PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 46 – How Can We Change The World? - Part 12
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Podcast 46- How Can We Change the World- Part 12
Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello. Well we are still on point number 14 of “How do we Change the World?” And, I still have a few more thoughts on this point, which is ADAMANTLY ADVOCATING FOR LIFE. And so we’ve been talking about this for some time, and last time we were talking about nursing our babies again. This is all about life, precious ladies. And, you know, how do we change the world? Goodness me! These are sessions about how do we change the world and I’m talking about nursing babies?! How on earth do we change the world nursing babies? Well, I believe that we can do mighty and powerful things as nursing mothers. Because when we’re nursing a baby, we have another baby, another life that God has given to us that God has planned, that God has chosen before the foundation of the world, and who knows who this baby is that we’re nursing at the breast? Who knows what this baby is going to do in life? Who knows the impact this baby is going to have on the world?
Precious mother, as you’re nursing your baby, you’re not wasting your time. No, don’t be reading some stupid magazine—well you can be reading Above Rubies—but don’t be reading some junk while you’re nursing your baby. You can open the Word, or you can read Above Rubies and get blessed and encouraged, and you can pray, and you can read stories to your other children. Of course, it’s lovely to have those beautiful times when you’re just nursing, but you can do lots of other things too with your children. You can even be homeschooling while you’re nursing your baby.
I remember when I started Above Rubies, over 41 years ago, and many times I was nursing my baby as I was doing Above Rubies. It was Serene who was a baby when I started Above Rubies, and it’s amazing what you can do. I believe the greatest way that we as mothers can change the world is by embracing the children, being open to the children, saying Yes to the children that God wants us to have and to be raising them for God—and that begins with nursing them.
Oh, all this is so powerful, precious ladies. It’s powerful, and I believe that it’s time that we got back to God’s original plan and the blessing that He has for us in our lives. And we’ve been talking a lot, but I’d like to read you some Scriptures. I’m turning to them here. I believe that they are all wonderful Scriptures as we think about the possibility of “Could I have another baby?” and so on. So many mother think, “Well I have two, three, or maybe have four,” “Well, my husband doesn’t want any more and we think that’s about all we will want.” But you know, the ultimate thing is just to trust God, to let Him be sovereign. Don’t you think that’s the best thing that we can ever do in life, to yield ourselves to God’s sovereignty? don’t think there’s any more beautiful thing than being yielded to the sovereignty of God.
I’ve often had mothers, with even quite large families, come to me and say, “Well look, we’ve got eight or maybe nine children and, whew, I think that’s enough. Don’t you think we should stop now?” I say to them, “Well why stop when you’re just about at the finishing line? How ridiculous to stop before you finish! What does it say in Ecclesiastes 7:8? “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” Even Jesus Himself said to the Father when He was praying in John 17:4: “I have glorified Thee on earth. I have finished my course.”
I think that’s a beautiful testimony to have. Jesus had it. Don’t you think it’s a wonderful testimony for us to have, too? I want that testimony to be able to say when I stand before the Lord, “I glorified You when I was on earth. I finished the course You gave me to do.” And because God created you to mother, and you’re only able to do this in this particular season of your life. Life is full of seasons, and dear ladies, this season is not a very long season when you think how today people are living into their eighties and into their nineties. And yet this season of motherhood is only twenty, or at the very most thirty years of our lives. That’s not even near half our life and it’s this special season when we are yielded to God to visit us, if this is His plan.
And the wonderful thing is, is that when we yield ourselves to God, if He doesn’t give us any more children, well, we know we’re in His perfect will. But if He gives us another baby, well then, we know we are in His will again, because He is sovereign. And what He does is perfect, and it’s perfect for our lives. It’s perfect for what God wants to happen in this world. It’s perfect for eternity. So, let’s just be yielded to His beautiful and ultimate sovereignty.
