Episode 1-
God Wants to Dwell in Your Home

INTRO: Welcome to the podcast “From Our Home to Yours with Nancy Campbell,” founder and publisher of “Above Rubies.”

NANCY: Welcome ladies to our very first podcast. So many have been asking me to do a podcast for so long and at last I am doing it. It’s so lovely to be with you and I pray that this is going to be a wonderful blessing to you as I come to you from my home to your home.

You’ve already been welcomed and that was by my lovely grandson, Rocky Barrett, who is Pearl’s son. His name is actually Rocklyn Jefferson Barrett; and he was named after Pearl’s brother, my son Rocklyn and Charlie’s brother Jefferson, so he has a real family name. And, with me here in our studio today is another wonderful grandson, Arden Allison who is Serene’s oldest son and he’s doing the recording for us. We had also hoped to have Chalice with us today because she is going to learn from Arden so eventually she can take over. Arden is kept very busy filming for Trim Healthy Mama and doing lots of projects of his own. Just this last weekend, with many of the other cousins, and a few extras besides he was filming a great survival movie which we hope will also be coming out in good time when they’ve got all the editing done.

But, anyway, we’re here together at last and I welcome you all. The children who are listening, the mothers who are listening, young moms, middling moms, and even the older moms. I hope the older moms are not running away because I believe that we as older moms need to be encouraged and refreshed in our anointing of mothering as much as when we were younger. The reason is, is that we now have the responsibility to teach and show the young mothers how they are to mother and how they are to be wives and so we need constant refresher courses. I find as an older mother that I need to continually seek the Lord, continually search His Word to know what He is saying and to know His Truth for the young moms because this is my responsibility as it is the responsibility of every older mother. So, I hope we can all be in this together.

Now, what will we do on these podcasts which we will send out once a week to you? I will be speaking of course about parenting, about motherhood, about being a wife and being in the home and also I will be open to answering your questions which you can send to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. but put “Question” in the heading/title place so I will pick it up otherwise I may miss it. And, I will introduce to you from time to time some of our family members and get them to share and other people who I will invite on to the program.

We have lots of the family who live around us on this hilltop. We are right here in the center and just a couple of minutes through the woods we have Evangeline and Howard and their family living and their children.

We used to have, a couple of minutes through the woods, in another direction Pearl and Charlie and their children although just before Christmas that house burned down and so it’s no longer there. Praise the Lord they were already in the process of building another home just up the road and they were able to move into that which was a wonderful blessing.

And then we have Serene and Sam and their family living just over the road, just a little beautiful walk through the woods about 15 minutes or so to their place. So, we have our oldest daughters around us here on the hilltop and so many wonderful, amazing grandchildren. Our sons live in the city and also our adopted children from Liberia, they now live in the city too. But they’re still close, only about an hour away. And so, hopefully, you’ll get to meet different ones from time to time.

So now, today I would like to start sharing with you about the home. I love home, don’t you? God loves home. Because He is the one who designed the home. He is the one who thought of it. And He was the first home designer. And He created the first home.

The first home, as you know, was called the Garden of Eden. Now in the Hebrew, “Eden” means “delight.” And this was the prototype of all homes to come. Everything that God wrote about in the first two or three chapters in Genesis were His prototype, His plan for how we are to live right up to this 21st century today. And so, we know that God wants us to make our homes a delight, and this is what He intends them to be.

But recently I’ve been studying to find out more and more how God feels about the home. And I found in the Word of God the word “dwell.” To dwell in our homes, talking about a dwelling place for God and a dwelling place for us because God is ultimately a dwelling God. He loves to dwell. He doesn’t just float in space. He is a literal dwelling God. And back in the Old Testament we read of how God delighted to dwell with His people even in the wilderness and He dwelt in a tent for the tabernacle in the wilderness was a temporary thing. It could travel from place to place. And God ordained, the God of the universe, the God who is so high, the Potentate, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, ordained to dwell in a tent, in a temporary tabernacle, with His people because He wanted to be with them. And He says, “I will come, and I will dwell with you and I will walk with you.”

