PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 16 – Building an Exciting Home, No. 4
Episode 16: Building an Exciting Home, No. 4
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
We continue the series of BUILDING AN EXCITING HOME. We continue to talk about making your home...
- A PRAYER CENTER – impacting the world from your dining room table.
- A CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT CENTER/PLAY CENTER – teaching your children how to play creatively.
- A SOCIAL CENTER – making functions happen in your home.
- AN EATING CENTER – making every meal a love affair.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: May the blessing of God fall richly on your home today. We're continuing to speak about point number six, on making your home a home an exciting home. Point number six is the home is a prayer center. We've already talked about it, but we want to tell you a little more about praying in your home. I think it is so important.
We talked last week about even having a prayer meeting in your home. But of course, you can't have a prayer meeting every day as you pray with your family. I trust that you do seek to pray with your children every morning and every evening, because this is the precedent, the principle that God gave us, the Morning and Evening principle.
One of the things I find that really blesses our home in praying is our prayer boxes. Some of you may have heard me speak about prayer boxes, and I have written in Above Rubies about prayer boxes. I wonder if you have ever made a prayer box? Well, I'll tell you about it again. Maybe this time you will make one.
When I was raising our children, I started out with making a family prayer box. You always start little. I just got hold of a little box, and made it pretty, and wrote on it, “Our Family Prayer Box.” I wrote cards, and wrote the names of each of the children, Mommy and Daddy, grandparents, aunties and uncles, and cousins. And so, when it came time to pray, we would pass the box around, and children could take out a name.
That gave them someone specific to pray for, because, especially little children, they become very insular in their prayers. They often end up praying, “Dear Jesus, give us a good day tomorrow, and give us a good night sleep tonight. Amen.”
But we are the ones who teach them to pray. We have to teach them how to enlarge their prayers. So now they've got someone specific to pray for. It may be an auntie or uncle that they haven't really been praying for. Or maybe a sibling who they've just been quarreling with, and now they have to pray for them. It's so important that we pray for one another as a family.
So, we continue to have this prayer box in our home all these years later. This prayer box we use every morning and every evening. We always use our family prayer box. Now it has so many more names in it today, because our family has grown and grown and grown.
It's not only our children, but their spouses, and their children, and then their children. So, this box is packed full.
But we cannot be insular. So, we had other prayer boxes. I started out, a way back, with our World-Changing Prayer Box, and put in that cards of other people we were praying for, missionaries, people who were in need, and so on.
Now we actually have in our home nine prayer boxes currently. So, what we do, we don't use them all every morning and every evening. Otherwise we'd be the whole day praying. Oh, that would be good, but we have other things to do. We always use our family prayer box, and we add one other prayer box. We take turns with our other prayer boxes.
Some of the other prayers boxes we had, of course, we still have our World-Changing Prayer Box, with the needs of all kinds of current things that are happening in the world that we need to pray about.
We have our Persecuted Christians Prayer Box. I believe this is so important. In fact, dear ladies, I believe we all need to have this prayer box in our home, because Hebrews 13:3 tells us that we are to pray for those who are being persecuted.
We're meant to pray for those in prison as though we were in prison with them, as though we were feeling the pain of the torture in our own bodies. We're to really feel what they are going through, and to cry out to God for them. I find this just so important.
In fact, I often feel, as we're praying for the persecuted church, that if I was being persecuted, I would be so longing that someone was praying for me. I find it such a privilege to pray for them. I know that we often can't really feel the pain and torture they're going through.
I remember, some time back, Serene really challenged me. My daughter Serene, they are in the process of continuing to build their home. She was coming down a ladder from their second story. She had a long skirt on. Somehow it got tangled and she fell, the ladder fell, and she landed on her back. It could have been very, very serious. Praise God, she was fine, but she was in utter pain as she fell, as you can imagine.
Instead of just crying out for herself, she cried out for the persecuted church! She said, “Mum, I feel so terrible when we're praying for the persecuted church, because I feel so great in my body, and there's nothing wrong with me. How do I feel their pain?”
