LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 343: FOOD TWINS

God is the originator of food. He loves food. He wants us to enjoy it too. There are 25 different things in God’s Word that are associated with food. We begin to discover them in this podcast.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Today we’re continuing a few thoughts about eating which we began last week. Now I remember I was telling you how we must watch the ingredients in our food, and when we’re at the supermarket to always read the ingredients before we buy, because often we get them home, and find, “Oh, goodness me! I can’t eat this!”

The thing I was trying to remember that we must not have in our food is high-fructose syrup. That is in so many foods today. If you see that in the ingredients, don’t buy it. Don’t bring it back into your home, because instead of being a healing food, it’s a poisonous food. Sugar, any kind of sugar really, unless it’s a natural kind, is a poison.

Of course, sugar in the sugar cane is not poison. It’s a wonderful thing that God has created. If you go to other countries, you can buy sugar cane on the side of the road. You can suck it and it’s totally healthy. But when they manufacture it and refine it, they lose about sixty or more of the qualities that are in the sugar. Instead, it becomes a poison to our bodies, so we want to watch that sugar intake.

Another interesting thing about eating is how we eat. Today, in our very busy lifestyle, many of us are eating on the run. Many who are out in careers, even men at work are busy, and they eat on the run. Even at home, mothers are so busy looking after their children, and doing everything, that they will eat their food on the run, as they’re walking around, as they’re doing other things.

But it’s interesting that in the Word of God, we see that God wants us to sit down when we eat. It’s so interesting. There’s not a thing that He left out of God’s Word; even the littlest practical things that He knows are so beneficial for us, He talks about in His Word.

I’m not going to give you all the Scriptures today, but even the example of Jesus feeding the 5,000. The record of that story is in all the four gospels and all the four gospels talk about this very important thing--It’s sitting down.

Let’s go to Luke 9:14-15: Jesus said: “Make them sit down by fifties in a company. And they did so, and [the disciples] made them all sit down.”

Do you notice there, a word, “make”? Jesus didn’t say, “Well, get them all to sit down,” No, He said, “Make them sit down.” I think we really understand what He’s saying, don’t we, mothers? Because we know how we have to actually make our children sit down. It’s not unusual to say, “OK, children, come and sit at the table.”

Well, we get them there, and then we’ve got to keep them seated there, and teach them how to stay seated until the end of the meal. That takes training. Little by little, but we need to train them in this way, because this is how God wants us to eat.

Scientifically, they have proof that when you eat on the run, you really don’t get the same value from your food. Food is actually only truly assimilated and benefits our body when we are sitting down. The food is really meant to be eaten with others, sitting down, talking to others, fellowshipping and eating at the same time. Not talking with your mouth full but talking when your mouth is not full.

But fellowship is very much part of sitting at the table. The word in the Greek is anaklino, meaning “to recline, to take your place at the table, to make to sit down at a meal.”

We read it again in Matthew 15:35: “And He commanded them to sit down.”

Mark 6:39: “And He commanded the disciples to make them all sit down.”

Again, in John 6:10-11: “And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when He had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down.” Do you notice that Jesus did not even break the bread or give thanks to God until everyone was seated? Then it explicitly states that the disciples distributed it to those who were sitting down, Isn’t that interesting?

I know, dear mothers, it’s not always easy to make your children sit down, but this is an important training that we must do in our homes. Children always want to get up and down like yoyos. But unless they desperately need to go to the toilet, and they do ask, “Please, may I be excused?” Then you may allow them to go, and they must come straight back. But we are training them.

I am so amazed. We often have families sitting round our table and I notice that many of the children will want to get up and down. They are not used to sitting at the table. They haven’t been trained. Then some will need to go to the bathroom, and they just get up and go! They don’t ask, “Please, may I be excused?”

Somehow, etiquette and manners have gone out the door with this generation. It’s all because we, as mothers, are not passing on important etiquette and manners for our children, so they know how to behave in the home, when they go to someone else’s home, and when they go out into society.

READING THE BIBLE IS PART OF YOUR MEAL

Don’t be upset if you're always training your children on this matter. Keep at it, because it is important, and they need to learn to sit at the table until the end of our meal, and the end of devotions. Because having our family devotions, or Bible time, or whatever you call it, that is part of the meal. It’s not a separate part. It is part of the meal. In fact, it’s more important than the first part, because feeding our bodies is important, but feeding our spirits and souls is more important. We teach them to sit until we have finished reading and praying together.

If you’ve got little toddlers, when it comes to the time to read the Word, well, Daddy can hold a toddler on his knee. Mommy will be holding the baby, and if you've got teens, maybe another teen will hold another little one. If they’re getting tired, they’ve not having to sit up there on a stiff chair, but they can be held as it comes to the reading of the Word. But they’re still at the table.

As they get older, they’ll learn to sit in their chairs. So, we are training them, little by little. This is not only in the natural but in the spiritual as well. You remember how Luke 10:39 says: “Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His words.”

We can’t get our feeding from the Bible on the run, either, or just a quick sit-down. Many people say, “Oh, I have my Bible reading. Get a couple of verses, and on we go.” To really hear from Jesus, to really hear from God, we’ve got to sit down. We’ve got to take time. We’ve got to sit at His feet.

It’s only when we’re sitting at His feet that we will hear His Word or hear Him speak into our heart through His Word. We don’t hear it when we’re just doing it quick, quick, quick. “It’s done. I’ve got to get onto more important things!” No, this is THE most important. Let’s remember this very important principle.

Psalm 128:3: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine, flourishing within your home. Look at all those children. There they sit around your table, as vigorous and healthy as young olive trees. This is the Lord’s reward for those who fear Him.”

