PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 52 – How Can We Change The World? - Part 18
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Podcast 52 - How Can We Change the World- Part 18
Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies, Well today is Memorial Day, and it also happens to be my birthday. Anyway, because it was my birthday and it was Memorial Day, some of my family cajoled me to come kayaking.
So I’ve just come back from the creek. We went for a beautiful kayak down the creek with Sam and Serene, my son, Rock, and Erin and Mark Harrison. (Erin is the one I do the weekly talk show with. Some of you may have listened to, or actually watched that). We had such a beautiful time! The others are actually still out there on the creek, but I had to get back because we had to record so you can get this message in the morning.
So here we are today with you, and I’ve also got my lovely little granddaughter sitting next to me. Her name is Georgia Sky. Do you want to say hello to the ladies, Georgia?
Georgia Campbell: Yes! Hello. Oh hi! This is me, Georgia.
NC: Now, Georgia, before you run away, would you like to say a little word to mummies? You are a little girl, but I think you could say a little word to mummies to bless them. What would you like to say to mummies looking after their children?
GC: DON’T LEAVE YOUR FAMILY!
NC: Yes, that’s very important, isn’t it? So, you think the most important thing is for mummies to be home with their children? Yes, she’s nodding her head. Well, Georgia, maybe you could say a little poem to the ladies before you go. Do you remember “I had a Little Pony”?
GC: Yes!
NC: Okay, you say it!
GC: I had a little pony,
His name was Dapple Grey,
I lent him to a lady,
To ride a mile away.
She whipped him, she slashed him,
She rode him through the mire;
I would not lend my pony now,
For all the lady's hire.
NC: Good girl!
GC: Good-bye, mothers!
NC: Okay, that was little Georgia who is 6 years old.
Well, we didn’t finish what we were talking about last time and we are up to point number 12, working joyfully in our homes.
We’ve just got started on it and we’ve found that the Hebrew word for “joyful” in Psalm 113:9: “He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children.”
We’ve found that that word is sameach in the Hebrew, and it’s exactly the same word that is used in Proverbs 15:13: “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.”
And Proverbs 17:22: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.”
This same word, sameach, is used to describe parties, feasting, and festivals. There’s another place where it’s used, and I was most interested to read this. It’s in 1 Kings chapter one and we read about this in verses 39 and 40 (HCSB) and it says: “Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the tabernacle and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the ram’s horn, and all the people proclaimed, ‘Long live King Solomon!’ All the people followed him, playing flutes and rejoicing with such a great joy that the earth split open from the sound.”
Did you hear that? The Word of God actually says that they were rejoicing so loudly, so powerfully that the earth split open. That’s unbelievable!
Well, is it really true? Well, I thought I should check it out and look up what is says in the Hebrew. And yes, the Hebrew word is baqa and it literally means “split open.” Yes, SPLIT OPEN. It’s the word that’s usually used to describe and earthquake. Now, I don’t know whether they were using an exaggeration but, it shows the intensity of their joy. This is the exact same word that is used for the joy of motherhood.
Are you—getting this, ladies? Joy that is so joyful, so full of happiness and rejoicing that it can split the earth open! Have you even got a little bit of that joy? I mean, I think that some mothers don’t even have any joy at all.
In fact, I hear most mothers complaining, groaning, and grumbling, and my, if you look at their face—help! Their faces look so forlorn, frowning, so boring. I have to admit, it actually makes me sad when I look at a mother and she’s got this boring or frowning face on, and I think, “Oh, her poor children! They have to look at this face.”
Because, you know, our children do become what they look at. They become like the countenance on our face. I believe we should have a joyful face.
But how do we do it? I know some of you are saying. “Well, I just don’t feel joyful. In fact, how do you expect me to be joyful when all I do is wipe snotty noses, cook meals all day, and run after children. I’m not doing anything I want to do!”
But dear precious ladies, I want to remind you: You are doing the greatest career in the nation. You are forming precious souls who will affect this world and you are preparing them for eternity. Your work is an eternal work. You are in the very perfect will of God.
