PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 259: It’s Time to Elevate Home and Family, Part 2
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 259: It’s Time to Elevate Home and Family, Part 2
My husband, Colin, is with me again today. We continue talking about God's VALUE on the home and marriage. How can we make our homes a little taste of Heaven on earth? How can we create a pleasant and happy atmosphere? How can we eliminate prickly reactions between husband and wife and amongst the children?
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello! Here I am again! And today, I have my lovely husband with me again, and we’re going to continue talking about elevating the home and the family in our society today. It is time for it to be elevated back to where God placed it. Home, marriage, and family were the very first institutions that God ordained in the very beginning. God hasn’t changed His plans. Family is the way He planned for us to live. He is the One who planned and designed the home.
We talked last week of how God created the first home. He was the first home designer, the first home builder. He prepared that home before He created the mother so that He would have the home ready for her when she began her life in this world.
I think too, of another passage in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29. This is speaking about the children of Israel, well, actually the Jewish people. Judah was the tribes of Judah and Benjamin who were sent off to Babylon. God had to send them out of the land because of their sin. The ten tribes had already been vomited out of the land.
Now these tribes were sent into Babylon. They were captives in Babylon. They were away from their beloved land of Israel. The word of the Lord comes to them through the prophet Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 29:4, it says: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon.”
And then comes the message. The Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, was giving this message to His people through Jeremiah. The first thing He says, it’s unbelievable! You would think, “Here they are, captives in Babylon, in this very deceived place, full of confusion, and everything against everything they believed! You would think God would have some great words to give to them!”
And what does He say? The first thing He says: “Build houses, and live in them.” That was the first thing on God’s heart! You see, that was the first thing He did after He created man. And now, when His people are there in Babylon, He says, “I want you to build houses,” because God wants us to live in homes, no matter where we are.
It was as though He was saying, “Look, here you are. You’re captives in Babylon. But that does not change My Word. That does not change My plan. I want you to keep doing what I have told you to do from the beginning. Build houses, and live in them. Yes, live in them.” Houses are meant to be dwelt in, lived in.
We build these beautiful houses, and what happens today? In fact, the more expensive and amazing the house is (and we can go to some areas here in Nashville where some of these housing divisions that are all gated communities. You go in, and there are all the most incredible houses. The smallest would be 10,000 square feet! And yet, it’s in those huge homes where nothing’s happening! They’re vacated all throughout the day. They built this beautiful home, but nobody’s really living in it. They’re just there to bed down for the night).
No, homes are to be lived in.
Colin: They all go out to restaurants.
Nancy: Yes, they’re going out. Yes, because they can afford their beautiful homes. They can afford to go out to restaurants every night for a meal. Here in Franklin and Nashville, wow, there is so much affluence here. On the odd occasion, Colin and I might go out to a restaurant. There’s always such a long wait.
In fact, just last weekend, our grandson Arrow, he said, “Nana and Granddad, I want to take you out for a meal!” Every now and then he will do that. It’s so lovely of him. He loves to get dressed up, and he will get dressed up in his suit and bowtie. He will say to us, “Nana and Granddad, make sure you get dressed up!” He loves us to get dressed up when we go out.
But this time, he left it a bit late to book a restaurant. He booked one, and actually when we realized that it was too far away, we said, “Oh, that’s too far away, Arrow.” He was so busy, trying to suddenly book another one. Eventually, we got into one, waiting about 45 minutes or so. But really, to get into one, you’ve got to book a week ahead. This is Franklin. This is Nashville. Everybody is eating out.
You see, they’re not even in their homes. The home, yes, it’s all right to go out for special occasions, but really, the home is the place for day-to-day eating and sitting around the table. Homes are meant to be lived in. I’m thinking, it’s so sad that homes are an empty place, when they’re meant to be HAPPENING places.
I believe the home is where everything is meant to happen, from birth to death. In fact, the home is a birthing center, a mothering and nurturing center, a training and education center, a praise and worship center, a prayer center, a hospitality center, a counseling center, a health center, an industry center, a garden center, and a convalescent center. And that’s just the beginning of everything that happens in the home! It’s meant to be a HAPPENING place!