Where are your children? Sitting around the table! They’re not popping up and down, not running here and there. In many homes, children eat their food wherever they want. Just here, there, and everywhere! No, the picture God gives of a blessed family is the family sitting—sitting around the meal table. That’s God’s plan.

Now, I’d like to share with you just how much God thinks about food. He’s the One who provided it and He’s the One who created it. He’s the One who designed it and all the glorious flavors. A different taste for every fruit and vegetable and healing leaves from the trees. Everything is God’s design and it’s for our nourishment.

But I found in the Word, 25, what I call “FOOD TWINS.” A twin is when something is together. When God couples something with something else, it’s a twin. Like we have love and faith, peace and joy, and so on. They’re twins.

So, here we go, for 25 food twins. There are lots of Scriptures. I won’t give them to you all. I will put the Scriptures in the transcript for you, for those of you who are Bereans. Do you know what a Berean is? They were those in the Bible who searched the Word of God to see if those things were so. When Paul spoke to the Berean people, that’s what he said. “You were those who didn’t just take it at what I said. You searched the Word to see if it was so.” Read Acts 17:11.

I love to be a Berean. Even when I hear a preacher or I hear someone say something, I’m always taking notes. I never, ever, ever go to a meeting without my notebook. Many times, I’ll hear something. “Oh, wow! I’ve got to check that out! I haven’t heard that before. My, I must see if it really is true!” Or I want to study that more. So, I’m making notes to do that.

On this podcast, I know many times you are maybe washing dishes, going for a walk, ironing, doing something else. You don’t have time to look up the words, but if you’re a Berean, and you have extra time, you can go to the transcripts and find all the Scriptures.

All right . . .

No. 1: FOOD AND THE TABLE

Food is associated with the table because God wants us sitting down at the table. Now, the 5,000 that Jesus’ fed, they didn’t have a table, but they sat around in groups, because that would be a fellowship group. You see, when we sit at the table, we’re sitting around, and we look at one another. We can see one another. We’re eye-to-eye, face-to-face. It’s fellowship and food at the table.

One of the words for “table” in the Old Testament is a “mat upon the ground.” Sometimes they would sit around a mat. But the food was there in the middle, and they were sitting around, because the food was the focus. They sat around to have fellowship.

I wonder if you can remember where tables originated. OK, I have my two lovely Above Rubies helpers here. They are recording this podcast. Girls, have you got any idea where tables originated?

No? You have no idea. Well, don’t worry, because I often ask this question. Usually nobody knows. But let me tell you. It’s a wonderful answer. Tables originated in heaven. God had a table in His kingdom before we ever had them on earth.

TABLES ARE HEAVENLY

In fact, the first mention of table in the Bible is called” the table of showbread,” which was in the tabernacle. Everything in the tabernacle was made according to the plan in the heavenly realm. It was all a heavenly plan. In Revelation, we read of John looking into the heavenly realm, and we see so many of the pieces of furniture that were in the tabernacle back there in the Old Testament. And there they are, in heaven! Because they were in heaven first! Isn’t that amazing? So, the table of showbread was just a copy of God’s table in heaven.

Let me give you a few Scriptures in the New Testament.

Matthew 8:11: And Jesus said: “And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.” Here it’s speaking about how Jesus was saying that one day many will come from all over the world, from the four corners of the world, and they’re going to sit down with the patriarchs, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They’re going to sit down at the table and feast with them. Isn’t that amazing? Jesus is talking about His table in His kingdom.

Let’s go to Luke 13:29: Jesus is speaking again, and He says: “And they shall come from the east” (that’s very similar to the Matthew one, isn’t it?) “They shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.”

The New American Standard Bible says: “They shall recline at the table in the kingdom of God.”

Let’s go over the page. Luke 14:15: “When one of them that sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said unto Him, blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,”

Let’s go over to Luke 22:29: Jesus speaking again: “And I appoint unto you a kingdom as My Father hath appointed unto Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom.” Isn’t that amazing?

Jesus is talking to His disciples, and He says, “You’re going to eat with Me at My table in My kingdom.” And He was talking about His table (many, many, many tables that were there), even before we had them on earth. So, tables, dear ladies, are heavenly. They come from heaven. If you want to have a bit of heavenly atmosphere in your home, make a big thing of the table.

I think the table is really one of the most paramount pieces of furniture in our home. I think it’s the most important! Oh well, we like our beds to sleep in, don’t we? But the table, the table is a replica of the heavenly table, where we will fellowship with Christ and with God in the heavenly realm. When Jesus spoke, I think He was homesick for His table. He says, “One day you're going to be with Me at that table.”

But we can bring Jesus to our table now. Even when you give grace, ask the Lord to come and sit with you at your table. He wants to be with you. He wants to be there. He wants His presence to be with you as you as a family fellowship together, and have beautiful dialog together as you then, at the end of your meal, open the Word of God to listen to Him speak His Words to you. What a wonderful thing!

The table is a twin with food. Food and tables go together. We were talking about how God wants us to sit at the table, not sit in front of the TV, not sit somewhere off on a sofa with your iPhone. No, sit at the table.

Of course, you will make sure that everyone in the family leaves their iPhones somewhere else but not bring them to the table. And hopefully your husband won’t bring his to the table either. Maybe if he does, of course, you're not going to tell your husband what to do. Because you know if you do, well, he’ll do the opposite.

But if you can just talk to him privately, in a very sweet and loving way, and say, “Darling, about these iPhones, we really don’t want the children to have them at the table, because then we can’t have fellowship. What do you think? Don’t you think it would be good if we don’t have ours at the table either, so we can all get rid of them? Then we can be focused together at the table.” I’m sure if you speak to your husband like that, he will be happy to see that that’s such a good idea.

And we should even spread a tablecloth at the table. The Bible talks about that too. And have order. Set the table. Many people just kind of throw the food on the table. “Come and get it!” No, if we are realizing that our table is a type of heavenly, we’ll want to make it heavenly. We’ll want to make it special. We’ll want to put the tablecloth on.

