PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 198: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, PT 9
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 198: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 9
My daughter, Evangeline, ran up the stairs as I was starting this podcast, so she joined in. You'll love her input. We talk about how the land of motherhood is a LARGE land. You have not been brought into a confined space that suffocates you, but a LARGE AND EVER ENLARGING CAREER. It is always growing and enlarging. It's also a land that FLOWS WITH MILK AND HONEY.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Good to be with you again, ladies. And can you believe it? We’re actually starting the next point in our land of motherhood.
No. 4: IT IS A LARGE LAND
Let me read you Exodus 3:8. God said: “I am come down to deliver them out of the land of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land, and a LARGE. Unto a land flowing with milk and honey.”
This is another thing that God says. I’m not making these things up. This is what God says about the land. It’s what He says about the land of Israel. Of course, we are taking these points into the land of motherhood. It is a large land.
Now the original land that God promised His people is so much bigger than they have today. One day they will have it all. It’s a little land at the moment, but God intends it to be a large land.
Before I get into a few thoughts, Evangeline, my daughter, has just come up the stairs. I said, “Vange, I’m just doing a podcast!” She said, “OK! Well, I’ll share something.” OK, here you go, Vange!
Evangeline: Yay! Here I am! Well, I want to say this. I was thinking about this other day. Mum’s talking about a large land and mothering. Indeed, it is. But I’m thinking about many mothers are meek. They don’t understand it’s a large land. They think it’s a small, tight, little space where they’ve been thrashed into. They want to escape it. They actually think it’s a small little room. They haven’t got the big picture. So, they try to escape.
I realize there’s many mothers living as if they are still single in many aspects of their lives, thinking if they can just get out, “We’ll enter the large world where I was before.” But they’ve been told, or somehow subliminally. In this culture, they don’t realize that mothering is a huge, massive, the biggest extent of land we have in our years we live as a female on earth.
So, it’s a lie. If you start actually acting like you’re single, remember you think or subconsciously, you might be trying to enter into the world that you were in before this season, that you were in before. But, no, you’re in the season, which is a large, large land.
As you go about your day, and if you’re wanting to get rid of your children, that single-minded brain thoughts, that’s living like you’re still single, and you’re not married. OK, if you’re changing, and doing jobs regarding your children, and if you’re despising it, that means you’re living like you still are single.
But you’re not! You’re married, with children! So, you can’t escape. Don’t try and escape. It is a large, large land. Don’t fall for the lie that you’re living in a tiny, tiny, hemmed-up space. Even if you’re in a tiny room, and I’ve lived in tiny rooms before, you’re not! It’s a large, creative, wild land.
I’ve just got to read this because it came to me. Man, Mum, I can’t even read with your glasses! Say something while I look at it, Mum, because. . . That’s a good point. I was just thinking about it.
Nancy: Very good point! I think this is absolutely wonderful! But I’ll need my glasses. [laughter] She didn’t come prepared to speak. She just came rolling up the stairs to fly in here, and here she is! But I know you’re going to be blessed with more that she will say.
It is so true. Vange was saying, not even knowing what I was going to talk about, that it is not a small career to be a mother and homemaker. It is huge! And it becomes bigger and larger all the time.
You start off as a married couple. Colin and I started out 59 years ago. It was just last week that we celebrated our anniversary. And 59 years ago we were just a couple. That’s all we were. But today, we have 51 grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren, and so many more along the way! Then there will be more to come.
Motherhood is an expanding land all the time. That’s the wonderful thing about it! It’s not hemmed in. No, you’re not just, as Vange was saying, in this little, small room. No! You’re in this land that grows and grows and gets bigger and bigger. God told His people, “I will enlarge your borders.” You can read that in Exodus 34:24 and Deuteronomy 12:20.
God wants to continually enlarge your borders. You’ve got to get this thinking of enlargement. Mothering is enlarging all the time! Have I become more insular because of being a mother? No! My life has become broader, and wider, and larger, and bigger, and more amazing every year of motherhood!
As your children come along, and as your children grow, and then they get married. Well, even before they get married, wow, your whole life is enlarging because your children have gifts from God that you don’t even have. They begin to move in these gifts. You go into that realm of what they’re doing because you always want to be part of your children’s lives. It’s so amazing! You go into different realms that you could never have dreamed of!