I want you to remember that: you’re in His will, and if God has so graciously given you a little baby, given you children, little ones, middling ones, big ones, He gave you these children, you didn’t suddenly get them from nowhere, God gave them to you! And when God has given them to you, this is the career He’s given to you— to nurture and train them. You are in His will. You are doing a mighty work.
I don’t think there is anything more joyful than to be in the will of God, to do what you were born for. You, as a mother, who were created to give birth from your womb, to nurse babies from your breast, to have that anointing of nurturing in you to love, nurture, and train your children. It’s in you. This is the career God gives you. So what are you doing? Are you complaining about it? No, embrace it!
Now when you embrace it, something happens. Then you begin to walk in the joy. We have to learn how to walk in the joy, ladies. You have to learn how to do it and it starts with your confession. Your confession is so powerful. Your confession determines how you feel. Your confession determines your actions. Your confession will determine your attitude. Your confession will determine the atmosphere of your home.
I guess even I fall short of realizing the power of our confession. Even Jesus shows us this. He says, This is how we are saved, and this is how we are converted. It says in Romans 10:9, 10 that if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, you will be saved. It’s not enough to believe in your heart. You have to confess with your mouth and when you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you are saved, and something happens inside you. Spiritual things happen and you are born again.
Spiritual things happen when you confess the truth. This is how we begin our Christian life, and this is how we continue.
“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him” it says in Colossians 2:6. So we continue believing and confessing.
This is how we walk our motherhood—by confessing. You see, the devil plays on our minds. He’s always trying to put on our mind these negative thoughts, these self-pitying, downgrading, grumbling, “poor me” thoughts. Oh goodness me, we can all succumb to them if we allow the enemy his way. But we have to get into the habit of not allowing him his way at all. We have to resist and rebuke these thoughts in the name of Jesus.
The greatest way to do it is to confess the truth because when you confess the truth it negates these negative thoughts because your confession is more powerful than your thoughts. Your confession is what can make your thoughts what they should be.
So you don’t allow your negative thought life to come up and overwhelm you. Instead, you take hold of yourself by faith and in the name of Jesus you confess the truth and as you confess the truth it will have power over your thoughts and bring them into alignment. This is victorious living. And this is how we learn to live in joy.
When you wake up each morning, even if you may have even had a lousy night, children woke you, or the baby was awake the whole night, and you can just give in to the whole dilemma, “Poor me, how am I going to get through this day, I’ve hardly had any sleep. How am I going to do it?”
Don’t worry.
Why am I saying that? Because, I can remember doing that as a young mother until God began to show me how to live. We have to pull ourselves up. We have to gird up the loins of our mind and begin our confession.
When you wake in the morning, begin the day: “Father, I thank You that You are with me. I thank You that You are Joy. You are my joy and I am filled with joy. I thank You that I am a joyful mother.”
And then just confess: “I love being a mother! I’m the most joyful mother in my city! I’m going to be the most joyful mother in my city today! I just love being here in my home! I love mothering my children!”
You might not feel like saying that, and you may say, “Well how can I say that when I don’t even feel like it?” No, don’t you listen to your feelings. Don’t listen to those negative thoughts. You speak out the truth. You speak out the Word of the Lord. God says He makes us a joyful mother.
So you can confess, “I am a joyful mother! I love mothering my children!” And as you speak these words it will begin to change your thought life, change your attitude, and then, of course, it changes the atmosphere of your home, and it changes your children and their behavior.
Instead of going out to the breakfast table and you’re wiping your eyes and you haven’t even got dressed, you’re still in your dressing gown, and you’re barely coping—you go out and you’re speaking positively: “Good morning, children! How are you? Oh, I love you children! I love being your mother! We’re going to have the most exciting day together!”
This is how you speak. You speak these words of faith. You speak this confession. It will change you and it will change your day, and you will become a joyful mother of children. This is what God intends you to be—a joyful mother.
Yes, I do think it is so important how we start the day.
If we have little ones, middling ones, bigger ones— yes, older mothers, are you listening? We have to watch this with our older children, with our teens. I was with a couple recently and they have a teenager, a very lovely girl. I love her, a beautiful girl. I think she’s about 16. But the father said to me, “Oh, I am concerned. I am wondering if there is something wrong because when she comes out in the morning, she doesn’t even want to say, ‘Good morning.’ She just hardly speaks.”