I always say to people . . . sometimes people say, “Oh, can I set the table for you?”

“Thank you.”

And they’ll go to put out the silverware on the table. I say, “Hey! Just a minute! We don’t eat at the naked table.” I’ll say, “We love to put a tablecloth on the table.” Because it adds something special.

And let me tell you, dear mothers. Your children will rise to the value you put on your table. If you just throw some food on the table, with no tablecloth, not set very nicely, and everybody just comes, they’re all going to be casual about it. Nobody’s going to think very much about it.

THE MORE HONOR YOU PUT ON THE TABLE, THE BETTER BEHAVED YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE

But if you put a tablecloth, maybe you put a candle, and you set everything in order, wow! This is special. You’ll find the children will be more well-behaved. The more honor you put on the table, the more your children will behave. They will rise to how you value the table.

Now, let’s have a look at some Scriptures here. Back in Exodus 40:4, this is talking about the table of showbread, the first table mentioned, that was in the likeness of the heavenly table: “And thou shalt bring in the table, and set in order the things that are to be set in order upon it. And he set the bread in order before the Lord.” That word, arak in the Hebrew, means “to set in a row, to put in order, to set in array.”

Do you notice the things God wanted on that table of showbread? He didn’t say, “Oh, just plonk them on there. OK!” No, “set them in order according to the order I have shown you.”

Dear mothers, we are meant to set our tables, to set them in order. You will notice a great big difference to the meal. Of course, you're not going to be having to do all this yourself. You’re teaching your children how to put a tablecloth on, how to set the table nicely, how to maybe put an arrangement on the table to make it special. So, you're teaching your children.

Let’s read some other Scriptures.

Psalm 23:5: “Thou preparest a table before me.” That word is arak, “to set in order.”

Psalm 78:19: “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” Same word, arak, “to set the table.”

Proverbs 9:2: “Wisdom hath built her house. She hath also furnished her table.” It’s the word arak. “She hath set the table.” A wise woman will set her table. God wants a table to be prepared and set in order.

Also, we should eat our food at set times. I believe that it doesn’t have to be on the very dot. “OK, we must have our supper at six o’clock every night!” Well, I like to think we have our supper at about six o’clock. But for some families, it would only be five o’clock. Some, it may be seven, because the husband comes home later. You find a time for your family. And, of course, it will vary with things that are happening, within a half hour or so. But you have it about that same time.

Do you remember the Scripture of the healing home? That was a little parable about the healing household and how the wise steward gives a portion of food to the family “in due season.” That’s King James. But other translations say that he served the food “at the proper time.” So, here we find another little principle about the table. It’s amazing! God’s Word is so amazing. There’s every little principle there for us to know how to do it, even in the most practical things of life.

And so, breakfast time, we have at a certain time, roundabout that certain time. But any old time? I know families who have children getting up at all different times. Getting up whenever they like! How do they have breakfast together? They don’t! Everybody gets up when they feel like it, and they get a little bit of cereal out of the cupboard, and that’s that.

No, you're meant to have it at a set time, the proper time. So, everybody has to get up at the set time. That’s how we order a household. You cannot have an ordered household when everybody gets up whenever they like, at any old time. That is not an ordered household.

I think your mother was telling me, Auden, that she was getting you all up at six o’clock to have your time with the Lord, together as a family, because everybody was going their various ways. You all get up.

Yes, but you see, not every household is going to get up at six. Some may get up later, or whatever time suits your household. But you find that time for your household, and you keep it. So, you have your set times for breakfast, and for lunch, and for supper. Amen?

No. 2: FOOD AD ABUNDANCE

Oh, it’s amazing. I found 19 different Scriptures here about God giving food with abundance. You’ll get them all in the transcript. Let’s just go to Isaiah 25:6: This is talking about a feast. I don’t know when it’s going to happen. It might be in the millennium, I’m not sure. It might be the marriage supper of the Lamb. I don’t think it is. It doesn’t specifically say that.

But it says: “And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.”

I like the World Messianic Bible Translation. It says: “A feast of choice meats, a feast of choice wines, a feast of choice meats full of marrow, a well-refined choice wine.” Wow! That’s some kind of feast, isn’t it? I love that phrase, “Choice meats full of marrow.”

Have you ever tasted marrow? Have you girls ever tasted marrow? Oh, marrow is my favorite part of the meat. It’s that stuff that’s inside the bones. When you cut the bone, say you're cutting bone, you're roasting the meat. Oh, at the end, when it’s all roasted, you can kind of suck that marrow out of the bone. When we were growing up, we used to all fight over that marrow. Who could get that marrow?

I’m a great lover of making broth. When someone kills a beef or a lamb, or whatever, if I can get the bones, I’m grabbing those bones! I cook them up. I usually cook them up and simmer them very slowly for about 72 hours. But, oh, I just love it. As it’s cooking, I’ll check to see if the marrow there is cooked. I’ll get it out and I will take that marrow. It’s so rich and so amazing. You can’t take too much of it. It is so rich.

It makes me think of back in New Zealand days. I grew up in a family where my father wasn’t a butcher by trade, but he knew the whole butcher trade. He knew so many trades. He was a sawmiller, but he was also the world champion shearer of the world in his day. He designed the way shearing is done. He was a horse trainer, and a dog trainer, and a taxidermist, and I don’t know how many other things. There’s a little saying, “Jack of all trades, but master of none.” But that was not true of him. He was master of all his trades, and the best.

But we grew up with home-grown meat all our lives. It wasn’t until I was married that I had to go to a butcher shop. Help! I had never had to do that. My father would kill all the meat. He’d kill a beef; he’d kill a lamb. Mostly sheep, because we’re a sheep country.