First Corinthians 6:19-20 says: “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
We glorify God in our body by yielding to who He created us to be. When we stop being who He created us to be, and as we were talking in last session, when we stop, not because God stops, but because we planned to stop and we stop having children, we are no longer, not only glorifying God as a woman, as a female, but we stop the blessings on our life. The blessings of health, and we put ourselves in that place where we can be perhaps even susceptible to female cancers because we’re atrophying, and our body is not doing what we were created to do.
Okay, let’s go back to the Old Testament. Isaiah 29:16, and the Bible says here: “You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? And the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’, or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding.’”
We’ve turned things upside down today, haven’t we? It seems today that the clay tells the Potter what to do. We say to the Potter, “Well God. That’s all the children I want. We’ve got our boy; we’ve got our daughter. That’s it, thank You. We’ve got to do this, and we’ve got to do that.” And we tell the Potter—we’re the clay, but we’re the one in charge! This is upside down because the clay is in the hands of the potter and we who are the clay are to be in His hands.
Isaiah 45:9: “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots. Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’? Or woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’” Questioning God!
Isaiah 64:8: “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”
Jeremiah 18:6: “O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel?”
And, of course, He is speaking personally to each one of us. How do you read the Word of God? I read it personally. Is that how you read it? I read it as though God is speaking every word personally to me.
Now of course I know that there are many passages of the Word that, especially in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and many of the minor prophets, where there are prophetic words which are speaking absolutely directly about Israel, about the physical Israel, the land of Israel, the land of Israel that we know today. It’s speaking about that land and prophetically of what God is yet going to do in that land and what He is going to do with His people, and they are literally for Israel. So we recognize that and we claim those promises for Israel.
But even in them, there’s always that personal word, too, because the Word of God comes in so many layers. It comes to speak directly to that person or that nation that it’s writing to. But it comes personally as well. And that’s what makes the Word of God alive and living, and how I love it! I love every word of His precious living Word.
Back to the New Testament, Romans 9:20: “Who are you, a mere human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me this way?’”
Sometimes women will say to God, “Why did you make me like this? mean, I didn’t plan to have a womb.” But you see, this is how God planned it. This is who we are, and who are we to say to God? e is the Potter, we are the clay, and it’s all for our blessing. h dear ladies, there’s something about embracing, and with abandonment, God’s plan for us and that’s when we come into the fullness of joy and delight in our mothering and who we are as a woman.
One last Scripture, because there’s nothing better than the Scripture. They’re better than my words, aren’t they? Romans 12:1: “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
Presenting, yielding our bodies to the Lord because He is our Potter, we are the clay and He is totally sovereign.
Now, I’d like to just go on to a different thought. I’ve been thinking about this since I saw some newspapers and also on the internet of some information about people who are on opioids today. These are some of the headings that I read just recently: “Drug Overdose Deaths among Middle Aged Women Soar.” My, that caught my attention! I thought that it would be amongst young people.
Then I noticed this heading: “Biggest Jump in Drug Overdoses was among Middle Aged Women.” One article stated that in 2016, 52,404 died through drug overdose, 20,101 of these were using prescription drugs, and of these the No. 1 percentage were of middle-aged women using anxiety drugs and anti depressants. Another article said that the rate of death from opioid overdoses soared 500 percent among women over thirty.
Now, this was really getting me very concerned. I read one other article and it said that two thirds of those taking dependant forming medicines are in their fifties and sixties. I thought, wow, why is this?
Now of course, I’m not a professional and I know that there will be medical reasons for many of these. But, dear ladies, I don’t think we have to look very far to see that one of the reasons, perhaps the biggest reason, apart from the exceptions (there’s always exceptions) and there’s always certain situations, always, you know, these medical things. But I believe that suddenly, in these last few years, for middle aged women to actually have the biggest percentage of all these people on anxiety drugs and anti-depressants, I believe it’s because women have turned away from the lifestyle God intended for them. I believe, ladies, it’s impossible to go in the opposite direction to God’s plan and still walk in all His blessings. That doesn’t work.