The mother piped up and said, “Well, she’s most probably just tired.”
I said, “Just a minute. Oh no, you can’t allow that excuse.”
You can’t allow your children to come out of their bedrooms into the kitchen, where everybody is, with a negative, downcast attitude, when they can’t even open their mouth and say, “Good morning everyone!”
I believe that when we get up and each one comes in the kitchen that they should all begin by saying a cheery good morning. “Good morning!” in a cheery, wonderful, joyful way, and a “Good morning” to each person. That is the least that we can do. And if your children are not doing it, you better start training them. In fact, you should be training them when they are just little toddlers, so they get into that habit. It is a habit of their lives.
But, if they’re getting out of it when they are teens, you’re going to make sure they get back into the habit. Because, dear ladies, our home life is the greatest training for their future lives, for their success in life, for their future marriage.
We can’t let any bad attitudes go. We have to deal with them, because we are responsible to prepare them for their marriage. If teens who are not far off from marriage and they are getting older, they should be preparing to have attitudes that they will carry on into their marriage. If they can’t even open their mouths and say “Good morning” to anybody, what will they do when they’re married?
If they don’t feel very happy, they’re just going to be all groaning. Goodness! That is the least we can do to our spouse, to give a cheery “Good morning!” and “I love you!”
That should be a part of life! It starts the day right. It starts the atmosphere of the home right. We should be doing it as a wife. Of course we’re going to be doing it as a mother, to every child as they get up say, “Good morning, Susie! Good morning, Jack! Oh, how wonderful just to see you again! Let me give you a big hug! Did you have a good sleep? Aren’t we going to have a wonderful day together?”
How you start the day is so powerful. Some of you might be saying, “Oh, that’s just all over the top.”
No it’s not. Unless you want to be a boring mother, who will not affect any lives, except affect your family negatively. We are on the theme of “How do We Change the World?” It’s joyful mothers, not mothers, JOYFUL mothers who will change the world. We are training children who will come out of our homes to change the world. And children who don’t even know how to say, “Good morning” and just come with this frowning face, that’s not preparing children to change the world for Jesus.
Come on now, it’s not ordinary people who change the world.
We’ve been talking about these adjectives which go beyond the average, go beyond the normal. They are aboundingly and over the top and more than is necessary. This is how we have to be. This is normal. The other is abnormal.
Also, when we go out into society, how are you showing yourself? Do people see you as a joyful mother? I think this is so important. Every time you go out into the supermarket, or go out somewhere, remember, go out as a joyful mother.
Let me tell you— the world, the feminists, the humanists, the progressives— they have nothing to say against the joyful mother. What can they say? When they see a mother who is so filled with joy, embracing children, and loving it— they have no argument! You destroy their arguments!
So when you get out and all your children are getting out of your van and someone looks at you and says, “Wow, are all these children yours?” What do you do? Do you just kind of crawl into your little shell? Of do you lift up your head, put a smile on your face and say, “Yes! Yes, and we love children, don’t you?”
Put it back on them. What are they going to say? “No, I don’t.” They would be embarrassed to say that. Well why did they ask you such a stupid question? Of course you love children because God loves children!
Or you may like to say, “Yes, these children are the joy of our hearts! I am so blessed to be their mother!” with a big smile on your face.
Sometimes people will say, “Oh, you’ve got your hands full.” Well, put a big smile on your face and say, “Yes, of course my hands are full! They’re full of blessings, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!”
Or if somebody says, “Are you going to have any more?’ you could just give them one back and say, “Well, it is conceivable!”
Always be ready with a cheerful answer because, dear mothers, it is joyful mothers who will change the world. And God has made you to be a joyful mother. This is the adjective He put with motherhood. Amen?
Oh, I just pray that we are going to have all these wonderful joyful mothers.
I just read the other day; I wonder if you noticed it? It was a recent research, called, “The Ties that Bind: is Faith a Global Force for Good or Ill in the Family?” It was conducted in 11 different countries by the World Values Survey and the Family Gender Survey. Then the New York Times published it and they got such a backlash from the feminists because they found that— wait for it— 73% of wives who hold conservative gender values and attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high quality marriages.