When he killed his sheep, we ate it all. He would come in with the brains and the sweetbreads and we would fry them up for breakfast. Then we would have the organ meats. We’d have the liver and the heart. We’d fry it up with onions. Then we’d even eat the tongue. We’d boil up the tongue and then we’d press it for quite some time so that it became so pressed. We would cut it like a loaf. Oh, we ate everything! So, I’m used to eating all these things like marrow and so on.

Of course, now, goodness me! You go to the supermarket and buy a packet of meat. It’s nothing like how we used to eat it back when I grew up. My father usually had at least two 22-cubic-feet deep freezers, full of meat, which he had killed himself, or gone out hunting and shot himself.

Let’s carry on.

No. 3: FOOD AND COOKING

Yes, you can’t disassociate food from cooking because although we can eat many foods raw, there are many foods we must also cook.

I love that story that we read in John 21, the last chapter of John. This was after Jesus had risen from the dead. He wanted to talk to His disciples, so he knows they’ll be out on Lake Galilee fishing. They were very sad at this time, although now they did know that Jesus had risen from the dead. But He wasn’t with them all the time like He was previously.

Jesus went down and wanted to talk to them. He saw them out in the water. Obviously, they’d been out all night, fishing. What did He do? The Bible tells us that Jesus began to make a fire on the beach. And then He began to cook. He began to cook some fish and some bread. When He had it ready, He called out to His disciples. He said, “Come! Come and dine! I’ve got breakfast ready!”

Now, just a minute, ladies. Who was this cooking?

It was Jesus, the One who had just risen from the dead. King of Kings, Lord of Lords! And what is He doing? Cooking. Cooking. And some mothers think, “Cooking’s too lowly for me. I’ve got better things to do!” And they put together something and they don’t really realize the power there.

Jesus. One of the first things He did after rising from the dead was cook a meal! And serve His disciples. The Bible says: “And Jesus served them.” He didn’t wait on them to serve Him. No, Jesus served them and gave to His disciples. Can you just imagine? The fellowship and the talking they had.

And then Jesus took Peter aside and began to talk to him. He told him to “feed My sheep, Peter. Feed My lambs.” He had something special to say to Peter, but He didn’t just go down to the lake and call out Peter and say, “Hey, Pete! I’ve got something to tell you!” No, He first cooked a meal. And then He spoke into his life. You see, that is the power of a meal and the power of the table.

And dear ladies, that’s the power of having family devotions at the table, because God aligns Himself with the table, and with cooking, and with a meal. When we eat, we release oxytocin, which is the relaxing hormone. And you relax, and you're more ready to hear and to take in. So, when we’re eating, we’re relaxed, and we’re more ready to hear from God, and to hear what He has to say to us. Just like Jesus gave food to Peter before He spoke into his life. I hope that you can begin to see the power of the table.

Well, time is gone again.

“Lord Jesus, we thank You. Thank You that we can read about Your life. The cooking was not an insignificant task for You. It was something You did with purpose. You love to do it, because You love food, and You love to serve. You didn’t come to be served, but You came to serve and give Your life a ransom for many.

“Help me, help every mother listening. Help us all to see that power of the table, the power of cooking a meal, the power of serving our families and all the folks that we invite into our homes. This is such a beautiful, God-given ministry, to serve our families and to serve other people with food. Lord, bring us into such a large place of doing this. We pray in Jesus’ Name. Amen”.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

SCRIPTURES FOR THE ABOVE POINTS:

1. 1.     FOOD AND THE TABLE

1. Tables originate in Heaven: Matthew 8:11; Luke 13:29; 14:15; 22:30, 30; and Revelation 19:9. God told Moses to make The Table of Shewbread after the pattern of God’s table in Heaven (Exodus 25:23, 40; 26:30; Acts 7:44; Hebrews 8:1-5; and 9:8).

1. God wants us to eat at the table, not on the run, or anywhere around the house: 2 Samuel 9:7-13 (19:28 and 1 Kings 2:7); 2 Kings 25:29 (Jeremiah 52:32, 33) and Psalm 128:3.

1. God wants us to SIT at the table to eat: Genesis 37:25; Exodus 16:3; 32:6; Judges 19: 6; Ruth 2:14; 1 Samuel 20, especially verses 5, 18, 24-29; 1 Kings 10:4, 5 (2 Chronicles 9:3, 4); Esther 3:15; Psalm 139:2; Proverbs 23:1, 2; Matthew 8:11; Luke 12:37; 14:15; 22:27; and 24:30.

1. Examples of Jesus siting at the table: When Jesus came to the table, they not only ate, but he taught, shared stories, and did miracles. The table is a great place for mighty things to happen, but it all starts with food: Matthew 26:6, 7 (Mark 14:3); Matthew 6:20, 21 (Mark 14:18); Luke 7:36, 37; 11:37; 14:1-4; and John 12:2.

1. 2.     FOOD AND ABUNDANCE

God delights to give food in abundance: Genesis 1:29; 9:3; Deuteronomy 6:11; 8:9, 10; 10:18; 28:5, 11; 30:9; Psalm 103:5; 104:14, 15; 111:5; 136:25; 145:15, 16; 146:7; Isaiah 25: 6; and Acts 14:17.

1. 3.     FOOD AND COOKING

Genesis 19:3; 1 Chronicles 9:31; and Proverbs 31:14, 15.

 

 

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 342: YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

What you eat physically determines your physical health, and what you eat spiritually determines your spiritual health. What does God’s word have to say about eating?

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! When this podcast goes out, it will be on New Year’s Eve this evening. I hope you've been having a wonderful Christmas time this year, and a wonderful Hannukah celebration. Now we’ll be going into the New Year. For New Year’s Eve, we’ll be gathering here on the Hilltop for games and fellowship. As we get to the end of the night, midnight, I don’t know whether I’ll still be up or not, we’ll be having Communion, and starting the New Year with God.