She said, “When I felt this torturous pain going through my body, I immediately felt, oh, I can pray and intercede for the persecuted church!” So, she began to cry out for them.
I felt quite challenged about that. It was a few weeks later that I myself fell! I broke three of my ribs. Now, you know, ribs, they just have to heal. But they can be very painful at the beginning. So, every time I was in this pain, I also was challenged by Serene, and began to pray for the persecuted church.
But, don't wait till you're feeling pain. Get a box. There are so many needs. You can get on the Internet and find out. There are sixty different countries that are persecuting Christians. North Korea is one of the most persecuting nations of the world. We need to pray for them.
We also have our Israel Prayer Box. Once again, this is not really an option, because we are commanded to pray for Jerusalem, to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We are commanded to pray, to stand on the walls and pray, and to give God no rest until He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62:6, 7). There are so many needs for Israel, as she is surrounded by her enemies that want to throw her into the sea. So, find out all you can. Fill your box with cards to pray for Israel!
We have our National Prayer Box. We actually don't have a prayer box for this one. We have a Liberty Bell. A dear friend of ours, who has often stayed with us on occasions, he came back one time, and he had a little miniature Liberty Bell. He said, “This is what you need, Nancy, for your praying for the nation!”
So, we use that, and we have that packed with the needs for our nation, and our president and his family, our vice-president, our senators, our congressmen, our specific leaders, and those who are notably involved in the nation. We have all their names on cards. We pray for them, and the issues that we are facing in our nation.
Once again, because we usually record on Wednesdays, and Wednesday night is our prayer meeting, we'll also be praying tonight for the nation again.
Actually, just recently, I was reading through the Psalms and was noticing how often David was praying about his enemies. David had so many enemies. Many of his prayers are against his enemies, and they're pretty powerful prayers. As I was reading them, I thought, “Wow, these are prayers that we can pray for our President Trump, because he has so many enemies.”
I don't think there has ever been a president that has so many hating him, and slandering him, and wanting to impeach him, and coming against him. So, I began to write them all out. I now have 50 different prayers that David prayed.
Such prayers as, “Oh God, save him from the nets that they are trying to catch him. Cause his enemies to fall into that same net themselves. Oh God, save him from their slandering tongues,” and so on. There's all these that David prayed, and they're Biblical prayers, not just made up.
Every day now we will pray some of those prayers against Trump's enemies. Now, I have them all on my computer. So, if you are interested, you're welcome to just email me, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and I'll be happy to send them to you, so you can pray too.
We also have our Marriage and Family Restoration Prayer Box. Many marriages that are falling apart, we're praying for them. We have our Salvation and Healing Prayer Box for those who need healing, those who need salvation.
We have our Countries and Capitals Prayer Box, all the most strategic countries and capitals in the world. We have the capital and the nation listed and we have the prime minister or president named on the back. We pray for them.
Then the ninth prayer box we have is our Above Rubies Prayer Box, where we pray for this magazine as it goes out into the nations, all our bases around the world. Above Rubies goes to well over 100 countries of the world, and we have many bases who send it out to all these different countries. We pray for our workers, we pray for their families, we pray for their marriages, that they will be blessed and healed as they receive the magazine.
So, these are our nine current prayer boxes. Now, you may not want nine boxes, but do you think you could start with one or two? Or two or three? You will be amazed at how it will enable your children to get into prayer! To pray for things that they've never prayed for before, to pray for issues that they would never think about praying. You're leading them out into realms of prayer. You're leading them to pray for nations. You're giving them a heart for the world. You are becoming a world-changing family!
In fact, dear precious mothers, as you begin to pray for the needs of the world, you'll become a world-changing family. Even though you may be just praying, hidden away in your little home . . . here we are, out in the woods, on the hilltop. Who knows what we're doing in our home? Nobody needs to know, but God knows, He hears our cries.