And then they get married, and then they have children. These children grow up and do amazing things and get into different things. It’s from one enlarging to the next, enlarging all the time.
Isaiah 54:2-3: “Enlarge the place of your tent. Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings. Spare not. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your pegs, for you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your descendants will possess nations.”
Wow! This was God’s promise to the children of Israel in the Land! But it’s His promise to us as mothers in our land of motherhood! I want you to get the picture today, lovely ladies! Your land is an enlarging land. OK, Vange, what did you want to say?
Evangeline: Well, I love what you’re saying! It’s so fantastic. I don’t know if you’re going to bring this verse into it. But I often liken Ezekiel 37 to mothering. That’s where I got the first thing about a mothering land. It goes on when he says: “Prophesy unto the bones.”
Then it says, “My people,” and at first look at that Scripture you think, “Oh, these people don’t know God.” Yet it says: “My people say there is no hope.” I’ve heard so many women go round with faces that look like they have no hope. Your torture might be like going up the walls. You’ve got work and maybe you’ve had no sleep. You feel like, “Oh, man, I’m just hemmed in, and there’s no hope for me today.”
Well, I literally want to tell you, stop believing those uncreative lies! This is what the Word of the Lord says in Ezekiel 37: “I will open the graves and cause you to come up, up out of your graves.”
I think “graves” can be the lies we tell our brains. “I will bring you into a land, and you shall know that I am the Lord.” He has brought you into a new land where you have never lived before. It’s the land of mothering, as Mum is saying: “When I’ve opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your graves, I shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live.”
So, if you’re finding yourself in depression, or not seeing the creative ways of how you can mother, you’ve got to get out of that lie. You’ve got to get the Spirit of God in you. Because if you don’t have the Spirit of God in you, you’re going to succumb to this age.
This age tells you the exact opposite of what Mum’s trying to tell you here: “And I shall put My Spirit in you, and I shall place you in your very own land.” It is this big, wide land of mothering. “You shall know that it is I, the Lord, that have spoken, and placed you there.”
Nancy: Amen! I love it!
Evangeline: It is God Who places you there, and it is God’s land for you in this season. It’s huge! And if you think it’s small, stop believing the lie, and get the Spirit of God and His creative juices flowing in you.
Nancy: Amen!
Evangeline: And stop living like you’re single, even if you have children. Yeah! OK, bye!
Nancy: Oh, that was so good, Vange! Thank you!
Evangeline: Thanks for the pie plate!
Nancy: [laughter] Thank you! That was wonderful! Oh, so that was such a breath of fresh air of Evangeline running up the stairs. That was a good word that she had for us, wasn’t it? Yes.
Now, we see a parallel. Oh, before I say that, I do want to affirm that Scripture that Evangeline read: “I will PLACE you in the land.” Isn’t it so good? Every word of God is so good! When I’m reading the Bible, I don’t just read, read, read. I’m looking out for every word. Do you do that?
I love that song we often sing, “Every word You speak is life to me.” It’s so true. Every word, and I just took hold of that word: “Then I will PLACE you in the land.”
Maybe you’ve been thinking, “What am I doing here in my home?” But lovely, darling mother, God has placed you in your home. He’s placed you in this career of motherhood. It is the greatest of all careers. As we’re going to talk about it today, it’s a large land. You’re not diminishing. You are going to be enlarging.
We see a parallel here, because Satan hates the land of Israel and the people of Israel. We see nations around Israel wanting to eradicate Israel. They want to get rid of Israel. They’d love to throw it into the sea if they could! Israel is having to fight to hold onto her land, even though it’s not the fullness of the land that has yet even been promised to them.
But it’s the same thing. I believe there are two things that Satan hates because they’re both so close to the heart of God. One, of course, is Israel. Satan hates Israel. If he could get rid of Israel, if he could get rid of the land of Israel and get it occupied by some other nation, he would have won an amazing victory, because Israel is in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and all the way through. If you eradicate Israel, you eradicate the Word of God. Satan knows that. That’s what he seeks to do.
Satan also hates motherhood because motherhood comes from the heart of God. God created and designed motherhood. Motherhood is the most powerful thing because it is we as mothers who procreate the generations. We keep families going. We keep generations going, from one generation to the next. We determine the destiny of nations as we raise our children for righteousness, to be godly, to be those who belong to the kingdom of God and spread His kingdom in the earth.