Today we’re going back to our discourse on what God told His people to do when they were captives in Babylon. He gave them seven things to do, the same things that He had told them in the very beginning. He tells them again, and said, “Now you're in captivity. You’re away from your beloved land, but I still want you to keep doing the very things that I gave you in the beginning.” They were such practical things; to build houses and dwell in them, to plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.

No. 4: TO EAT

Today, we’re up to number four, which is to eat what we plant. This is really for us physically and spiritually. The Word of God says: “first that which is natural, and then that which is spiritual” (1 Corinthians 15:46). Just about everything in the Word can speak to us in the natural and in the spiritual, because that’s what we are. We’re not only body. We’re body, soul, and spirit.

We’re going to look at this today. We’ll start off in the natural and then we’ll move into the spiritual. It comes from the Scripture in Jeremiah 29:5: “Plant gardens and eat the fruit thereof.” Here in America, it is wintertime, so we’re not actually planting our gardens yet. We’ll be waiting for spring.

We have just come back from New Zealand. It was a beautiful trip down to our home country. I was born in New Zealand, raised in New Zealand, and raised our children for the first part of their lives in New Zealand. Then we moved to Australia for ten years, and then we came to the States. We came in 1991, so we’ve been here for a good long time now. We consider America our home. We’re American citizens now.

But it is always wonderful to go back to our homeland. This time we went as a tribe of 14 of us. It was Serene and Sam, four of their daughters, and some of our granddaughters, and Arden and Esther, and little Gethsemane. It was great to take them back to the home where I was raised and then take them to the home where their mothers were raised. That was quite amazing.

We went up to this home (where we raised our children), and we said to the occupants, “We actually built this home. Would you mind if we had a little peek inside?” The lady said, “You come right in!” Can you imagine it? She allowed 14 of us to invade her home! She said, “Come on up to the bedrooms!” The girls wanted to know which bedroom their mothers slept in. It was so exciting for them. The old potbelly stove we had in the lounge was still there. Everything was looking lovely. It was so great.

Then we went on to Rotorua to see the home where my parents lived in their latter years, and which my children loved so much. It was a great memory for them. Sam, Serene’s husband, doesn’t know New Zealand. He booked all the air B&Bs before coming down to New Zealand. It was amazing. Every place where he booked an air B&B worked out unbelievably amazing! Right near where the family lived, and he didn’t know.

In fact, when we came to Rotorua, I said, “Sam, I wonder where you have booked this air B&B. Show me on your iPhone.” He opened up his iPhone, and he said, “Here it is.” There it said the words, “Kawaha Point.” I said, “I just can’t believe this! This is exactly where my parents lived!” He could have booked anywhere in the whole of Rotorua. There we were, so close, and it was only three minutes away. We could walk down the hill, down to the lake where my parents lived in this beautiful home overlooking the lake.

Then we went down to Palmerston North. We were in all these different places where we had lived, or where family had lived. We took the children to see the graves of my parents and Colin’s parents. It was a wonderful heritage trip for them. Of course, it was summertime in New Zealand. They are the opposite to us here.

The gardens! Oh, they were so beautiful. Everybody in New Zealand has beautiful gardens. Flower gardens, vegetable gardens, because the soil is so rich. It rains frequently over there. It’s a very temperate climate so the growth is amazing. In fact, you drive through New Zealand, and it’s like a park.

You look out at the grass and the fields and the hills and it’s so green! It’s like luminous green. Your eyes can hardly take it in! It’s so amazing. You go into the vegetable shops, and the greens and the cabbages and everything are all richer and greener and redder. Oh, it’s unbelievable! I think there’s also something about the ozone layer down there, because when I was a child, it was not as hot as it is here in Tennessee in the summer.

You could go out on a cloudy day, and it wouldn’t be too hot. It would be temperate. You wouldn’t think the sun could burn you, but, being a redhead, I would come in at night, and I would have blisters on my shoulders and blisters on my nose. I was a little freckle-face growing up. Somehow, the sun Down Under gives you lots of freckles, and it gives you lots of sunburn, and even blisters!

Oh, I remember one time going to the mountains on a ski trip in the snow. It was a sunny day in the snow. I came back from the worst blisters that I’ve ever, ever had in my life! Can you imagine that happening in the snow?

Even Pearl, little Pearlie, you all know who Pearlie is with Trim Healthy Mama. If you look at pictures of her today, you wouldn’t see a freckle on her face because they have all just faded away. But when she was a child, she had so many freckles! In Australia, where it was really hot, she didn’t even like to ever go out in the sun. My eldest son had so many freckles that they all grew into one big brown blotch, there were so many! But his have faded today too now we’ve been away from that New Zealand sun.

Anyway, I was talking about planting and eating from our gardens. It’s very much like what God says in Galatians 6:7: “Be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” That applies in the natural and in the spiritual. What we eat physically determines what our health will be like and what we eat spiritually determines what our spiritual health will be like.

A lot of people today eat a lot of junk food and a lot of fast food. I look back at pictures of when we were young and growing up in New Zealand. You can’t even find a picture of a fat person! Of course, I go back today, and it’s a little different, because now there are fast foods. I guess food is more plentiful and people have got bigger and bigger and bigger. It's amazing.

Of course, that’s the same here in the States. There are so many big and even fat people today. People don’t even mind showing their fat and showing their rolls. It’s become so normal. I think a lot of that is because so many people live on fast food, sugary foods, and fat foods. We are what we eat. Today, people eat, I think, even more than they used to.