They found that highly religious couples have high quality relationships together and more sexual satisfaction together, compared to less mixed religious couples and secular couples.
There’s a graph that also showed that religious couples have more children than couples who rarely or never attend worship services, and parents with four or more children were happier and had more satisfaction in their lives.
Those were the statistics from 11 different countries. Well the liberalists didn’t like that at all, and they all were going on so crazily. But, of course, it’s true— when we do things God’s way, we’re going to have His blessings.
One of His blessings is happiness. Yes! God is the One who ordained marriage. He ordained a one-flesh marriage where we’re glued together. That’s what the Word means when it says, “joined together.” The word is glued. Glued. You’re glued together. You’re made one.
That’s why it says in Matthew 19:6: “For they are no longer two, but one.”
It’s interesting, the other day, my young grandson was talking to me, and he said, “Nana, you know how they call married couples, ‘couples’?”
“Yes,” I said.
Well he said, “A couple means two, doesn’t it?”
I said, “Yes, that’s right.”
But he said, “Well, aren’t they meant to be one when they get married?”
I said, “Why, yes, of course, Harry, you are right. In fact, you are more correct than saying a couple because God says that when He makes a marriage (and it’s God who does it . . . ‘What God has put together.’”
Did you notice that? What GOD has put together. It’s not man putting it together, God put’s it together. When God puts a husband and wife together and they are married in the eyes of God, something happens. Something spiritual happens. I believe that in the spiritual realm, God glues that couple together. Yes, we are to have a one-flesh marriage, physically.
But there’s something even more powerful. We’re glued together in soul and spirit. There’s a spiritual gluing together and that’s why it says in the Scriptures, in Matthew 19:6: “What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”
Well, that’s King James language. Other translations say: “No man must split apart” or
Now, I thought about this when I was reading this very Scripture this morning. I thought, “Wow, that’s an amazing picture because it’s not that they’re just going to sort of gradually fall apart. No! The picture that God gives is that no man must pull them apart. See, they’re glued. And when something is glued together, you’ve really got to pull it apart, or tear it apart, or split it apart to make them come apart. That’s the power of the spiritual thing that happens when we are married in the eyes of God.
That’s why it is so sad to see so many couples today just living together. They’re not married in the eyes of God; therefore they’re living in adultery and fornication. They’re not married, they don’t have God’s blessing. If anyone is in this situation, I would encourage you, get married in the eyes of God because there’s something powerful that happens.
Of course, God planned this, and because He planned it, He plans us to live in joy and happiness.
We know that there are so many marriages that are not happy. Oh goodness me, they’re falling apart everywhere and being pulled apart everywhere! But when we do it God’s way— oh!
We’re living in a society of so much selfishness. In fact, we’re raising children today who are not being prepared for marriage because we’re raising them selfishly. We’re raising them with an entitlement mentality.
Children go to town and they see something, “Mummy, I want that! Can I have that?” and they start throwing a tantrum. Just to keep the peace the mother will buy that for them. That is the pits! What are you doing? When we do that with our children, oh my, we’re just getting them in to the habit that whenever they see something, they should have it.
I became aware of a little girl, who, every time her daddy came home from work, she expected a little prize or gift. If she didn’t get it, she would be so upset and pout and get into a state.
I said to her, “Oh, we don’t ever do that. Did you know your greatest gift when your daddy comes home is your Daddy! He’s your best gift! He doesn’t have to bring you anything because he brings himself. You can be so, so happy that your daddy has come, because sometimes some daddies don’t come home and you are so, so blessed.”
And this darling little girl, she got the message, and she changed, and she was just so happy that her daddy came. Of course her daddy can bring her a special prize every now and then. But it shouldn’t be something that is expected.
We just have to watch the way we train our children that they don’t get into an entitlement mentality. That they don’t think that the world revolves around them, and that we don’t allow them to become selfish because they take those traits into their marriage so that the spouse, maybe both spouses, wants their own way. And if they don’t get their own way, well then, that’s it, we’re finished.
