PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 197: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, PT 8
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 197: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 8
I can't believe it took us three sessions to talks about the DELIGHTS in the land of motherhood. We complete the 22 different things God wants us to delight in today. No more grumbles in the land; only delights!
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Here we are, we’re still talking about the wonderful land of motherhood. We still have so much to share.
But before I begin again today, I’d love to pray. First of all, I want to read you that wonderful Scripture from Isaiah 55:10-11. I’m reading from the New Living Translation: “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer, and bread for the hungry. It is sustained with My Word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.”
What a wonderful promise! I want to pray these words over our time together today:
“Father, we thank You that Your Word is living. Your holy Word is alive and active. Lord, every time Your Word is spoken, it goes forth to accomplish that which You want.
“And, Father, I thank You that today we’re going to read and talk of Your Word again, Your living Word. I pray that every word will go forth into the hearts of each one listening. Lord God, I pray that Your Word will accomplish that which You want, that, Lord, Your Word, which is alive and active, will move mightily and powerfully in all our hearts. My heart, each one, Lord, who is listening.
“We don’t want to just listen to Your Word and think about something else. We want Your Word to become part of our lives and accomplish Your plans in our lives. So, we ask You for this today, as we open Your Word again. In the Name of Jesus, amen.”
Well, currently we are discovering that the land of motherhood is a delightful land. I found, in the Word of God, 22 different things that God wants us to delight in. In the land of motherhood He wants us to delight in these things also.
We are up to number 10. We did some in our last session, and I hope we can finish them this session so I can get on to a new and exciting point.
No. 10: DELIGHT TO DO GOD’S WILL
Psalm 40:8: “I delight to do thy will, O my God.” That’s actually a prophetic word of Jesus. He was speaking to the Father, and says, “Oh, I delight to do Your will,” even though He had to leave the glorious heaven and come to this earth, and become a man, and humble Himself, and become obedient even to death, to save us, and redeem a bride. But He did it because of His love for us. And He delighted to do it.
The word is chaphets, C-H-A-P-H-E-T-S. It means “to be pleased with, to desire, to light, have pleasure.” That Hebrew word is actually used 75 times in the Old Testament. We need to delight to do His will.
Now, lovely mothers, in the home, looking after your little ones, this is the will of God for you! This is where He’s placed you. He gave you these children, and therefore He’s given you this wonderful career, to look after these children, to raise them for Him, to prepare them for the destiny that God has got for them. This is the will of God for your life!
Therefore, are you delighting in it? I hope you’re not grumbling about it. I hope you’re not complaining about it. No, God wants you to delight in it! Amen? So, let’s delight in His will.
No. 11: DELIGHT IN HIS GOODNESS
In Nehemiah 9:25, it’s talking about the children of Israel coming into the Land, the Promised Land. It says: “And they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, wells digged, vineyards, and oliveyards, and fruit trees in abundance: so, they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in Thy great goodness.”
God gives us so many blessings every day. Often, we’re too busy, or too down in the dumps to even see them. But if we open our eyes, we will see the goodness of the Lord. I love that old hymn:
“Count your many blessings, name them one by one.
And it will surprise you, what the Lord hath done.”
I wonder if you know that hymn. Lots of you sing all the old hymns, but some people don’t even know the hymns, and that’s rather sad, because they’re full of lots of amazing and wonderful doctrine. So, let’s be those who count our blessings. We’re grateful for the goodness of the Lord, and we delight in all His goodness. We delight in His salvation. We delight in His provision.
Have you got a home over your head? Well, you’re blessed! To think of how many people don’t even have a roof over their head! They’re running from the enemy. They’re refugees. They’ve got hardly anything. They’re living in shacks. We, here in the west, we are so blessed beyond measure. And yet we’re still groaning and complaining.
Oh my, I don’t think God likes that too much. He was so displeased with the children of Israel when they grumbled and complained. Yes, they were in the wilderness. I will admit that. But even in the wilderness, God showed so many blessings. Oh, you just can’t even believe it!
I did a study on that in one of my new books I just released, Volume Three and Volume Four of 100 Days of Blessing. That’s where you read a devotion for 100 days. I can’t remember whether it’s Volume Three or Volume Four, but in one of those, I tell you all the blessings that are in the wilderness! Even when you’re going through a wilderness time, the blessings of God are amazing!