And He dwelt there, and the children of Israel knew that God was there because in the day there was a pillar of cloud over the tabernacle and in the evening, the nighttime, there was a pillar of fire. And they knew that God was dwelling in the Holy of Holies with all His shekinah glory. And they dwelt round about that tabernacle.

But time went on and eventually the temporary tabernacle was finished and then David, who got the vision for the temple, passed it on to his son Solomon who built the temple and then God came and dwelt in the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem.

But then there came a day when that was over, and Jesus died upon the cross and when that happened that thick veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies was torn apart. Up until that time, only the High Priest could enter into that Holy of Holies and he couldn’t go in without sacrificing and shedding the blood, taking the blood in with him to cover his sin and the sins of his family and the sins of the nation. And he went in with the incense just blowing and filling that Holy of Holies because he could not see God face to face.

But then when Jesus died that was just finished. And God said, “Now I’m going to come and dwell in a temple. I am going to come in your temple. Your body. And now our bodies are called “the temple of the Holy Spirit.” And He dwells in us if we have received Him into our lives. Into our hearts. He literally dwells in us. But we go on and we look into eternity and in Revelation John is giving us pictures of the eternal realm and he gives a beautiful picture of God. Let me take you to it, let me see if I can find it in my Bible here, I love this passage. Yes, here it is in Revelation 21:3: “And I heard a great voice out of Heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God is with men.” God chooses to dwell with us, His people, and he says: “and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people and God Himself shall be with them and be their God.”

And so, we understand how God loves to dwell. He will always dwell with us, His people. And so, I found 468 times that the word “dwell” is mentioned in the Bible. But when we read the word “dwell” we find that it’s not all the same word in the Hebrew and there are many different Hebrew words for the word “dwell”. And so, I found 31 different Hebrew words for the word “dwell,” plus about five meaning “temporary dwelling” and I found 16 Greek words in the New Testament all for “dwelling.” How God wants us to dwell in our homes! And how He wants to come to dwell with us! In us! And in our homes! And then, I also found 23 different Hebrew words and then 31 different Greek words in the New Testament for sitting at a table and eating meals in our home.

Now, ladies, that’s over 100 different words that are used for dwelling in our homes, for being in our homes and sitting at our table and eating food together. That’s how interested God is in our lives. Especially in our home life because right in the beginning it started off with the home. Before our business, and before church, and before government, before all the things that are part of our lives today, God first instigated marriage, family, and the home. Because this is how He wants us to live. And He wants us to live in our homes. He doesn’t want us to have homes that we come into every now and then and sleep in them for the night. No, He wants us to dwell in our homes. Now that word means, “to abide in” them, to “remain in” them, to make our life in them.

I’d love to talk a little about this today and perhaps in other sessions about making our lives in our homes. I hear lots of mothers often saying words such as: “Well, I don’t know, “I get bored with being at home.” Others will say: “Well, I love my children but, I don’t really love being at home.” Others even say, “I’m miserable at home.”

But just a minute, ladies! I want you to be careful of what you say. Because when we say those negative words, you know what we’re really saying? We’re talking about ourselves. If we say, “Oh, I’m bored at home,” what we’re really saying is “I’m a boring person.” Now, if we say, “I’m miserable at home,” what we’re really saying is “I’m a miserable person.” Because home is what we make it!

Dear ladies, you as a mother determine the life in your home. You determine what it’s going to be like, if it’s going to be boring and miserable and unhappy. Or you decide if it’s going to be exciting, fulfilling, productive, creative, and all the wonderful things you want life to be. Whatever you want your life to be, you can make it happen in your home for this is where life begins, and this is where the majority of our life should happen. And especially for us as mothers in the home.

Yes, our husbands are going to go out, they go out to earn the living, to provide so faithfully for us so we can be at home and create this wonderful environment, this exciting environment where there’s something always happening because we’re making it happen! Many homes are just boring because the mother in the home is not actually making anything happen, because to make things happen, we must get up off our seat and make them happen. It takes effort. It takes work. It takes thinking about it. It takes creative ideas.