Now we have been talking in some of our last sessions about the blessings of motherhood and being in the home and how that when we’re in the home that we are able to enjoy these beautiful hormones and especially that wonderful, blissful, and anti stress (did you hear that? Anti-stress) hormone of oxytocin (even prolactin is also anti stress). Oxytocin is a hormone that we enjoy when we’re nursing a baby, when we’re sitting around the meal table together, when we’re eating, when we’re hugging and touching our husbands and our children, and we’re love-making in a beautiful and permanent marriage. All these things release oxytocin and yet we have these women, thirties up, and middle age, and even up to fifties and sixties taking these anti-depressants. Oh, this is so sad.
But when you think back of what’s been happening in the last couple of generations, or three generations or so, and how that the trend has come for women to delay getting married. The current statistics in our nation today are now 29 years for men and 28 years for women. That is very late. It is not biblical. Couples are meant to marry when they’re young, unless they don’t meet that wonderful person until they’re older. And sometimes that happens. A person just doesn’t meet that one until they’re older. But often they do meet them when they’re young. But they don’t get married. Sometimes they just live together and that is living in adultery and the Bible says that no adulterer will enter the Kingdom of Heaven (2 Corinthians 6:9, 10). Some are going from one partner to another and so they’re delaying getting married where in a godly marriage, you can enjoy bliss. And they are delaying children. They wait to get married and they wait to have children, and when they eventually have children, well they have their one and two and that has been happening for a number of generations now.
And so what happens ladies? These women, of course, they have their one or two and they get out in their careers and they get more and more entrenched in their careers and that becomes their life and then they get to middle age. What have they got? Instead of now, at this age of their lives, when they’re getting near to this age of life, when they would be getting grandchildren, but, oh no, their children are following the same lifestyle as them. Getting married later, delaying child-bearing and limiting the number of their children. And so they don’t have any little babies around them. They don’t have any little children of their own flesh and blood around them. They’re just in the rat race of society. They’re out doing what God intended the man to do which is to be the provider, out there in that market place, out there in the fight and to provide and to be protecting the family. Instead the woman has chosen that role. It’s not her role. That’s going to give her stress and then she doesn’t have all these beautiful hormones because she’s not in the home and she hasn’t got little ones around her.
I meet many grandparents who are our age, and often I’ll say to them, well I say I meet grandparents, but actually many of them aren’t even grandparents, but our age, and we’re grandparents. In fact, now we are great-grandparents and we’re getting on to the great-grand-parenting now. But I will meet them and say, “Oh, so do you have some grandchildren?” Sometimes they will say, “Yes, we have two” and their faces are just beaming. They are so blessed to have these children; they’ve waited so long for them and they are their life.
But many others will say, “No, sorry, we’re waiting, we’re still waiting, but our children, they’re not interested in having children yet” and so there they are. What a life? I mean, it’s not the life that God intended for us.
That’s one of the reasons why I believe God intended women to go through menopause at about 50 years of age because if a woman is embracing the children that God has for her, and He blesses her (sometimes God just gives a couple one or two, I don’t know, God’s plan is always His best plan) but many times as couples will trust Him and His sovereignty in their lives they may have eight, nine, or even ten children. And by the time they’re getting to 50, they’ve got children who are already married and so they’re getting grandchildren and they’ve got no little babies left, but now they’ve got babies coming on. So there is always the lifestyle of babies, a little baby in the home. As this baby is growing up, well, then a grandbaby comes.
Some mothers are so blessed to have a baby, a grandmother, along with their daughter who is having a baby at the same time. I think that’s a very special thing. I always hoped that would happen to me, but I didn’t get that joy. But I think that’s wonderful when that happens. And so, these mothers never have the empty nest syndrome and they just have babies coming on and they’re still in that lifestyle of being in the home and mothering and so on. I think this is one of the reasons why it must be that so many women in middle-age today are on these anti-depressants. Wow! That’s just so sad.