But isn’t that interesting, that the first thing God told His people was to build houses and live in them.
And guess what the second thing was! Wow! “Plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them.” So practical! Our God is a practical God. That’s just what we are doing at the moment.
Colin: Right.
Nancy: We are planting our garden. Well, Colin is getting out there and rotary hoeing it all up. We are so late. We’ve been so busy. Oh, we’ve had so much on our plate, and here we are. I usually have my garden in by April. Now it’s May, and we’re just starting. It gets a little more challenging for us each year as we are getting older, and I think even busier. But we know we’ve got to do it, so we’re out there, just making it happen.
Colin: Yeah. Yes, it is a bit of a challenge, truly, but it’s such a joy actually, and such a sense of satisfaction, I find, to see those plants getting put in the ground. My wife plants everything. I get the ground ready for her. When you go back out there again and see what you’ve done, and see those plants growing up, it’s great fun. It’s really good.
Nancy: Yes. I’ve just put in my 100 tomato plants!
Colin: 100 tomato plants!
Nancy: Yes, I always plant never less than 100 “To-mah-toes.” That’s our pronunciation. I know you say “to-may-toe,” ha. But not one tomato is ever wasted, because, of course, there’s family and friends around. Also, every single tomato that’s left over, I will either preserve or freeze.
I usually do it very simply. I usually just whiz them all up into a puree, just a tomato puree. Some I will freeze. Others I will preserve in jars. It’s there for the winter. I’m constantly using them every week, in foods, in casseroles, and it’s just so wonderful to have. But I’ve got those in. Now I’ve got loads more to plant yet. If we weren’t doing this podcast, we would be out in the garden!
Colin: We’ll probably get some time even yet, today.
Nancy: Yes, we’ll have to get out there again today sometime. Of course, that’s another reason why I hadn’t got out. I was so busy, with my head down to the ground, preparing the new magazine. When I’m doing that, that takes a lot of time. I have to put my head down, and I can’t do anything else.
But it’s interesting there, those were the first two things God said. He told them seven things. The third one was to take wives and beget sons and daughters. Have children. The fourth thing was to, OK, when those children grow, give your daughters to husbands, and take wives for your sons. Wow! That’s pretty proactive, isn’t it? Have grandchildren!
Today, it seems that parents with grown children don’t even seem to be caring about the next generation. We’re meant to be proactive! We’re meant to be giving our daughters to sons, and taking sons for our daughters so that we will have grandchildren! This is God’s heart! And He said this word to them when they were captives! They weren’t living free in their beloved land! But no, God never changes His plans, no matter what our circumstances.
Then the fifth thing was: “Do not diminish.” Oh, God never wants His people to diminish. He wants them to flourish, to increase, and to multiply.
Number six, He said, I want you to pray for the city in which you live. That’s another command. Do you do that?
And the seventh was, don’t be deceived. It’s interesting. He didn’t say, “Don’t be deceived by the Babylonians.” Well, they’d sure get deceived if they abided by their society. But He knew they would not be tempted, really. It was so foreign to them. But He said, “Don’t be deceived by the prophets that are in the midst of you.”
Yes, often we have to watch even what we’re being preached at church. Is it truly from the Word of God? There are so many churches today, and pastors, who would advocate limiting the family of God. That’s coming from the very heart of the church and it’s totally against God’s Word. In fact, against the very first word He gave to man when He created them: “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue and take dominion.” This was God’s word, and His commission from the very beginning!
Colin: We are, as Christians, as believers in the Word of God, we really need to come back to this truth, because perhaps the unbelievers, the people who don’t believe in the Word of God and have very little understanding of it, have no foundation for their mindset relating to this. But even then, it’s very, very important for us, as Christians, to come back to this amazing truth. Why should a mother be at home when she’s got nobody to look after?
Nancy: I know.