But I want to give you a vision today, dear mothers. Please don’t just become a victim of your circumstances. Well, I know that yes, you can get tired in your home with you little ones running around and yes, you often have to do the same things every day to keep the home running smoothly and you’ve got to get your laundry done and you’ve got to keep those dishes done, you’ve got to keep your place clean, you’ve got to keep those meals on the table, and you’ve got to watch over your little ones, yes.

But do you know that every single task can be exciting according to the attitude that you have? You can make every task exciting. And even in the midst of all the basic things that you just have to do each day you can fit in exciting things. Beautiful things. Lovely things. But you’ve got to think about them. You’ve got to ask God to give you creative ideas and to show you what you can do. Because life can be one big party in the home. This is what our home is like here. Yes, there’s another party tonight here. Colin and I have to go out this evening to our granddaughter’s home for a meal so that will be beautiful. But while we’re out the young people want to have a games night. It’s one of the birthdays so there will be another party here. I don’t think we go hardly a week by in this home without there’s a party or some function happening. Now sometimes there are some of the grandchildren and others saying, “Can we have our party here, Nana.”

But many times, I am thinking about what I can do to make something exciting happen so that home is never boring, there’s always something exciting happening, and it’s a place of productivity where we are accomplishing things.

Now, I must put in a little something here, and dear, precious, young moms who are listening, maybe you’re in that season and life is filled with seasons. Maybe you’re in that season now where you’ve got one, two, three or maybe four little ones around you and you can’t even just add one more thing to your day. If you can get through to just get those meals cooked, just keep a basic clean house, you have made it! I want to encourage you, please don’t despair.

Realize you are doing a powerful work. There is nothing more powerful than raising and caring for and nurturing and loving precious little lives that God has given to you. God gave you these little babies and toddlers. He gave them to you. He calls them “my children” and He gives them to you. He’s commissioned you to care for them and nurture them for Him. To nurture them with His heart and that heart of love He’s put in your heart for them and you’re doing a great job! You are accomplishing great things. You are accomplishing great things not only for now and the future, but for eternity! So please be encouraged.

Now some of you may be middling moms and your little toddlers are growing up. They’re getting bigger and as children grow up they then become a wonderful help to you and they can help you with your little ones. Life becomes easier as your family becomes bigger. Because the older children grow, the more responsible, the more capable they become, and the more able they are to help you in the home and help you with projects and it becomes a different season.

I know sometimes some young mothers look on mothers with larger families and they think, “Help! How could I ever have so many children?” Oh goodness me, can I tell you a little secret? The most challenging time of motherhood is when your babies are just little, and you don’t have any older ones to help you. You are their soul entertainment. They need you twenty-four hours a day and you are doing everything for them. And it’s a glorious, beautiful time, but perhaps the most challenging time. I want to tell you it won’t always be like that. There will come a time when these little darlings grow bigger. And then when you have another baby they’ve grown bigger still. And when you have another baby, wow, you’ve got bigger children again. And so, life becomes easier.

Well, that’s why I don’t have Chalice with us today because Serene said, “Oh, two of my girls have had to go out and so I will need Chalice with me today,” because she will need help with the little ones and she can do amazing and accomplish so many incredible things because she has the most amazing, wonderful, capable older daughters in her home.

And so, we go through all these seasons in our mothering and in our homes. But I would like to give you perhaps one Hebrew word today. One of these words. As I said, I found over 100 words and I don’t think I’ll ever have time to tell you about them all, but I will just tell you about some of them, so we can learn and get more understanding about our homes.

Now, the word I’d like to tell you about today is the Hebrew word “naveh.” It’s spelt “n-a-v-e-h.” And in the Strong’s Concordance it’s the number 5-1-1-6. Now, it’s a beautiful word. It’s a word that is used for “home” in the Bible. It’s used to describe God’s home. It was used to describe His temple. It’s also used to describe our homes. It’s even used to describe homes for animals and for flocks. And this word also means “to be lovely,” “to be pleasant,” “to be satisfied.” And so, those are descriptions God gives of the home.