Of course, for some it may be that they have not learned yet to live in the rest that God has for us. Because that’s another thing we do have to learn, whether we’re mothers or women who are out in their careers. We have to learn to live in the rest that God has provided for us. God intends us to live in rest. Did you know that ladies?
Rest. God gives rest. God lives in rest. God never get’s in a state of stress. God never get’s in turmoil. God never get’s overwhelmed, He is always in a state of rest. It’s part of who He is. When Christ comes to dwell in us He wants to bring His rest. You all know Matthew 11:28-30 where Jesus said: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” You see how He loves to give rest. “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Now we see rest two times in that Scripture. In the beginning it says, “Come and I will give you rest”. Now I believe that first rest is speaking about the rest that we have when we receive forgiveness of sin and when we receive forgiveness from Jesus and His blood covers our sins. We are set free from not only the sin, but the guilt of the sin and we have such rest, because we have no rest when we are in sin. Even when we are born again, well we’re still not perfect and we can sin, and if we do sin, we’re certainly not going to be in rest. Have you found that? You’re not going to have any rest while you are in sin or you have done something you know has grieved the Spirit of God. So you’ve got to get right.
We go to 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And so we come, and we seek His forgiveness and rest comes again.
But this Scripture goes on to say: “And ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Deep down in your soul. Even when you’re going through a challenging, difficult, trying, oh, terrible ordeal, did you know that you can still know rest deep in your soul? Just as when the ocean is storming and terrible on top and foaming and there’s gale winds and the waves are just lashing around, underneath there’s stillness. And we can know that. And Jesus said you’ll know that when you take My yoke upon you and you learn of Me, you yield to Me.
That’s what it means to take on a yoke. When two oxen are yoked together, they have this yoke and they’ve got to yield to one another because they can’t work unless they do. They’ve got to plow that field and they’ve got to work in unison, and they’ve got to work together. If one pulls ahead or one lags behind it just does not work. It’s total yielding to one another and so we yield to Christ. We yield to His sovereignty. We yield to His commandments. We yield to His ways. We’re not yielded to the spirit of the world, we are yielded to Christ and as we’re yielded to Him and His plan, therefore we know that whatever happens, when we face difficulties and when we face things that, wow, we didn’t expect to face, we can face them because we’re yielded to Him. We know He is in control, we know He is working everything out for us. He is the first and the last, He is the beginning and the end. So we can completely trust Him because He knows the end and we can’t see the end, but He sees it, He knows it, and He’s got it all in control. So we can yield to Him completely, and as we learn to do this and take His yoke (sometimes it seems a yoke, sometimes motherhood seems a yoke to you), but yield to it and it becomes easy and then it becomes light.
Sometimes motherhood is very hard for some women and especially mothers who are just starting out on their role. They say, “Oh, this is too hard.” Why? They haven’t learned to totally yield to it. Still, there are other things in their lives that they’re wanting to fit motherhood around all of these other things and so, because they have not totally yielded, it’s still hard. But when you totally yield, it’s easy. It’s easy! And the burden is light! Are you getting it?
And this is what God wants you to enjoy in your motherhood. He wants you to enjoy rest. Hebrews 4:9 says: “There remaineth therefore a rest unto the people of God.” It is for you. There’s a rest for you.
Let me give you a couple other of Scriptures as we close. And let me see where I put them because I did bring them because I thought I’d get to share them with you. Let me have a look here. Proverbs 24:15: “Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous, spoil not his resting place.” In this Scripture, God calls our home, our dwelling place a resting place, and look out anyone who comes to spoil our resting place! And so dear mothers and wives, we’ve got to be on the lookout. We’ve got to be on the lookout for those things that would spoil our resting place. Oh, and the enemy is so subtle. Often things come in. Of course, often circumstances will come to seek to spoil our resting place. Sometimes we allow things in, we allow that spirit of the world, we allow things to come in.