But then in the spiritual, people really aren’t living on a lot of fat foods spiritually. They’re living on more shallow food because it’s not only the Word that we need to make us strong spiritually, but even other books that we read. You can read some very wonderful books that feed you spiritually but there are so many books that are so shallow. Not only shallow, they sometimes have a lot of evil in them.

Even so-called good books will have immorality and these things in them. It’s hard to find a book without them. When we’re reading books with immorality and adultery in them, well, we’re really siding with that which God says is a sin, a sin against our own body. In fact, when we remember the story of Joseph, when Potiphar’s wife came to him, and wanted him to lie with her. No! He wouldn’t and he ran from her. And he said these words, “How can I do this great evil and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). He looked upon it as a great evil.

But if we’re reading these kinds of things, well, we’re going to be very, very shallow spiritually. Very, very meager in our spiritual life. I often think of reading novels, even if it’s a good one if I’m reading one, maybe on a holiday or something, I like to find one that’s very good and wholesome.

But it’s like a dessert, I think. We can’t live on dessert. If we only lived on dessert physically, wow! That wouldn’t be very good. And it’s the same spiritually. We’ve got to have our meat and potatoes. We’ve got to have our real, good, solid food. The Bible speaks about that too, doesn’t it? It says a lot of people are just drinking the milk of the Word, because they’re not yet ready to have solid food. It’s the solid food in the spirit realm that makes you strong in the Lord (Hebrews 5:12-14).

It’s not a matter of just, “Oh well, even a little bit of God’s Word,” or just hearing it on Sunday. We have to be those who get into the meat, who dig into the solid meat of His Word to make us strong. Even when we’re reading books, we find books that are meaty and will encourage us in the ways of God and enlighten us of Who He is.

In fact, just the other night, we had our annual book party. Every year for so many years now, it became a tradition, we have our book party with all the couples in our family. All our children, and their spouses, and then my nephews and nieces and their spouses. It started when we were having Christmas Day, and the children were raising their children. They were all little. We would have so many in highchairs, or all sitting on the floor having their Christmas dinner. There were so many children screaming and running around. It was pretty wild.

I thought, “Wouldn’t it be good to have something that’s going to be special, just for the adults?” So, I got this great idea of getting all our children and their spouses together for a special meal. We would play the white elephant game, where you bring something, and you give everyone a number, and everyone chooses a gift.

Well, none of us could be bothered with getting stuff. Nobody wants more stuff for their home. We’re all trying to get rid of stuff! But we all love books. We all love reading, so I said, “OK, we’re going to play this white elephant game with books.” We did, and it was so much fun that we kept it going as a tradition.

Of course, now, all these little children who were little then at that time, they’ve all grown up. So many of them are married and have their own families now. Now we have a young couple’s book party. But we had our older adult book party the other night.

Once again, it was just a riot, because after a beautiful meal together, we all got into it. We all try to buy something that someone, or many, will want to fight for it! So, books are being passed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until they actually win. What we do in our family, once you have got the book three times, then you have it. That’s yours by then. But they have to get it three times.

Many of the books are political or great stories. People search for the greatest books that there are around. But someone brought a book on Tozer, three books of A. W. Tozer put together, The Pursuit of God, The Way of Holiness, and so on. Oh, I looked at that book, and I said, “Wow!” I picked it up and hugged it to my breast, because Tozer is one of my greatest authors I love to read.

Have you read any books by Tozer? I encourage you to do so. He writes on the character of God, and he takes you into a new realm of understanding of who God is. One of my sons went home with that book. I said, “Rock, you're going home with the best book of the night!” Because there are books that are so meaty and so feed you. They’ll make you strong in the Lord if you eat those kinds of books.

So, we’re talking about eating, but let’s get back, shall we, to physical planting and eating. Let’s read here. Luke, oh yes, this is a very interesting Scripture. Luke 12:42. It’s a one-verse parable that Jesus told. There are quite a few parables in the Bible that are only one verse. They are pretty amazing. Actually, my husband spoke about them yesterday at church, two of them that were so amazing.

But this is Luke 12:42: “And the Lord said, who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat (or food) in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.” A while back, I read that Scripture, and I looked at the word “household.” That’s another word for the home.

I thought, “I’m going to look up and see what that word is in the Greek,” because throughout the New Testament, the main word for “household,” or “home,” or “family” is the word oikos. It means “the home, the family.” But when I looked up this Scripture for “household,” it was a different word completely. It was the word therapeia. Wow. Already I began to think, “Wow, is that where we get our word ‘therapy’?” I looked up the meaning, and it means “to give care and attention, especially medical care; domestic, healing, health-giving.”

I thought, “That is so amazing. The word that’s used here for “home” is a “healing home.” God wants our households, our homes, to be healing homes. This word, therapeia, is only used in two other places in the Bible. In Luke 9:11, Jesus “spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing (therapeia).”

Then again, in the last book of the Bible, Revelation 22:1-2: “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” Once again, the word “healing” was therapeia.

So, God want us to have healing homes. Is your home, dear mother, a healing home? Are the foods that you are eating in your home healing foods? We, as mothers, are responsible for all the food that comes into our home, and the food that we give to our husbands and families. That’s our responsibility. Therefore, we must take it seriously.

We don’t go to the supermarket, get our trolley, and go around all the aisles, and “Look at this, ooh, that looks good! I think I’ll put it in my trolley.” Is that what we call them here? Or “carts”? I don’t know. I get mixed up. I still use words from New Zealand. What is it then? A cart? A cart! Yes! We must use “trolley” back in New Zealand. There are so many different words that we use that are so different.

Anyway, we can be taken away by something new, and something that looks pretty good. But we’d better remember to read the ingredients, because if we don’t, wow! We’ll be bringing home things with lots of stuff in them that we shouldn’t be eating.