SATAN IS SCARED OF GODLY MOTHERS
You have this powerful career of motherhood. Satan knows. He’s scared of mothers. The thing that he’s scared of most is mothers who know who they are and who know that God has placed them in their homes, and that God has given them this great privilege to embrace children into their lives. And to raise them for His glory, and for His kingdom, because that completely comes against the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of darkness.
Just like he’s out to get rid of Israel, he’s out to eradicate motherhood. We have to understand that. All this hatefulness and all this negativity that comes against motherhood does not come from God. It comes from the enemy. It’s masterminded by the enemy. We’ve got to understand these things and know what is truth so that we know how to act.
I just wrote something here. I most probably said it, but I want to read it out again so we can get it.
“Satan wants to minimize and wipe out motherhood. He knows that in doing this, he eradicates the godly seed and the revelation of God in the earth.”
It is all to do with wiping out the existence of God.
Mothers, you must understand that in your role as mother, as you embrace children, you reveal the existence of God and promulgate the image and revelation of God in the world. This is a powerful task. No wonder Satan wants to eliminate it!
You must realize you are in a spiritual battle. Dear mother, forget grumbling about a few problems you face each day. You are in a battle for life and death, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. You are a mighty warrior for God.
Motherhood is not something insignificant, but powerful, God-ordained, and even more important than a pastor preaching on Sunday. More important than a senator representing his state. You are an ambassador for the King of Kings, advancing His kingdom, and upholding the truth of His eternal Word. Don’t let him wipe you out. You belong to a large land, a God-given land.
Embrace the final extent of your borders. Don’t stop too soon! Don’t even stop at all. “Well, I have two or three children. Maybe we’re fine now. We’ve just got enough.” Is that all you’re going to build? Is that all the land you want? Oh, there’s more! Embrace the full borders of the land that God wants to give you.
I’ve always loved this quote from G. K. Chesterton, his words about motherhood. He says:
“To be Queen Elizabeth, within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays. To be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes, and books. To be Aristotle, within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene. I can imagine how this can exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.”
So, embrace your large land.
There’s another interesting principle here, too, that those who have more, will get more. We read in Numbers 33:54: “And ye shall divide the land by inheritance among your families. To the more, ye shall give the more inheritance. And to the fewer, ye shall give the less inheritance.”
The Complete Jewish Bible translates it: “You are to give more land to the larger families, and less to the smaller ones.”
Now, the humanistic mindset in society thinks that if we have too many children, we’ll stay poor! We will be deprived of so many things. But this Scripture (and the Word of God is eternal, and it never fails), this Scripture promises that those who have more children will get more land! Those who have less will receive less.
It is true, because often people think, “Well, how could I even have one more child? We are barely coping with what we have now! Look, we’ve got these two children, and we can hardly survive!”
Well, dear ladies, let me tell you something. God doesn’t provide for another child before He gives you that child. He provides when He gives you that child! So many people are waiting for the provision before they have another baby! But, no, that’s not the way it works. You don’t even have that provision yet, and God’s not even going to give it to you because you don’t need it! But when that baby comes, He provides! That’s the wonderful thing.
Have you read Deuteronomy 28? Oh, that’s the wonderful promise and blessing chapter. It’s a wonderful chapter of all the blessings, although it does list all the cursings too. Actually, there are more cursings than there are blessings. I don’t like reading the cursings very much, I’m afraid. I have to admit I’ve read the blessings a lot more!
But look at this here in Deuteronomy 28. And when you’ve got time, just go to your Bible and read it. Read from verse one to verse fourteen. It’s all wonderful blessings. Then if you want to read the cursings, that’s verse 15 right over to verse 68! Help! Can you believe it? That’s all the cursings if we don’t walk in the way that God wants us to walk.
But the blessings! Deuteronomy 28:3: “Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy womb.” God always puts first things first. And here, the first blessing is the fruit of the womb.
Then it goes to tell us about how God will bless us with increase of our fruit, and our cattle, and our sheep, and our basket, and our store, and all the things we need to provide for the blessings of the womb! We just have to get it in the right order.
Get this little principle from God. Can you hear it again, lovely ladies? You don’t get the provision first. You get the baby first! And then comes the blessing of provision. Just remember that.