Oh! Even social media! Oh ladies! Don’t let your home be overrun with that. That will spoil your resting place. Now, I’m not saying you don’t have social media. We’re living in an age where, goodness me, that’s our society in which we live. But with everything it should not become an idol. It should serve us. It should serve us. I use it to serve me so I can bless you. I send out a message to you every day on Facebook and I send out encouraging things to you on Instagram and on Twitter and through email. I use it to serve you, to bless you, because I love you. My passion is for mothers, to love you and lift you up and encourage you and strengthen you. So, I use this media to serve you, but, it’s not something that’s my idol, really, I couldn’t care less about it, except I use it as a tool. And you need to teach your children this.
Oh yes, and make sure when you sit down at your meal tables and you sit down together as a family, I hope you don’t allow one iPhone at your table. I think that is the most sacrilegious thing that could ever happen. I will never allow an iPhone at my table because the table is also a resting place, although it can be full of life and fun and debate and all kinds of wonderful things, because our tables are always very exciting! But they’re also resting. As you eat you are relaxing and you’re resting and you’re enjoying fellowship and to bring in iPhones and social media would totally spoil your resting place. Don’t allow that to happen.
In Hosea 11:11, God talks about settling Israel in their homes: “’I will settle you in your homes,’ the Lord says.” I love that. God wants you to be settled in your homes. Yes, He was talking about how He wanted Israel to be settled, but it’s showing the heart of God. Every Scripture reveals His heart and He wants you, dear mother, dear wife, to be settled in your home. I love the KNOX translation, and it says: “’In their own home,’ The LORD says, ‘I will give them rest.’” Isn’t that beautiful?
Once again, it’s talking about the home as a resting place. God wants our homes to be that, but sometimes we are too busy to make them a resting place. In fact, we’re often too busy going here and there that we’re not even in the home. We’re taking our children here, we’re taking them there, we’re taking them to this lesson, we’re taking them to that sports activity. Oh my! We’re running around like a hairy goat! And we’re getting overwhelmed and we’re getting tired. We come in and because we’ve been out then we’ve got to get the meal ready and we’ve got to do this, and that wasn’t done because we weren’t there.
Oh my, dear ladies, don’t be a victim. Too many mothers are victims. They are victims to the lifestyle of our society, they’re even victims to their homeschooling curriculums. I mean, did you know you just don’t have to do everything? And your children don’t have to get through every lesson and every plan? Oh my, you can do all that and they still don’t end up knowing everything.
Let’s just live and make life in your homes a resting place. My, they will learn so much more in that beautiful environment. Oh yes, the place is the home of learning, and I’m a great believer in education. But in the right way, God says we learn little by little, precept upon precept, line upon line, and it’s just little by little, in the home, walking by the way, sitting down, rising up, and so on, in a place of rest (Isaiah 28:9-12). And if you are getting overwhelmed, stop running around too much and come back to your home. Make home your resting place because God said it, I didn’t. “In your own home,’ saith the LORD, ‘You will find your rest’”. Isn’t that wonderful?
Shall we pray?
“Dear Father. We want to thank you so much that You are the God of rest and that You want us to live in rest. This is your plan for us. You’ve shown us how to live, you’ve given us the lifestyle. Lord, save us, please, from moving into lifestyles that are out of Your will, where we will not live in Your rest. Father, help us to embrace the way that You want us to live and to live in Your rest and to be yielded to Your sovereignty, yielded to Your yoke. We thank you that we can accomplish great things when we are yielded to You, Lord, because then You can use us to bless our families and bless this world. When we are out of sync with You, God, it is impossible for You to use us. So help us to be yielded totally to Your sovereignty. And, Lord, we thank You that You dwell in our hearts and You give us rest. Help us to live in the rest that You’ve come to give us.
I speak the rest of God upon every mother, every grandmother, every child, every home, every marriage. I release Your rest to come to them. I come against the turmoil and stress in homes. O God, I break the power of the spirit of the enemy that comes to spoil our resting places. I take authority over him in the name of Jesus and I speak rest to everyone listening at this moment in the name of Jesus. Amen.”