful throne and sit in your place of being, the infinite one, and, like, show me how to manage my time in a way that brings you honor and glory.

Because if I'm over committed and I'm saying yes to everything and I'm at max capacity all the time, I can't show up the way that I want to for things and conversations like this.

Right.

I want to serve your listeners well.

I want them to leave this conversation feeling equipped and ready to go.

Run hard for Jesus, but, like, run at a pace that's healthy.

I want them to get something out of our conversation.

If I'm at the end of myself during our time together, I can't show up well for that.

Yeah.

Enter your own work.

And same principle applies.

We all have to kind of grapple with that.

And so if you're at the end of yourself today, there's.

There's no better day than today to step back and go, okay, Lord, how do you want me to shift and change the way I spend my time?

Yeah.

And I love you, like, because we've had to do that.

Yeah.

If you've, you know, you've heard me say it once, I've.

I'll say it again.

But we preach the message that we ourselves need to hear.

This is not a one and done thing.

This is a constant reminder of, like, oh, yeah, I don't need to squeeze another thing into that day.

It really is already full.

Yeah.

It's okay to push that out a little.

Yeah.

Definitely not preaching from a soapbox that We've got it all together.

Yeah.

Absolutely not.

Thank you for pointing that out.

That's a hundred percent accurate.

Okay, last two questions are.

Well, mostly easy.

The last one's easy.

This one is if there's a book or a podcast lately that you're just like, oh my gosh, the world needs it.

Obviously everybody needs Rebecca's new book.

We're gonna link that.

What's another one?

Or a podcast that you just want us to know about.

Oh man, I.

I'm gonna give you a little bit of a curveball.

I have been reading a lot of fiction.

Let's go.

And for you and I, who like we read non fiction books all the time, 100 our work.

Yeah.

Non fiction is just like not doing anything for me in this season of my life.

So I am loving getting lost in a story.

I love World War II fiction.

Yeah.

So I've been reading a lot of that lately and the escape of it is what is making.

Causing me to answer it that way.

Like getting out of my world and into somebody else's world for a minute has been so awesome.

So.

Yeah.

And I would say generally fiction has been the most life giving thing that I have read or listened to in the last, I would say year.

Yeah.

Awesome.

I love that because we do talk about a lot of non fiction books and I do read, but I've kind of, I've been going back and forth.

I went through several months where I was just reading fiction and then when I would come back, like I was going to read that other, you know, whatever it was, you know, Jesus book, self help.

But whatever it was that was on my shelf, it's like, but I mean this one has like dragons and elves and stuff and that's kind of fun.

Or you know, dragons and elves are so fun.

Listen, my kids really go through a lot of the fantasy fiction stuff and if they come to and they're like, mom, you got to read this book.

You know, well, okay, I gotta read this book.

So yeah, that.

It's a nice diversion.

It's also, it also helps me get out of my phone.

So like I also think as a writer and as a podcaster, the last thing I want to do when I'm in like a heavy content creation season, the last thing I want to do is consume more content.

That's like the content that I'm putting out.

Yes.

So I don't listen to podcasts like ours.

I really don't.

Unfortunately now later in the year I will.

But this is just a season where I'M doing less of that.

So if your work looks like ours at all, sometimes getting outside of what you produce can actually inspire more creativity.

Yeah, for sure.

Or even, you know, I used to.

I was working in education.

I was a teacher.

So a lot of the things that I was teaching all the time, like I'd have to spend time reading these novels and planning these book studies and all of this, and then that I wanted to read something completely different for me.

And so whatever it is that you're doing, I think to get outside of that a little and expand your mind, you know, whatever.

Or listen, if you're not a big reader, listening to something else that compliments, I guess what you're doing, get you outside of the daily.

The daily input.

Yeah, that's really good.

I love that.

All right, fiction.

Grab you some fiction, guys.

Okay, the last one's easy.

Where can we find you?

Connect more with you.

I mentioned a couple things in the intro, but like this book, it's at.

Where can we find it and connect with you?

You can grab the book anywhere books are sold.

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Christian books.

So the full title is you're not too late.

Trusting God's timing.

In a Hurry Up World.

I am the most active over on Instagram.

My handle is Rebecca George, author.

And I have a podcast myself, which we've mentioned a couple of times.

It's called the Radical Radiance podcast.

So you can subscribe, listen, download anywhere you like to listen to podcasts.

And I would love to have you be a part of our community.

Yes.

And it's so good.

All these things are linked in the show notes.

Click them all, find all the things.

Follow her back on Instagram.

Grab this book because the message, I think it's so timely, so needed.

It is a hurry up world and I'm over it.

Can we just say I'm over is.

If we can't change that, then we can figure out how to live in it and make peace with it.

Right?

So that's my heart and just that the gracious message of we're not too late with whatever it is we're not.

And I love that.

Thank you for sharing this with the world.

Thank you for being here again today.

I love you're our first repeat.

Yeah, I'm so honored.

I love it so much.

Oh, I love that.

Thank you for having me back.

Yeah, thanks for coming back.

It's been so good.

And you know, we'll just.

Maybe it's a tradition, we'll just keep it going.

Yes.

I love it.

We'll chat again soon, all right?

Thanks, friend.