Now let me take you to a lovely Scripture in Ezekiel 34. Ezekiel 34 and verse 14. Now this whole chapter of Ezekiel 34 is God writing to the shepherds of Israel. Now, these shepherds had failed miserably. They had not shepherded the sheep. They had not fed the sheep and God was just giving warning to them. But as we read this chapter we can also take it to our hearts as mothers because the word “shepherding” in the Bible is very much the word that also means “mothering.” We’ll look at that a little bit in a moment. But let me read you verse 14: “and God says, ‘I will feed them in a good pasture…’”

Now the whole thing here is God is giving an allegory. God writes lots of allegories and this time He’s talking about the children of Israel coming back to the land of Israel. Now we at this moment, this very moment in history, are seeing the fulfilment of this chapter in Ezekiel 34 and have been for many years as God’s people, the Jews, have been coming back from the four corners of the earth. We know how that they were scattered because they had turned away from God and God had to turn them out of the land, their land that had belonged to them, that God had given to them as an eternal and everlasting possession. But He had to just vomit them out of the land.

But He did not forget His people and He promised that He would bring them back. He would bring them back to the land and He would bless them in the land. And we are seeing this today. We’re seeing them come back more and more and more to the land and Israel becoming a prosperous nation and now, Praise the Lord, our own nation of U.S.A. has now put their embassy in Jerusalem and acknowledging the divine truth that Jerusalem is the eternal capitol of the world. We can praise the Lord for that and we can thank the Lord for a President who has done that, and I pray that God would put his blessing and favor upon him for standing with His Truth.

Now this is the allegory He is talking about, the children of Israel coming back, and He says, “I will feed them in a good pasture and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be. There they shall lie in a good fold. And in a fat pasture, there they shall feed upon the mountains of Israel.”

And it is literally talking about people. About His people coming back to the land. About them literally establishing and settling on the mountains of Israel. Now I have seen this with my very own eyes. I have been out to the West Bank. I have visited with settlers in their homes on the West Bank, on the mountains of Samaria and seen how these people have gone out to settle there- fulfilling Bible prophecy. Here it is written in the Word. It is so amazing!

But God is likening them to a flock of sheep who had shepherds who didn’t watch over them. But now He says He’s going to be their shepherd and bring them back and feed them and He is going to put them in their fold. “Their fold.” Now, that word there is the word we are talking about. It’s the word “naveh.” That word that speaks about our homes. Here it’s talking about a fold for sheep, but it’s literally talking about homes for people because it’s people God is talking about. And so, this is their fold and that’s what God wants, how He wants us to see our homes. Like a fold. A fold for our little flock that He has given us.
Maybe you’ve got a little flock. Some of you maybe have a bigger flock. Some of you are in middling stage and your flock is growing. But your children, they are your little flock and you are their shepherd. And God wants you to gather them into your fold because “fold” is a beautiful word that is a noun and a verb.

We have a home, that’s our fold. But we are also “to fold.” To fold, to tend to our little lambs, our sheep and we will look at that in a little minute too. But going back to the beginning of Ezekiel 34 it says here, “And the Word of the Lord came unto me saying, ‘Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds, ‘Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves!” And you know what? There’s an exclamation mark right after that statement. We don’t read many exclamation marks in the Bible, when we do, we better watch out! Here is one of them, “Woe be to the shepherds that feed themselves!” Exclamation mark. “Should not the shepherds feed the flocks?”

You see, feeding is very much part of shepherding. One of the biggest roles of a shepherd is to feed his flock, to take his flock to good pasture, to green pasture. To make sure it’s safe and it’s healthy and it’s good and it’s rich so they will grow. This job of a shepherd is also the job of us as mothers. And so, we have a big task too, to feed our little flock.

Now this is talking about literal, physical feeding but not only that because feeding is so much bigger than that. It’s feeding physically, but also emotionally, mentally, spiritually. And every way we are to feed as the shepherds, the nurturers, the mothers of our little flock.