You’ve just got to get those books to find out all those blessings that God gives, even when you’re going through the howling wilderness, as the Bible describes it.
You delight in your husband and your children. Delight in all the good things God gives to you every day. Amen?
No. 12: DELIGHT IN GOD’S PEACE
Psalm 37:11: “The meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.” We have peace when we embrace God’s will. We don’t have very much peace when we’re stubborn and demand our own way, do we?
No. 13: DELIGHT IN GOOD FOOD
Isaiah 55:2: “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” That’s another good thing to delight in. We can delight in good food. Did you know that God wants us to do that? Because God provides good food! His food is amazing! And it’s full of vitality and health to make us strong and healthy.
But we don’t actually have to delight in all the devitalized, refined junk food. You don’t have to delight in that, because, really, that’s not what God gave us to eat. He gave us to eat the food out of the earth. The more we can eat it without it being so refined, the better. I’m a great believer in, when you’re eating cereals. . .
Now, I’m not talking about the cereal boxes. I’m talking about the cereals, the grains that come out of the earth. So, when you’re going to have some grains out of the earth, you’ll cook up some rolled oats, or you’ll cook up some steel-cut oats. Or you’ll even cook up some oat groats, the original oats.
I love it! That’s my favorite. The further I can get back to the original, the better I like it! And the more I can rejoice in it! Because the more I get back to the original, the more vitamins and energy and strength I’m going to get from that food!
Have you ever eaten oat groats? Well, you could try them. You won’t buy them in the normal supermarket, but you can get them on the internet. What you need to do, of course, is to soak them. If you thought, “I’m going to boil these up for a couple of minutes,” well, you’d hardly chew your way through them!
But you soak them overnight. You can even soak them for two or three nights, changing the water each day. You can soak them in kefir, or whey, or even, I often use my sourdough starter to soak things. That gets rid of all the phytates. By the time you’re ready to cook them up, oh, they just cook so soft and beautiful! It’s so wonderful!
Or you can cook up millet, or quinoa. If you’re cooking rice, well, don’t use white rice. Use brown rice! Get back to the original of everything you can instead of all these crazy things we eat today.
I refuse, I absolutely refuse to buy boxes of cereal. I never buy them. Sometimes they creep into my house, because people living here will buy them. I look at them and think, “Help! How do they eat that junk?” Because you might as well eat the cardboard! There’s as much goodness in the cardboard as there is in what’s inside all those little fruit loops in funny colors and all these little shapes.
Goodness me! They’re so refined! They so devitalized! Even our brains should understand it’s nothing like the food God intended us to eat! Let’s get back to good old good food that God gave us and all the glorious fruits and vegetables.
He gave us such an enormous variety! You don’t like one? Well, there’s loads of others! Goodness me! God is so generous in His food that He gives us! And He wants us to delight in it. Yes.
You know, it’s fun, isn’t it, if you’re at the table, have you ever done this? We’ve often done this. Something tastes so good, and you go, “Mmmm, this is so good!” In fact, we actually saw this once on a movie. Oh, we watched it years and years ago. What was it called now? I’m so sorry, I’m not even recalling the name of it (It was WHAT ABOUT BOB?)
But it was about this guy who was a bit loopy. And he went to this psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist was trying to help him and didn’t have much effect. But anyway, the psychiatrist went on this vacation and this guy even followed him on vacation and nearly drove him mad. In the end, he did drive him mad, and he became loopy! And this guy became the psychiatrist!
Well, it was a funny movie. But one night he comes into the family of this psychiatrist, and he’s eating this good food, and he’s going, “Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!” He just loved it so much. We always thought that was rather funny and we love to do that.
But I don’t think God minds if we really delight in the foods that He gave us because he gave them to us! Shouldn’t we delight in everything He gives us?
No. 14: DELIGHT IN JUSTICE
Proverbs 11:1: “A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight” (it doesn’t say, “it’s good.” It says) “is his delight.” God delights in that which is just, and that which is right. God hates cheating.
And I think God hates a stolen election because it was stolen! They cheated! We had thousands and thousands of these mail-in votes that were doubled and tripled. We had thousands of dead votes, from dead people, and so on. In fact, here in Tennessee, they, goodness me! It just may be that they’re doing it now.