Sometimes my husband will bring home something. He loves to have jam on his toast. He knows he’s meant to get healthy stuff, but he’ll bring it home. I’ll look at the ingredients, and I’ll say, “Darling, didn’t you read the ingredients?” Because the very first thing that it said was either cane sugar, or what’s that very bad one? Help! It’s just gone from me. Cane sugar isn’t as bad as this other one that is just about everything. I can’t even think of what it is at the moment! (Corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup!)

But we must watch what is in the ingredients. In fact, when I go to the supermarket, really, the main aisle I go to is the fruit and veggies aisle, although I prefer to get that out of my garden. But that’s where I go mostly. Then most of my grains, and all my things like that, cereals and grains and so on, I order online anyway.

I don’t really do a lot of shopping at the supermarket. But we do have to watch, ladies, that everything we bring into our home is healing food. When we’re buying it, we think, “Is this going to be healing for my husband and for my children?”

DON’T BRING ANY FOOD INTO YOUR HOME UNLESS IT IS HEALING FOOD

A lot of mothers will say to me, “Oh, my children love to eat this cereal, and they love to eat this, and they love to eat that, and they don’t really like the good things.” I say, “Well, have you got them in your home? Why have you even bought them? If you don’t have them in your home, well, your children are not going to be tempted to eat them! Don’t even bring anything into your home unless it’s a healing food.”

In fact, I never buy packaged cereals. I can’t believe that people do. You can go to Whole Foods and even buy so-called “healthy” packaged cereals. But they are still not the grain in its original state, how God gave it. It’s all changed. They might add a few things to give you a few good things. Most of them contain sugar, and sugar is a poison. I think you might as well eat the cardboard.

But when I’m having our breakfast grains, I will cook rolled oats, or the original oat groats. That’s my favorite. I love to soak the oat groats for about three days, changing the water every day. Then when they are soaked like that, boiling them up. They’re so beautiful. I love that. And millet, and quinoa, and so on, all these wonderful grains that you can cook up, right from scratch. You’re getting it in the original as God gave it to us.

Watch what you bring back into your home, dear mother. Don’t bring these foods, packaged foods, tinned foods that have sugar in them, and all these words that you can’t even pronounce. If you can’t pronounce the words, there’s all those additives. They’re not good for you, and many are cancer-forming. And all the colors that they add, many of them are cancer-forming.

Just keep to an original healing home, because that’s the word that is used in the Bible for “household.” Did you get it? Therapeia. Healing. Yes, we’re to be healing mothers, bringing healing to our families through the foods that we give them.

You notice in this word, “Plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.” Really, a lot of our food, a good proportion of it, well, really, the biggest portion should be from our garden! That’s what God planned in the very beginning.

Even when you go to the supermarket, even when you buy foods that are organic, you look at them, and help! They look a little bit wilted, and you think, “How long have they been sitting here?” Even when you buy organic lettuce and organic greens in those plastic containers, you get them home, they hardly last a day, and they’re getting all soggy. You find all these yellow ones in them. How long have they been sitting there?

But when you go out to your garden, you're picking it fresh! I just love springtime and summertime when I can go out to the garden. Lunchtime, and then suppertime, and pick things fresh! Oh, that’s how God wants us to eat them. That’s how we get the most healing from them. The most healing way to eat is to plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.

Then we read in Revelation that “the leaves are for the healing of the nations.” When we have healthy homes and healthy children in our healing homes, we’ll have a healthy nation. It says here “the leaves of the tree.” We drink a lot of tea, although Americans drink more coffee than tea. When I grew up in New Zealand, we were a tea-drinking country.

You wouldn’t believe this. Do you really want to know what it was like? OK. Of course, many of our New Zealanders were farmers, especially back when I was living there. It’s well over 40 years since we left the shores of New Zealand. But right up until that time, it was a tea-drinking country. They drank black tea, mainly.

I have to admit, I never liked the taste of black tea. My mother didn’t drink black tea. She didn’t like the taste of it. So, somehow, I grew up like her, not liking it. In fact, I hated the taste of it. It was a very, very embarrassing thing, because everywhere we went, you could only take one step into the home and people would be pouring out the tea! It was always black tea.

Before they could do it, I had to say, “Oh, sorry! Do you mind if I just have hot water?” Because back in those days, they didn’t even have all the alternatives. What do you call them? The teas that we have today? The herbal teas! Of course, the herbal teas. And I love herbal tea. They didn’t have them back there.

So, I would have to try and drink something else, and there wasn’t much else to drink but hot water. But everybody else would have black tea, and they got up in the morning first thing. If they were milking cows, or getting up early, they’d have their cup of tea. Then they’d come back for breakfast and have a cup of tea.

Then morning teatime. In New Zealand, you always have morning tea. It’s a little break between breakfast and lunch, and you’d have a cup of tea. Then at lunchtime, you’d have a cup of tea. Then in the afternoon, you’d have an afternoon tea break.

We even did this at school! We’d always have school, and then we’d have morning tea break. Actually, they didn’t give us tea at school. They used to bring around (because we were a dairy country), they brought round these little, pint bottles of milk. Every child had to drink this pint of milk. Oh, I used to want to gag, because sometimes it was sitting out in the sun, and it was all warm. Oh, you had to get down this pint of milk! But they were trying to make the nation healthy.

Then again, at afternoon teatime, you had your cup of tea. Often, they had two or three cups of tea. Then at teatime, which down in New Zealand, our teatime is what we call suppertime here. You’d have another cup of tea. Then, before you go to bed, you have suppertime. Our suppertime down under is what you call your main meal. But for us, it was a little snack and a cup of tea again before you went to bed. Everybody had that many teas, and some had even more in between. Can you believe it? Ooh! We were a tea-drinking country.