And we must watch it what says here. Wow! “Woe to the shepherds who feed themselves.” Now we have to watch that we don’t get taken up or drawn out of our homes to feed on other things. I’m not taking about feeding on the Word because we all need that sustenance of feeding on the Word. But we can feed on many things. We can feed on vain things. We can feed on pleasure. We can feed on things we want to do. We can feed on selfishness and we can feed on ‘I need my own time’ and ‘I need this’ and ‘I need my own space’ and so on. That is also feeding. It’s feeding ourselves.

And dear mothers, I hear so many mothers today, it seems to be the vocabulary of the modern mother that ‘I must have time for myself’ and ‘I must be able to do this’ and ‘I must be free to do that’ and yes, to a little extent that is true, but that’s not the heart of a shepherd and we see this here. In fact, what does a true shepherd do? He lays down his life for the sheep. That’s the true heart of the shepherd- laying down our lives. Not feeding our own life. And so, that’s a little warning for us there as mothers. Don’t feed ourselves. Shouldn’t we be feeding our flock? That should be our ultimate passion, to be feeding our flock.

And then it goes on in verses three to five and it talks about all the things that the shepherds didn’t do, and I’ll read them out to you and they’re pretty challenging and I’m sure that you are doing all of these.

But I think it’s good to read them again because it’s good to be encouraged and I do want to encourage you in these podcasts. But will you mind if sometimes I challenge you as well because I love to be challenged myself. I need challenge. I want to be challenged every day. Because it’s challenge that spurs me on to the ultimate vision that God has for me. And all that He has for us as mothers and women and the power of our role.

Anyway, these are all the things that God says to the shepherds who weren’t doing their jobs:

“You have not feed your flock.

You have not strengthened the weak.

You have not healed the sick.

You have not bound up the broken.

You have not brought back the strays.

You have not sought after the lost.

You have let your flock be scattered.

You have let your flock become a prey. Meat to every beast of the field.”

That last sentence really gets to me because I see many today, of course I expect it in the secular world, but it often disturbs me when godly parents let their precious children become a prey. And I do believe, forgive me for saying so, because it does upset some people for saying so, but it might not have been the case many years ago, but I believe it is today, in our public schools today, as we send our vulnerable, precious little children into these schools and even our older children, they are becoming a prey. A prey to the enemy who is brainwashing them, filling their minds with his agenda. Because the public-school agenda, dearest mothers, is not God’s agenda. It’s not the Bible’s agenda. They don’t even allow Bibles in schools. They don’t allow prayer in schools. But they want to give a humanist agenda. A feminist agenda. More than that today. Now we are facing the battle of the whole gay agenda coming into our schools more and more forcefully. And our children, even kindergarten children, are being suddenly faced with these ideologies that are so against God. And even the Muslim agenda. Yes, that is coming in and there are children even in my state here of Tennessee who go to schools that have had to go through the whole Muslim prayers and who knows what and yet we can’t even pray to God. I mean, where are we at? And how could we as those who are God-fearing and Bible-believing men and women of God send our darling children to be prey to the enemy to be filled with all this junk? Oh goodness me! We can’t do that. We’ve got to fold them. We are shepherdesses. We’ve got to fold our flock. Protect them and guard them.

Well, lovely ladies, I have been talking too much for now. So, we’ll end this session and we’ll talk more about it in the next session.

Can I pray with you?
Dear Father, I thank you so much for every precious mother listening, every child, every teen. Every older mother. Every widow. Lord I ask that You will come and pour out Your blessing and anointing upon them now. I pray that You will encompass them about with Your Holy presence. Let them know that You’re with them in their home, in their kitchen with their children around them. Lord, let them know that they’re in Your very perfect will and that You’re smiling down upon them because they are fulfilling Your Commission. Oh God, fill them with joy. Fill them with the affirmation of Your love and knowing that they are walking in Your will. And bless their husbands. Bless their homes. Just bless them today. I invoke Your blessing upon each one, in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Transcribed by Jennifer Konie