And remember, it’s a large land. It’s an enlarging land, and our mothering should be enlarging all the time. Always enlarging, and as your children grow, and then your children marry, you’ll be having grandchildren. Your land will be enlarging. Then, like we are today, our grandchildren are now having children. We have the great-grandchildren coming on.
I do believe, that as we trust God, God will provide for our enlarging families. Now, you may be a big family living in a little space, but it may not be forever. We’ve lived in little spaces, but mostly in big places.
My husband has always had a big vision. Like every home that we have built, or lived in and rented, because we have built, we built a home. We rented in New Zealand and then we built a home there. Then we moved to Australia. We only rented in Australia.
We came to the States, and we rented. We lived in a little apartment. But now we live in a big house, which really, the Lord provided for the whole thing. Everything that we have has been the provision of the Lord. We have always lived beyond our means. What I mean is, we’ve lived beyond what we would expect to get from a salary or whatever. Because if we lived within our means, and our budget . . .
I have to tell you a little secret here, ladies. I have never had a budget in my whole life. Well, we’ve been married for 59 years and I have survived without a budget. I know, perhaps many of you, that’s how you survive, on your budget. The only way it could work.
Let me tell you a secret. If I had a budget, we would have lived the most boring life, the stingiest life. Because we believed in living the lifestyle of the kingdom of God, the lifestyle of the early church. What is that lifestyle? It’s a lifestyle of hospitality. It’s a lifestyle of opening your home. It’s a lifestyle of gathering others around your table. That’s the lifestyle of the kingdom of God. That’s what you see in the Word.
Now, we could never have done that if we kept to our budget because we couldn’t have afforded it! So, we forgot about the budget and said, “Just come! Come and stay with us! Come and live with us! Come and have a meal with us!”
Well, we didn’t really even have enough money to buy the food but because we said the words, God provided! You see, that’s how it works. We lived beyond our budget, and we’ve lived this wonderful, enlarging life because we lived according to the Word of God.
If we just stay where we are, “Oh, goodness, I only get this much, so we could only afford . . . We really couldn’t have any people because we don’t have enough money to buy the food for them.” Goodness, me! You know what other secret I’ve found? The more people you have, the better you eat!
Because God provides. He provides when you want to bless people. That’s how it works. We have lived in little places, but as we’ve trusted God, we’ve lived in big places. Because everywhere we’ve gone to build or rent, we looked for a place, “Now, can we fit visitors in this place? Can we fit people around our table? Have we got a visitors’ room?”
We’ve always had a room for visitors because it’s just our vision! Now, most homes don’t have that. Well, they’re very hospitable, and so actually when our children were little, we’d have people, and of course, all our children, we’d throw them all into one room so we could put visitors in their room. They were always used to getting out of their rooms. But they loved it! It was their lifestyle! Their lifestyle of having people in their home was so exciting. They were never bored! So, they didn’t mind getting out of their rooms.
In fact, our boys hardly ever slept in their rooms anyway. They would always go out, be making a hut, living out somewhere in a hut and all, making some kind of strange place where they could sleep. It was too boring to just sleep in their beds! That was very boring for them.
It’s a large land. Are you getting that? We have to just get the language so that we can begin to live it! If you don’t know it, you won’t live it!
All right. The next point, we’ll get started on that.
No. 5: IT IS A FLOWING LAND
Let me read Exodus 3:8 again: “God said, I am come down to deliver them out of the land of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large; unto a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Well, the Bible uses that phrase 20 times. God didn’t tell His people only once that He was taking them to a land that was flowing with milk and honey. He told them 20 times! It’s a land that flows. The Hebrew word for “flowing” is zuwb, Z-U-W-B. It means “to flow freely, to overflow, to gush out.” It has the idea of not only gushing out but oozing and dripping.
That’s not a stagnant land, is it? So many people live stagnant lives. They live just to their little selves and their little homes. It’s just “me” and “us,” and that’s it! That’s a very stagnant kind of life. God wants us to be flowing, a flowing family. We’re living in a flowing land, where we’re gushing out with God’s love, and His welcome.
What are you doing in your land of motherhood? Are you living a life that is flowing or is it stagnant? This land is a picture of productiveness and large-heartedness. It is a land of smiles, and laughter, and joy, where you say, “yes” more than “no.” It is a land where you not only fulfill your duty toward what has to be done each day, but you face every task exuberantly, with flowing out.