They are discussing a bill for voter clean-up. So, this morning, I was busy calling all the representatives here to tell them to vote “yes” for this bill, because God loves that which is just. He doesn’t like cheating. We have to be those who love justice.
We’ll be teaching our children this wonderful principle, that they learn that cheating is an abomination before the Lord. Sometimes children, they can be prone to cheat. We have to watch that, because we’ve got to get it out of their systems while they’re young, because it’s an abomination to God.
No. 15: DELIGHT IN THE DAY OF RRST, THE SABBATH DAY
Isaiah 58:13-14: “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord.”
Well, we have, I think, amongst all our listeners today, we have wonderful Sabbath-keepers, who meet together on Saturday, to come together for their church meetings. Then we have Sunday-keepers. I don’t know, we’re sort of a mixture, because we’re Sunday-keepers. We have church on Sunday.
But we somehow, when you read the Scriptures, you know there’s something very special about the Sabbath day. We love to have the Shabbat meal on the Friday evening, and we do try to keep our Saturdays, not a day where we do the normal thing. I try to keep out of the office, which I’m there every other day. Try to make it a day of delight. My husband loves to get in the Word for that day.
But some people keep Sunday as their Sabbath. I remember that’s how we grew up. In those days, people who were Sunday-keepers looked upon Sunday as strictly as a Sabbath-keeper keeps Sabbath today. That was completely the Lord’s Day. We never ever bought anything from the shops on Sunday. We never did our own thing. We didn’t go out to sports. We always, it was the day to go to church, have hospitality, meet with the people of the Lord. That was how we kept that day.
And, of course, we go to the New Testament, and it does say, “OK, whatever day a man chooses to keep.” But I think there should be a day. It’s the principle in God that we take a day that’s set aside for God. Of course, we know God rested on the seventh day, didn’t He? So, we can delight in that day, because that’s what the Scriptures says. When I’m studying something, I can’t leave anything out. I’ve got to put in every single thing that God says is a delight.
No. 16: DELIGHT IN GOD’S PRESENCE
Song of Solomon 2:3 can be read two ways. We can read it of Christ and His Bride. It can also be read as a relationship between the husband and wife. But I’m thinking here of Christ and His Bride as we read this Scripture. The bride says: “I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
That’s speaking about sitting in the presence of the Lord. “Under His shadow. “That’s His presence. Do you remember when Mary sat at the feet of Jesus? She sat and heard His words. Did you know it’s not so easy to hear the Lord speak to you when you’re running around everywhere? Going here, going there, wooo!
Well, you rarely ever hear the words of the Lord when you are running around, although I have from time to time. God has spoken to me in the middle of my doing something. I remember one time. Oh! This was way back when we lived in New Zealand and the children were young. I’d just been out getting the groceries.
I was walking over the threshold of my house, carrying a great big box of groceries, and God spoke to me! Wow! I knew it was God! And He said these words: “Nancy, how can I reveal to you the needs of others if you’re always thinking about yourself?” Oooh! Those were powerful words! And God did give them to me just in the middle of what I was doing.
I’ve never forgotten those words, because it’s very true. If you are always thinking about yourself, if your whole mind is taken up with you, and everything about you, and usually when you’re thinking about yourself, it often gets to self-pity. “Poor me! Why do I have to go through this? Help! I don’t know how much longer I can stand going through this trial! Poor me! I’m just stuck here in this home with all these children! Poor me!” Everything’s “me, me.”
And you’re taken up with yourself. There’s not a bit of room for God to bring the needs of someone else to you so you can minister to them. We have to give room in our minds, and in our hearts, for God to show us the needs of others. That was an incredible revelation I got that day. So, I’ve had to remember that throughout all the years.
You cannot fill your mind with yourself only, because we are God’s hands and feet and voice in this world, to minister to those who God wants to touch with His love, and with His encouragement, and with His salvation. If He can’t use us, He's stuck! Because God wants to use His people. That’s how He touches people’s lives. We have to give God room to do that. But often, you’ve got to be sitting.
It’s just like when you have a meal. You grab some food on the run. You hardly know you’ve eaten. Actually, it’s scientifically proven that it doesn’t do you much good if you just run around eating it. You’ve got to sit to eat and that’s why it’s so important that we sit as family to eat.
There are some families today that don’t even have time to sit! Wow! They’re just, “OK, there’s the food!” And everybody grabs and does what they want. That is not mealtime. God wants us to sit for our meals. To sit together for our meals. To sit around the table for our meals.