We are impacting nations of the world. I often feel as we're praying, as we pray for nations that we cannot even get into (if we were to preach the Gospel in those nations, our heads would be chopped off), yet as we pray, God is moving. We're hearing stories of many, many people coming to the Lord in Iran, through dreams and visions. This is happening, because God's people are praying! We impact nations that we cannot even move into, by praying in our homes!
Oh, just get a vision, dear precious mother, for what you can do, how powerful your family can be!
I love that Scripture in Leviticus, chapter 26. It's talking here in the context of war. In verses seven and eight it says: “And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred. And a hundred of you shall put ten thousand aflight, And your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.”
Now, precious ladies, what is the greatest way we fight our enemies? We aren't fighting flesh and blood. We are fighting principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world. We fight them in prayer and in intercession. Here it tells us that five of you can put 100 enemies to flight! Maybe you are a family, husband and wife, maybe only three children yet. That's five. As you pray together, you can put 100 enemies to flight.
The Bible says that 100 of you, my, that's just, how many, 20 families of five each, can put 10,000 to flight! Just imagine, families praying together all across this nation!
Oh, will you be part of this revival, part of bringing revival back to this nation? You can be part of it, if you begin to pray as a family.
What about families, some of you have six children, seven, eight, nine, ten children. What a prayer meeting you can have around your table, every morning and every evening, impacting this nation, impacting the nations of the world! Because there is no greater way that you can impact them. Oh, take up the challenge!
I am also always convicted by that Scripture in Jeremiah. Let me turn to it. Jeremiah chapter 10: 25: “Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families . . .” I wonder what families? It goes on to say: “and upon the families that call not on Thy Name.” What a challenging Scripture.
This is Scripture, not me, ladies, I'm not saying it, but this Scripture is saying that the families who do not call upon the Lord, that they might as well be heathen! God equates them along with the heathen if they do not call upon the Name of the Lord.
If we say that we belong to God, if we confess that we are believers, we will be those who call upon the Name of the Lord. We'll be those who cry out to God on behalf of the nation, on behalf of the families and the marriages that are weakening in this nation, on behalf of the nations of the world, because God Himself beholds the nations of the world. He looks upon them, and He dwells in us.
Jesus is at the right hand of God, interceding on our behalf 24-7. He wants to intercede through us also. So, let’s do it, amen? Let's make our homes praying homes. Amen?
Well, let's move on.
7. OUR HOMES ARE CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT CENTERS OR PLAY CENTERS
You don't have to send your child to a day care, or a play center, or somewhere to entertain them. We can do that in our homes. Make your home a play center for your little ones. You can be so creative.
I used to love to make homemade play dough for my children. They would spend hours making things out of homemade play dough. And then I would find a sort of a tub with water in it. You can do that outside. Put toys in it, and things that they could play with. Let them play in the water.
There are so many simple little things that we can do with our little children. We don't have to be taking them out to entertain them. We can be creative in our homes. There are so many creative things that we can do and make for our children. Plus, we don't even have to always be giving them things to be creative. We can let them be creative.
I think that play is a very important thing for children, and especially allowing them to be creative. Often too many toys take away that creativity. Did you know we don't need a lot of toys? Often you go into homes, and there are so many plastic toys around. Children get bored with them very soon anyway.
It's a wonderful thing to just let our children be creative. Often when my children were little, I would just let them play. They would rearrange my whole home. They would get the chairs, they would make them into trains and buses. They would get my sofas and chairs and old blankets and eiderdowns that I would keep. They would take them and make huts. Then they'd want me of course, to make little plates of food for them to eat inside their huts and their houses they made.
Often, they would take all morning to make this, and play this creative game. Well, often they wouldn't play it. They'd spend all their time making it and doing it, and then, when they'd got it ready, well, they were finished. The great thing they enjoyed was actually making it and creating it.
Children love to create. Give them opportunity to create by themselves. You'll find that they will grow up to be creative! If we just have to entertain them with little toys, and always be giving them something that we give them to do, we're not allowing them to think, or be creative for themselves. I think this is so important.