No. Marriage, like everything in life, like motherhood, even anything you want to do successfully, you’ve got to lay down your life. You’ve got to sacrifice. It’s what life is all about. It’s not me, me, me.
I think, oftentimes many mothers who are out in their careers, they’re leaving their children in daycares and they hardly see their children at all during the day. Often, they can just subconsciously have that guilt and they make up for it to their children with things. Giving them things— letting them have this, letting them have their way. But that is the worst they can do because these kind of things, they get into the habit of expecting them and it carries on into their marriage.
We have to watch that in training our children. Because God’s way for marriage, when we do it His way, when we lay down our lives to serve our husband, to do it with joy, we begin to reap the joy and the happiness that God intends for us.
Why is it in these statistics that the majority of wives who have conservative values and go to worship service regularly are the ones with the most blessed marriages? It is because they are obviously learning God’s ways of laying down their lives, and that this is the way we live, and to serve is to ultimately be blessed your self.
And so as we learn God’s ways we come into the joy, of course motherhood, yes, we’ve been talking about the joyful mother. When we embrace motherhood that’s when we embrace the joy of motherhood.
Let’s go to Deuteronomy. That’s an amazing Scripture. In Deuteronomy 6 it talks about the home and how we are to diligently hear God’s words, embrace them, get them into our heart and not only get them into our heart, but into our mouths. Then we’re to diligently teach them to our children in the context of the home—when we’re sitting down, when we’re walking about, when we’re lying down, just in every aspect of life. We read that in Deuteronomy chapter 6.
But did you know that it repeats it again in Deuteronomy chapter 11?
In verses 21-23 it talks about diligently teaching your children throughout the day and in the course of life “that your days may be multiplied and the days of your children, AS THE DAYS OF HEAVEN UPON THE EARTH” (verse 21).
Isn’t that amazing? Don’t you love that? When we do it His way, when we embrace God’s Word for ourselves, and we want to put it into practice in our lives, and we just want to pour it into our children’s lives, we want to fill them with His principles and every aspect of life. And we begin to bring Heaven into our home, God says: “This is the blessing: your home, the days of your life, will be as the days of Heaven upon the earth.”
That’s the description of home life. That’s the description of what God intends it to be.
It carries on: “For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; Then will the Lord drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves” (Deuteronomy 11:22-23).
You see all the wonderful blessings that come to us, but I think the greatest blessing is that beautiful, beautiful description, “As the days of heaven upon the earth.”
Lovely mothers, this is what we seek to do in our homes— to make our homes just like a little bit of Heaven on earth.
Now we can do that. God can help us do this as we have this vision in our hearts.
Jeremiah 6:6 says: ” Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. “
Isn’t that beautiful?
If you want the good way, what do you do? You seek after the old paths. Those are the original paths what God gave in the very beginning. The revelation God gave of marriage and motherhood. He gave it in the beginning, and it has never changed. We are now living in 2019 and it hasn’t changed. God’s Word has not changed. It’s the old path, but it’s the good way.
And when we walk that way, we’ll find rest. Rest. Not just lying down on the sofa. No, you haven’t got time to do that when you have all your little ones around you. No, you’re working hard, you feel overwhelmed sometimes, but even in the midst of all the chaos and everything that’s happening you can have rest deep down in your soul.
Yes, this is not a rest when you can put your feet up, although we love it when we can maybe get a little moment to do that. Oh that’s just a special blessing. But this is rest in your soul. Just the same as Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me . . .and ye shall find rest unto your souls . . ..”
That’s a deeper rest. That’s right down in your soul. Even when everything else is like a tempest on top all around you, you’ve got that rest in your soul because you have taken His yoke, you’re learning His ways.
But time is up. Let’s pray.
“Dear Father, We thank You that You are the Giver of good things. You give us the good way. You’ve shown us the good way. It’s the way that brings rest to our souls, joy into our hearts and, Lord, brings a little taste of Heaven on earth.
“Lord God, help us all to embrace Your ways. Lord God, to seek after them, and as we seek after them, Lord, we seek to just make them part of our home. We pray that You will help us to truly live as the days of Heaven upon earth.
“Bless every precious mother and daughter today. In the name of Jesus. Amen.”