Just as it says in Psalm 128:3. It gives the picture of the family. It says about the wife, “Your wife is a fruitful vine in the heart of your home. Look at all those children sitting around the table.” That’s God’s picture of a family that He loves to bless.
I know, as a young mother with lots of little ones, you certainly don’t have much time to sit! But if you’re nursing your baby, wow! You’ve often got lots of time to sit. So, when you sit, and you sit, hopefully you’ve got a rocking chair. There’s nothing like a rocking chair to sit and nurse your baby.
And you’re sitting there, and if you’ve got little ones around you, you can often gather them together and read them a story. But sometimes, you’ll be just sitting there, and you’re stuck! You’re sitting!
So, you can put your heart toward the Lord. Thank Him for your little baby. Pray over your baby. Pray over your other children. Whatever you’re going through, give it to the Lord, and lift your eyes up to Him. Sit in His presence, and you will find great delight in His presence. In His presence is fullness and joy. Amen?
No. 17: DELIGHT IN SEEKING GOD
2 Chronicles 15:15: “And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart and sought Him with their whole desire.” That’s the Hebrew word ratson, which is the word that’s used often for the word “delight.” “And He was found of them, and the Lord gave them rest roundabout.”
So, that was not just one person. That was the whole nation giving themselves to seek the Lord. You’ll find that when you seek the Lord that He will become your delight. But you’ve got to first of all start in delighting to seek Him. Yes.
I can’t believe it. But I noticed that there are many today who say they are believers, but they’re not very interested in seeking the Lord. Because to seek the Lord really takes effort and time. Seeking the Lord is spending time in His Word. It’s spending time in prayer.
There are so few of God’s people today who even love to go to prayer meetings. You find that prayer meetings are the smallest meeting in the church! Why is that? They should be the biggest meeting! Where everybody’s just running to get to the prayer meeting because that’s where the power is! That’s where we will move the hand of God! That’s where we’ll meet with God. That’s where we seek Him. Isn’t it amazing? Whoo.
Sometimes I think, “Oh, God, Lord God, what yet has to happen before we will be the bride that You are coming for? Will we be ready? Will we be those who are seeking after You? Let’s be in the remnant who seek after God. Delight to seek after Him.
No.18: DELIGHT IN FEARING GOD
Nehemiah 1:11: “O Lord, I beseech Thee, let now Thine ear be attentive to the prayer of Thy servant, and to the prayer of Thy servants,” ooh, “who desire to fear Thy name.” They delight to fear the Name of the Lord.
No. 19: DELIGHT IN SINGING PRAISES TO THE LORD
Psalm 135:3: “Praise the Lord, for it is good. Sing praises unto His Name, for it is pleasant. It is a delight.” The word “pleasant” there means “delight.” It’s the Hebrew word naiym, meaning “delightful, pleasant, sweet.”
No. 20: DELIGHT IN UNITY
Oh, number 20, here’s a good one, too. Now remember, these are all things that are written in God’s Word that He wants us to delight in. Delight in unity.
Psalm 133:1: “Behold, how good and how pleasant,” that means “delightful.” “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”
The Passion Translation says: “How truly wonderful and delightful it is to see brothers and sisters living together in sweet unity.” Wow! Ladies, don’t you think that would be a great Scripture to write out, or type out in big letters, and pin up on your wall?
Now that’s especially if you’ve got little ones and middling ones who are sometimes fighting it out together, and squabbling, and getting mad with one another, as children will often do. But what does it say? “How truly wonderful and delightful it is to see brothers and sisters living together in sweet unity.”
Well, the Word of God has such power. The Word, as we read at the beginning of this session in Isaiah 55, God’s Word, as we speak it out, has power to accomplish God’s plans. This is God’s plan for us to have unity together. So, you can make it a memory verse! You can pin it up on your wall! Because the Word of God will impact your family life.
This is what I did as I was raising our children. When I began to see different needs, areas of lack in their lives, areas where they needed to be put right, or built up, or they didn’t have it in their lives, I would look up the Scriptures on that subject. I’d get out my concordance and look up all the Scriptures. Then I would type them out, or write them out, and pin them up around the house.