You love your husband profusely. You’re not just, “Oh, well, I love my husband.” No! You’re overflowing in love to your husband! You love your children exceedingly. You don’t hold back but you overflow from the light of the Spirit of God that lives in you.
I always loved the Scripture in 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” That word “abounding” is a word that I’ve talked to you about in so many podcasts.
In fact, that’s why I changed the name of our podcast, which was, what was it? I used to call it “From Our Home to Yours with Nancy Campbell.” I actually thought that it was a bit boring. Eventually I thought, “No, I can’t really stand that name any longer. I’m going to change it.” I changed it to LIFE TO THE FULL, with Nancy Campbell.
It comes from this Scripture, this abounding Scripture, because this word “abounding,” what does it mean? It means . . .
“to superabound,
enough and to spare,
beyond what is necessary,
to be in excess,
to exceed beyond the normal.”
If you’ve listened to lots of my podcasts, you will find that this word comes up over and over again in the New Testament.
The normal life of the Christian, the New Testament Christian is not a life that is normal. If you’re living a normal life, you are not living a New Testament Christian life. The normal Christian life is not normal! It is above the normal. Yes. It’s beyond the normal. It’s excessive. It’s super-abounding. It’s more than is necessary. It’s above and beyond.
In fact, that phrase, “above and beyond,” is used in the Scriptures for that same Greek word. Here it is again. OK, “abounding in the work of the Lord.” Now, what is the work of the Lord you’re involved in? YOU ARE INVOLVED IN MOTHERING!
Oh, yes, you may be doing many other things for the Lord. But your first work, your most important, where God has placed you, is your mothering of these precious children God has given you. You’re not doing it just like, “Oh, well, OK, just got to make sure my children are fed and clothed each day. Just do the boring normal.”
No! It’s over the top! It’s flowing over! It’s abounding! This is how we’re meant to live in our land of motherhood. It’s a land of flowing and flourishing, gushing and giving. It’s a picture of God’s generous heart.
I love these lines about God Himself:
He might have doled His blossoms out quite grudgingly,
He might have used His sunset gold so sparingly,
He might have put but one wee star in all the sky,
But since He gave so lavishly, why should not I?
That’s the attitude that God wants us to have in this land of motherhood.
Now, the phrase, it is flowing, “overflowing with milk and honey.” So, in our next session, next week, we’re going to find out how we can overflow with milk and with honey. What does it all mean? We’ll look into that next session.
Shall we pray?
“Dear Father, we come to You in the Name of Jesus, thanking You that You’ve given Your Word to show us Your ways. Thank You, Lord, for bringing us into a large land. Thank You for bringing us into a land that flows with milk and honey.
“Oh, God, You’re such a good God, such a big God. Lord, Your purposes for us are not tiny. They are so large, and so encompassing. Lord, they’re not even just for today and our mothering today, but they go into the generations. It goes into eternity.
“Lord, I pray that You will, Lord, enlarge my thinking. Enlarge my heart. I pray for all of us, Lord. Each one who is listening, enlarge their minds, to come into sync with Your thinking. Lord, Your thinking is so far beyond our thinking.
“Take us, Lord, up from this little, miserly thinking, Lord, that’s so tiny and little, when You’ve got this big land, and this big purpose, and this big vision for us, Lord. Help us to see as You see, oh God, and embrace this large land, this beautiful, abounding, and flowing land that You have given to us.
“I ask it in the Name of Jesus, and I pray Your blessing, the blessing, oh God, of Your joy, and Your peace, and most of all, Your precious presence, to be with every mother, every grandmother, every daughter listening today. Let them bask in Your presence, in Your truth, and in all that You have for them. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org
Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
If you have a moment, it would be lovely if you could email a little thank you letter to Darlene. She sacrifices much of her time to transcribe these podcasts for you and I know it would encourage her to know that you are blessed by her hard work. Thanks so much
P.S. Here is an acrostic about the LARGE land of motherhood which God has given to you:
L Learning more about the land each day
A Appropriating more of the land God has given to me
(Proverbs 4:18).
R Reveling in the largeness of the land God has given to me
G Greeting each new day with vision and purpose
E Enlarging and growing our family
L Laughing in the face of challenges and difficulties
A Always abounding in my career of motherhood
N Never giving up but always pressing on
D Developing new ways to bless my home and family
God gave to Solomon “LARGENESS OF HEART” (1 Kings 4:29). Pray that God will give largeness of heart to you too.