Of course, you'll be a reading mother. We did a podcast on reading to our children. That's just so important.
All right, let's move on. Trying to move on a little more quickly
8. WE MAKE OUR HOME A SOCIAL CENTER
Now, many people say that the reason they send their children off to a school is because they want them to have “socialization.”
Oh my. What a weak excuse to send your children to a place where they're going to hear opposite things that you believe, to a place that is no longer a place where they can have prayer, where they can no longer have God's Word, where they will no longer hear truth that you have convictions about as a believer. They will hear everything the opposite. Their “socialization,” dear mothers, will be the very opposite kind of socialization that you want them to have!
Because they will mix with peers who will be a negative influence on them. This is one of the worst things about the public school, the socialization. It's the peers that they mix with! They learn a whole different culture than the godly culture we are seeking to give them.
Now, of course, the day is coming when they're going to go out and live among this ungodly culture, but our little ones are not ready for that yet. We are getting them stronger. We are getting them ready to live in this ungodly culture.
In our homes, when you are homeschooling your children, and especially if you have many children, there's loads of socialization. Oh goodness me, and it's the socialization that is greater, because it's varied in ages. It is very important for children to be able to associate with children who are older, and then reach out and play with children who are younger, and to be able to relate to children of all ages, rather than just their peers of their own age.
Sadly, today, as young people grow, they only know how to mix with their own age group. We gear it to that in the public schools. Then we go to church, and we gear it to that again. They go off to Sunday school and children's classes, all in the same age group. They'll constantly be pushing in that age group that is the same as they are.
God wants us to be diversified. He wants them to be able to speak and converse intelligently, even with older people. So, make your home a social center.
Now, if you only have a small family, maybe God has only blessed you with a little family, because the number of our children is not the number we decide, it's the number God gives us. Sometimes God only gives one or two children. Other times He gives many. It's God's prerogative.
But you can do so many things in your home. This is where home is so exciting! Oh, if you have teens in your home, make opportunities to have other godly teens come in and do special things. We, of course, up here on the hilltop, we just have parties all the time, because we have a number of families all around us. There are so many cousins, they all meet together for parties, every birthday party. There's so much socialization. They're just overloaded with socialization.
But you can make things happen. I'm a great believer in making things happen. And not just for the age groups of your children, but to reach out to others. What about thinking of putting on a luncheon for a few widows that you know? Get your children to help you with the cooking. When these precious widows come into your home, teach your children how to bless them and minister to them, and make them feel at home, and wait on them.
Then you can get them to prepare, maybe they can sing, or play musical instruments. They can recite a poem. You can put on a concert for them after the meal. Such a beautiful thing you can do in your home! You can do it for widows, you can do it for other elderly people. It's a beautiful thing for your children to learn how to reach out to older people in hospitality.
You can do it for a single mom, or a couple of single moms. Bring them into your home. You can gather with other homeschoolers. You can open your doors in hospitality. Oh, you can think of all kinds of ideas. Be creative and realize that you can make your home a most wonderful socialization center, a godly social center, so that your children are in a godly environment, but still receiving all the socialization they will ever need.
9. OUR HOME IS AN EATING CENTER
Well, you know that, don't you, dear precious mother? So much time of our mothering is spent in the kitchen, where we're cooking meals. Breakfast, lunch, and supper, and often in between. We always seem to be preparing meals, always seem to be cooking. Do you sometimes complain about it, grumble, “Oh no, not another meal to get!”
Can I encourage you? Don't despise this part of your mothering. Embrace it with all your heart, for this is very much part of who you are as a mother.
We go to a Scripture in 1 Timothy 5:10. In the context, it's talking about widows. There were very many widows in the church, and Timothy didn't know what to do with them all. So, he wrote to Paul about it. Paul wrote back, and he said: “Timothy, this is what I want you to do. If these widows have children or grandchildren, they have the responsibility to provide for them, and to care for them. However, if they don't have any children or grandchildren, the widows who are truly widows, who are 60 years of age or older, and have lived a certain lifestyle, I want you to look after them.”