In fact, down in New Zealand, where I was mainly raising our younger children, our toilets are not part of the bathroom. They are a separate little room. I liked that. It’s nice to have a separate little room. So, it was just the room for that purpose.
I would fill the walls with Scriptures, and powerful quotes, and little poems. When I saw a need in their lives, I would pin up Scriptures relating to that. Then I would make them memory verses. Then we would read them at the table when we were having family devotions.
It’s incredible how, as you continue to put the seeds of that Word, that living Word, into their hearts, and they get it into their minds, and into their hearts, and you get them saying it out loud as a memory verse, it begins to change them, and it fills up that need, that lack that is in their lives.
The Word of God, dear mothers, will fill up any lack in your children’s lives.
Sometimes you despair, “Help! What am I going to do with this child?” OK, the Word of God is your answer. Seek the Word to find out the Scriptures that will minister into that need, and that’s what they will do. God’s Word will accomplish that which He planned. Amen. All right. Well, I didn’t get to another point, ladies, but we’ll finish this one today.
Okay . . .
No. 21: DELIGHT IN DELIGHTFUL WORDS
Proverbs 15:26: “The words of the pure are pleasant words.” Or delightful words.
I love Proverbs 16:24. I memorized this Scripture years ago and I love to speak it out loud because it’s so wonderful! “Pleasant words,” of course, that means “delightful words.” It’s the word “delightful” in the Hebrew: “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.”
Well, you can’t get much better than that, can you? Yes, and so, we seek to speak delightful words, sweet words. As we do, they will be “sweet to the soul.” They’ll bring “health to the bones.” Did you know that we impact our health by what we say?
Some people are always sickly. But you know what? They’re always talking about their sicknesses! “Poor me! I’ve got this, and I’ve got that,” and all their worries, and all their complaints. People who get bitter and hurt, and they speak about these things. They’re complaining and groaning. They’re just going to be sick! You can’t speak sickly words and be healthy!
But when you speak health-giving words, and positive words, and life-giving words, and sweet words, and encouraging words, and positive words, and all these kinds of words, well, they’re going to be “health to the bones.” Make that one of your memory verses! If your children don’t know it, well, make sure they get learning it.
Psalm 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable” (the word is “delightful”) “in Thy sight, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer.” That’s the Hebrew word ratson, which is used 56 times in the Bible, meaning “delightful.”
No. 22: DELIGHT IN YOUR CHILDREN
And then, number 22, the last thing the Bible talks about delighting in, is, oh, this is such a wonderful one, ladies! Delight in your children! Yes! In Hosea 9:16, the Bible calls the children of the parents of Israel “the beloved fruit of their wombs.” Other translations say: “the precious offspring, their cherished offspring of their wombs, the darlings of their wombs.”
It means “to delight.” God wants us to delight in our children, not complaining about them, not thinking, “Oh, goodness me, I didn’t know! Now, look, I’ve got all these children, but really, I’m so educated! I should be out in my career!” No! You are in the perfect will of God!
Delight in His will. Delight in these children He has given you! Ladies, isn’t it amazing? Wow, all that God has given us in this land of motherhood. We’re so blessed. You have these precious children, living souls, eternal souls, that God has given you. They are far greater than anything you could ever do outside the home. Goodness me, that’s all going to be something that fades away. You won’t take it to eternity with you, but you’ll take your children.
“Dear Father, we thank You so much again for Your Word. Lord, we’ve literally spoken forth Your Word in this session. I pray again that Your Word will go forth to bring great blessings and great delight. And it will accomplish all that You want it to accomplish in everyone who is listening here today. In the precious Name of Jesus, Amen”.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org
Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
If you have a moment, it would be lovely if you could email a little thank you letter to Darlene. She sacrifices much of her time to transcribe these podcasts for you and I know it would encourage her to know that you are blessed by her hard work. Thanks so much.
P.S. Here is one of the little poems I had pinned up in the toilet in our home when raising our children. My children, most who are grandparents themselves now can still remember it and it has certainly impacted their lives. I think they are all at the top of the hill rather than the bottom!
TWO LITTLE MEN
Two little men stood looking at a hill,
One was named, Can’t and one
was named, Will.
Can’t said, “I never in the world
can climb this hill,”
So there he is at the bottom of it still!
Will said, “I’ll get to the top
because I will.”
Two little men are living by the hill,
At the bottom is Can’t, at the
top is Will!