Colin: The one or two children, and then they grow up so quickly. Then she’s out in the workforce again. But I think it’s a wonderful thing to have the rapport and the blessing. Every little baby that comes in has the potential to grow up and to be another contributor to the discussion, the fellowship, the growing up together, encouraging one another. Somebody else that we can spend on our love on, and care for one another.
It’s all this one-anothering thing, and it happens, not just for the church where all the families get together, but in our own homes. They’re like smaller churches in a sense, right there in your own home. Fellowship is incredible. Very important.
Nancy: Yes. There is the lifestyle of family life. I think that is missing in many homes today where the homes are empty during the day. Many times, they’ll be going out to eat. They have lost the sense of family-togethering lifestyles.
Colin: And to add to that too, if you’re sending your children off to school, they get used to just being with their friends and the people of their same age. But it’s a wonderful thing, as we’re now grandparents and great-grandparents, where we can have the joy of being able to relate to children that have been brought up in their homes and they have no problem in relating to adults.
We can have great fun and great rapport with one another, great fellowship with one another. It doesn’t matter whether they’re young, or whether they’re teenagers, or wherever they are . . . they’re still very, very interested and happy to talk to us because of the way they were brought up in that environment.
A TOGETHERING FAMILY
Nancy: Oh, yes. And I think, talking about the home, we should talk more about the atmosphere of the home. Because we, as the parents, we are building the home. The home, I’m not talking about the structure, I’m talking about the family-ness of the home. We have to build that. We’ve got to make family togetherness happen. I think this is something that is very important.
As a mother, even as a father, we are thinking about how can we make this family a togethering family? I think a very good thing to have is to ask this question about every decision that we are making in our family life. We’re making decisions all the time, little ones, bigger ones, so it doesn’t matter whether it’s a little one, or a big one.
We should ask ourselves this question: is what we are going to do, or what we are currently doing, is it strengthening the family? Is it keeping us together? Or is it fragmenting the family? Is this thing we’re thinking about doing, is it going to fragment the family? If it’s going to fragment the family, it’s the wrong decision. Don’t do it! If it’s going to strengthen the family, if it’s going to bring us closer together and cement us together, OK, do it! That’s a simple question which will help us to really make strong families.
Colin: But coming back to the whole thing of creating an atmosphere in your family home, it’s so important, I believe, I think it’s really good for husbands and wives to be very much in love with each other, and to be encouraging one another, and to let the children know, that the children without a shadow of a doubt, do not have to question, do Mom and Dad really love each other?
Because they can see it. They can feel it. They’re living with it. They’re living with endearing conversations. They hear Mom and Dad talking to each other, and laughing together, and having fun together, and rejoicing together. It’s such a security for the children. I think it’s very imperative that children grow up in the midst of that. I put out an article. Can I share about that article a little bit?
Nancy: Oh, yes! That’s true. Well, actually, in preparing this current magazine that’s now with the design artist, I asked my husband if he would write this article, because when we were at the Above Rubies Retreat down in Panama, he spoke about this one night. He spoke about hedgehogs.
Now, in America, a lot of people are not familiar with hedgehogs because they’re not native to America. They are native, well, no, they’re not even native to New Zealand, where we come from, but we have loads of hedgehogs down there, because they were brought in. They are native to Europe, and other countries, but although they’re not native to us in New Zealand, we would often see hedgehogs around. So, you tell everybody about them, Darling.
Colin: Yes, well, they’re cute creatures, really. They’re nocturnal, but you do see them sometimes during the day.
Nancy: Yes, we’d often see them around.
Colin: They’re not very big, probably, I don’t know just how to describe it. They’re probably about one or two pounds in weight, maybe three pounds. But they’re interesting creatures because when you threaten them, or they feel danger around, they roll themselves up into a little ball, a ball, I would suppose about half the size of a football. Then they poke out their spines, which become very, very bristly.
Nancy: They’ve got spines over them, but when they feel threatened, then they roll into the ball, and they all stick out, all in a ball of 5,000 to 7,000 spines!
Colin: Yes, 5,000 to 7,000! It’s hard to believe that, but it’s true.
Nancy: And so quickly! No one can touch them!