Ok, let's have a look at the lifestyle. Because when we read this lifestyle, we realize this is God's ultimate plan for women. The women, the mothers who have embraced this lifestyle, as they get older, maybe their children are no longer with them. There's no one to look after them. God says, “I'll look after you by My people, because you have lived the way I intended.”
Now, God lists some things, and He lists them all in order. God's Word is very, very specific, and He always lists first things first. I'm turning to 1 Timothy 5:10. It says: “Well reported of for good works.” That word is a word that means “beautiful works.”
The first one is, “if she has brought up children,” then goes on to say, “if she has lodged strangers,” if she's opened her doors in hospitality. “If she has washed the saints' feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work,” I want to reward that woman, and I want you to care and provide for her, he told Timothy.
Now, let's look at the first one, “if she has brought up children.” That word, “brought up,” is teknotrepheo. Two words, tecknon, meaning “child,” and trepho, “to nourish with food, to pamper with food, to feed.” Isn't that interesting? The word, “to bring up children,” has everything to do with food! It means to feed them!
It starts off with nursing your little babe at the breast. But then it doesn't stop there. We keep feeding them, and feeding them, and feeding them. The bigger they get, the more we have to feed them! So lovely ladies, don't despise this ministry. This is part of your mothering ministry. Embrace it.
I was so blessed, and I'll just end with this little story. One time I was watching a movie called Babette's Feast. You may have watched it. If you haven't, get a hold of it. When I watched it, it was black and white, subtitled. It's quite slow moving. But now it's in color, and it's also in English.
It is an amazing story, talking about a woman who was an amazing chef, although the people she was living with didn't know it. One day she cooked this incredible meal. She used her whole inheritance on cooking this meal. It just brought miracles to this community. It was just amazing, how this meal changed the lives of these people, who'd become very grumbling and irritable.
There was a person at that meal, and he had been to this famous cafe in France, where there was an incredible chef. He got up and gave a speech about this chef, because this meal reminded him of the meals that he would eat at that place. He didn't know it was the very woman.
He said these words, in fact, on the movie, it just said that this woman knew how to make every meal into a love affair. When I heard those words, I grabbed a hold of them. They affected me. From that time, I have always taken those words, and made that my own goal. To make every meal, every meal I put on my table, to make it a love affair for the people I am serving. For my husband, or whoever I have around my table.
But then I got hold of the book, and this is the exact quote: “This woman is now turning a dinner into a kind of love affair, into a love affair of the noble and romantic category, in which one no longer distinguishes between bodily and spiritual appetite, or satiety.”
So, a meal is far more than just eating to appease your bodily appetites. It's also to appease that hunger in your soul, in your spirit. That's the whole concept of the meal.
That's the concept I love to share with women and remind you about today, dear mother, that when you cook a meal, it's not just to put some food on for your children to appease their hunger. No, it's more than that. You're going to minister to their bodies, but also their souls, and their spirits.
When you put a meal on the table, it's to feed bodies, souls, and spirits. That's when it becomes a love affair. When you're preparing the meal, you're thinking more than just what you're going to prepare. Although you think about that, and how you can make it nutritious, how you can make it appealing, how you can just make it so appetizing. You're also thinking about what you're going to talk about at the meal table. You're thinking about the ultimate moment of when you will open God's Word, and you'll feed the Spirit. So, it's a love affair of the whole man. It becomes such a blessing.
But time is up again. Let me pray.
“Father, I pray that You will remind me again, and remind every precious mother, wife, and daughter listening of the power of a meal, and how every meal can be a love affair. Save us, Oh God, from just living in the grind. Save us from living in the drudgery. Take us to living in the delight, and making our meals a delight, making our homes a delight. Oh God, just take us out of the ordinary, into the extraordinary. Oh God, to live not just in the mundane, but in, Lord, the miraculous, in all the glory of what You have for us in our homes. Bless every mother again today. In Jesus' Name, Amen.