Colin: You can be tempted to pick them up, thinking that they could be soft. But they’re not!
Nancy: They’re sharp!
Colin: They’re sharp! Boy, you’d get yourself damaged. You’ve got to be careful around hedgehogs.
Nancy: My husband says, “Oh, are you being a hedgehog in your home?”
Colin: There was lady who came and visited us and spoke to me during our lunch break, or something like that. She said, “My husband and I are Mr. and Mrs. Hedgehog. Can you give us some counsel?” So, we did.
I pray that the hedgehog spirit will be gone from that home, because it’s terrible when children are being brought up amongst parents that are Mr. and Mrs. Hedgehog. They’re pricking each other all the time instead of giving endearing words, and endearing attitudes that are loving moods. They have this antagonistic attitude toward each other, always putting each other down, and always sparking at each other.
It’s not good for the family to be brought up in that environment at all. In fact, it will create a whole home of hedgehogs. As I said in the article, I would not like to be in that home! I don’t want to be married to a hedgehog, and I’m sure my wife wouldn’t want me to be a hedgehog.
Nancy: It’s interesting that some people even like to have pet hedgehogs. I don’t think I’d like to have a hedgehog as a pet.
Colin: No.
Nancy: But the interesting thing is that many marriages, and many husbands and wives and fathers and mothers, they actually make a pet of the hedgehog spirit. They make it their pet, because that’s how they react.
Often a husband can say something sort of nasty, and therefore immediately, if you have that hedgehog spirit, you’ll roll up into your ball, and all your sharp reactions will come sparking out! That’s so natural, actually. That’s what we do in the flesh, isn’t it? I think to begin to create a beautiful atmosphere in our marriage, in our homes, the biggest thing is learning not to give into that flesh, that natural fleshly reaction, but to yield to the Holy Spirit.
Colin: Yes, I wrote in this article, I said, “The hedgehog nature is probably one of the main reasons why so many marriages are destroyed and families break up. No one should feel they have to walk around their spouse on eggshells. Just one wrong word, and it’s another world war. May God have mercy on us! This is insane!”
That’s true. Where has the new nature that Christ has given us gone? We have a new nature living within us. That’s the most important aspect of what I was writing in this article. Most Christians would say, “I would never deny Christ, not even if I was placed before a firing squad!” And yet in everyday lives, they lock up the new nature, or the new nature is not available.
It’s there. We’ve invited Jesus Christ to come into our lives, but we deny Him from one another. I think that’s tragic, and it’s very serious. Jesus said that if you deny Me before man, or deny Me before your family, you are denying Him. He said: “I will deny you before My Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 10:33).
We might take it to being our witness to the world, but what about our witness to our family, and to our spouses? We must not be denying Christ. We need to come to this understanding that we have to, it’s important, for the sake of the family, for the sake of our marriages, and for the joy in the atmosphere of the home, to have the home the place of a love experience.
Having a meal together is a love experience. Just being together as a loving family, and letting the new nature . . . we need to pray that God’s new nature will be manifested in our daily lives, and become part of the family atmosphere. Otherwise, we’re denying Him.
Nancy: Yes. But how do we do this? I think it’s something we learn to do. Of course, we have to have understanding first, that this is the truth of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).When we are born again, we receive the new nature, the Christ-nature. That old nature is still there, and we can yield to that, or we can yield to the new nature, to the life of Jesus that dwells in us, that life which is love, kindness, sweetness, everything that is of Christ.
But it’s learning to yield, and I think it’s something that becomes a habit. Often you blow it so many times, but by God’s grace, and you’re praying about it, and you seek to yield to that new nature, to the life of Christ that lives within you, it becomes more and more a habit of your life. It becomes more your lifestyle. It becomes more habitual. But you’ve got to begin to do that. You’ve got to stop this yielding to this old nature, because it’s ugly, and it’s horrible. It brings such a terrible spirit into the home.
Colin: It could actually happen even while you’re going to church. You’re going to church to worship God, but on the way to church, arguing with each other. The children are hearing it. It’s become so much a problem in the home, and then it goes off into everything that we’re doing together. We’re arguing.
It’s the old nature that needs to be crucified with Christ. We have to pause, I think, before we respond to something whereby we would normally respond in a prickly way, or a piercing way. We need to take stock of where we’re going here. The Scripture says in Proverbs 15:1: “A soft answer turns away wrath.” But a harsh word, a harsh comeback even, will stir up more anger, will stir up anger, and how true that is!
That’s the old nature, that angry thing, or that thing which is going to create a little more argument. We have to pause before we respond, and say, “Is this going to help, or this going to make matters worse?” We have to weigh what we’re thinking we’re going to retort with. We must bring forth a spirit of . . . We’ve got used to doing this, and we have to break the habit. Because it becomes a habit in the home. It is so sad. Even in Christian homes, I think it’s probably just as bad as the world!
Nancy: Yes. And everything becomes a habit. Often, it’s just because we do not know the truth.
Galatians 2:20. I learned this Scripture as a child. The truth is so powerful. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
The truth is that my old man has been crucified with Christ. It’s dead. I’ve got to see it as dead, and look upon it as dead, and act upon it as dead. So, when I am tempted to roll up into a ball and shoot out those hedgehog sharp reactions, I have to realize, I’m dead to that. I’m dead to that. And I yield to Christ.
“Thank You, Lord Jesus, that You dwell in me. Thank You for Your life. Thank You for Your love. Thank You for Your sweetness. Thank You, Lord, for Your words that I can pour out.” We yield to Christ, Who dwells within us. Amen!
Colin: You’d think sometimes why people want to get out of the home. It’s because there is so much argument going on. There are so many nasty words getting spoken, and a lot of children also want to leave home.
Nancy: But it starts with husband and wife.
Colin: Yes.
Nancy: It starts with us.
Colin: Both the husband and the wife. I heard you saying this morning to somebody on the phone, how you said “a soft answer breaks the bones”. There was a young, in this particular situation, there was this hard rock that was in this man, this husband. The lady that my dear wife was talking to was encouraging her to speak softly back to him.
You know, it can be a bone or a rock within a wife, too. It can be in both, in fact, but a soft answer . . . We have to learn to speak softly, and create peace. Peace is not just something that happens without it being created. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”
Nancy: Nothing just happens. We can build the home that we want to have. We can create the marriage we want to have. We can make the family like we dream of. Or, by the way we speak, or the way we react. It comes down to our words.
I think everything on this earth is a type of the heavenly. When we read about the tabernacle in the wilderness, it was all built according to the pattern of the heavenly, the heavenly sanctuary that is right there now in the heavenly realm.
When Jesus was here, His disciples asked him, “How shall we pray?” We all know the Lord’s Prayer, but part of that prayer, Jesus said: “Pray Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”
AS IN HEAVEN, SO IN EARTH
I like the translation in Luke 11:2: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.” Very simple. “As in heaven, so in earth.” God literally wants us to have a heavenly atmosphere in our homes, just as it is in Heaven. He wants it on earth, and if we have Christ dwelling in us, it should be happening in our homes. Christian homes, and all homes, should be filled with the presence of God, because we have Christ dwelling in us.
Colin: This is the very whole understanding of the new birth. We’ve been born again. What is that new birth? The new birth is the new nature that’s been born, birthed into us. Let’s stop saying we’re born again if we’re just living in the old nature. That’s not part of the new nature. We have to let the new nature be manifested in us. It’s so important for each and every one.
I notice here how it says: “A soft tongue breaks the bones,” but it also, in Proverbs 31:26, it says, “In her tongue,” it’s in the tongue of the wife, the tongue of wisdom. In her tongue. I think it’s the Proverbs 31 woman, isn’t it?
Nancy: The tongue of the wife.
Colin: “In her tongue is the law of kindness.” The law of kindness is a law. It’s part of the new nature. It’s the law of the nature of Christ in us. We’ve been born again for this purpose. There’s no excuse for us. That’s why we need to be born again. Without the new birth, some of us can be naturally kinder than others, but that kindness wears thin so often when the trials and the storms come along, because we’re not able to meet that.
We get to the end of our own resources, a certain loving side of the old nature, perhaps. It can wear out and get thin very quickly. And then we resort to this old nature. The honeymoon’s over, and then things begin to go wrong. This is why we need to have . . . we noticed when we were speaking to Mr. and Mrs. Hedgehog . . . the husband was serving us lunch. It was a good time we had together. It was a wonderful time but I sense with the children, there was a gap. There were a few distances there. It's just a natural thing, I think, when we are being Mr. and Mrs. Hedgehog in our home, our children will be, I don’t know. They’ll be a little scary. They’ll be frustrated, and they’ll tend to be a little bit more argumentative and self-willed and out of control. This kind of thing can happen. I think it does happen. It will happen.
Nancy: Time is up, but just before we close, maybe you could tell the story of your own upbringing, and how, although you had the most wonderful father . . .
Colin: My father and mother were wonderful people. I loved my dad. However, there was a time when, every now and then . . . most days he was a very sanguine-type personality. A lot of laughter.
But it was an amazing thing, because I guess it was part of his upbringing, perhaps. His mother had died early in life. It was a sad situation. He was left basically to be brought up by his older sisters. He had a great-grandmother, of course, who was a blessing to him. My dear old uncle, my Uncle Charlie, who was his uncle too, he was in the home. Dad was related to that old pipe-smoking uncle who never got married.
But the thing about it was that dad would get into these moods from time to time. Something would trigger it. Something would happen and it was so hard to live with. I used to feel so sorry for my mother. In fact, he wouldn’t retort very much when he was in that mood. He was silent. The mood was a lie. You could feel it. It was a death experience. The whole family would feel it, and it was a hard thing for Mom to have to put up with. Moods sometimes are louder than words and that’s all to do with that old nature.
Nancy: Yes. When we were raising our children, that was something that was very important to us, to never allow our children to continue in their moods, or to get away to pout and get in a foul mood. We would never, ever allow it. Because if you allow that, that grows up with them. They take it into their marriage and it will spoil that marriage.
I am so blessed to say that our children grew up and they did not have moods. They were disciplined. They do not have moods today. Not one in our family ever, ever has a mood. But the thing is, we as parents are responsible to guide our children’s behavior, to deal with those things when they are young. One word about that, and I think it’s getting time to close. Do you want to say something about that?
YOUR NEW NATURE IS MORE THAN SUFFICIENT TO OVERCOME
Colin: Well, I think it’s a very, very great and wonderful atmosphere. Our home should be a home of good moods. There’s no excuse for bad moods. No excuses at all. We’ve been born again. No matter what the trial, no matter what the problem, no matter what difficulties we’re going through, we have a new nature that is more than sufficient to overcome that trial and overcome the difficulties that you, who are listening today, might be going through. There’s no excuse. Let’s get into the new nature!
Nancy: Of course, that new nature is filled with love and forgiveness. There’s no need to carry on with a big mood of hurt or bitterness. We cannot allow those things to just carry on. We must deal with them.
Colin: I find, especially as I’m getting older, that a lot of people can use this, “I’m getting older.” They get grouchy, and they get more negative towards people. That is also inexcusable.
Nancy: Well, Darling, I think you get sweeter as the days goes by. [laughter]
Colin: And you do too! [laughter]
Nancy: Can you pray, and pray for these precious families?
Colin:
“Lord, we come before You at the end of this podcast. We pray for all the listeners, and we pray that, oh Lord, the realization that You are living in us, the new creation that is so gracious. They wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of Your mouth.
“And Lord, we pray that, oh God, that that gracious spirit shall be in all of us who are born again, and it shall be released, and that we will begin to discover these wonderful riches, the riches that you can’t equate with dollars. It’s all to do with the blessings of the things that create an amazing atmosphere in each one of our lives. So, people will come in contact with us, and want to be with us, because they feel and sense that life-giving spirit in each and every one of us. Grant it to all these listeners, and to all of us in our families. In Jesus’s Name, amen.”
Nancy: Amen.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.