But now you go back to New Zealand and there’s hardly a person who drinks tea. They are all drinking coffee. They’ve copied the United States of America. In fact, I think they’re just about ahead. Everywhere you go, you can get coffee. Everyone is a barista who will do a beautiful design on your coffee. You go to coffee shops here in the states, and not everyone will do a design on your coffee. But every single coffee you get in New Zealand, there’s a design on it.

So, going back to the leaves. Now tea is made from leaves, and, of course, we now have our herbal teas, and they’re made from all kinds of leaves from different trees and bushes. Here the Bible is speaking about it. Tea is actually very healing because the Bible says: “The leaves of the trees.”

We think of vegetables, but even the trees, the leaves of the trees (unless you find a poisonous one), just about every tree, the leaves are healing. You can pick them, especially in the spring when they’re new and fresh, and you can put them in boiling water and make tea out of them. Because they’re healing.

Food is meant to be healing. There are two words in the New Testament for food. How much longer have we got girls? Oh, yes, about five minutes. OK, let me share this with you. The main word for food in the New Testament is trophe. It’s used 16 times in the New Testament, and it means “nourishment, both literally and figuratively.”

REAL FOOD IS NOURISHING

Food is to be nourishing. But if it’s not nourishing, then it’s not really food. A lot of foods we eat today are food, but they’re not nourishing, so they’re not real food. Real food is nourishing. Make sure you're nourishing your children, your family, with nourishing foods, trophe foods, mothers.

The other one is trepho. It’s used eight times in the New Testament. It’s amazing how much God talks about food. This is only the New Testament. Oh, He talks so much about it in the Old Testament. Trepho means “to fatten, to cherish with food, to pamper, to bring up, to feed, to nourish.” Once again, food is meant to be nourishing.

We see an interesting Scripture in Luke 4:16: “And Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.” That is trepho. It’s interesting that it uses that word for raising a child, even for raising Jesus. Jesus’ mother, Mary not only raised Him and trained Him, but fed Him. Feeding our children is a big part of our mothering. So, Jesus was fed. He was brought up. He was nourished with physical food, but also spiritual food.

Dear mothers, we are the nourishers of our families. We’re to nourish them with physical food and nourish them with spiritual food that is good for their souls and their spirits. Not all this shallow junk that’s around today, on TV, and on social media. Oh, the children and the young people of our day are being raised on such shallow junk and many times evil junk. Oh, mothers, we have a responsibility. We are to nourish our children. That’s bringing them up physically and spiritually on the healing food.

1 Timothy 5:10, this Scripture speaks about the women who were widows. Paul was telling Timothy that these widows, if they had no one to care for them, and they had lived a certain lifestyle, they were to provide for them from the church. They had to be 60 years of age and older, and they had to have lived this kind of lifestyle. It’s a beautiful lifestyle.

We see it in 1 Timothy 5:10: “Well reported of for good works; if she has brought up children.,” That was the very first criteria, the very first thing that God said, “If she’s done this.” That’s the same word, trepho, “brought up and nourished” children. She fed the children, and she fed them nourishing food. And she fed them on nourishing food spiritually. She was a nourisher of her children. Then it goes on to say: “if she has washed the saints' feet, relieved the afflicted, lodged strangers, and done every good work.” But the first one was nourishing children, both physically and spiritually.

I do believe that our children’s memories of the home should be of the family table, with the aroma of good food, nourishing food, conversation, dialogue, and fellowship, because God loves to bring us to the table to eat—to eat for our physical bodies and to eat for our souls and our spirits too.

In fact, I think that everything that happens in life, we should celebrate with food!

Do you notice, as you read the Old Testament, that God mandated so many feasts to remember His ways? All the feasts of the Lord, they were literal feasts where they could feast on food and wine. What a wonderful thing to have a party for everything. God loves feasts and everything that He wanted them and us to remember, He ordained a feast.

That didn’t mean that they feasted every day. They ate basic, healthy food every day, but they were interrupted with feasts. I think that’s a wonderful way to live. That’s how we live. We eat basic food every day, but our lives are interrupted with lots of feasts, parties, anything to have a wonderful celebration as a family.

Time is up.

“Dear Father, we thank You again for Your living Word, which is so practical, and comes right down to the nitty-gritty of our lives in our homes. Thank You for showing us, Lord, that the word “household” is therapeia, to be a healing home.

“I pray, Father, that You will help each one of us to be healing mothers, healing our children with the foods we prepare for them. Healing them, and nourishing them with Your wonderful, living Word each day. Nourishing them with our encouraging and upbuilding, and Lord God, the good words that we speak into their lives.

“Help us to be truly nourishing mothers and healing mothers. We ask it in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

 

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 341: MORE IS EASIER

Happy Christmas and Happy Hannukah! Many mothers confess that motherhood is easier with a larger family than with a smaller family. Is this true? Is it possible? Allison Hartman joins me today as we discuss this subject and the negative objections. 

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Well, today, I’m recording this podcast the day after Thanksgiving. But you're not getting this podcast until the day before Christmas. So, I’ve got to say, “Happy Christmas” to you all, and “Happy Hannukah!” Now, in our home, we celebrate both, so we’ll be doing both together this year.

Of course, when we celebrate Christmas, we’re not celebrating all the tinsel and Santa Claus. We’re really just celebrating with family, and remembering this time when Jesus was conceived in the womb. He most probably wasn’t born at this time of the year. That would be more at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. We do love to celebrate Hannukah. It’s such a wonderful celebration.

Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving, and I have with me today again Allison Hartman. I can’t think how many podcasts we’ve done together now, Allison. Even though they live down in Pensacola, the whole family comes up every year for Thanksgiving. They started before they were part of the family, but now they are part of the family, because two of Allison’s sons are married to . . .

Allison: Daughters.

Nancy: Daughters. Got to get it the right way around! They are married to two of Serene Allison’s sons (another Allison), but my daughter. The amazing thing is, at the moment, three of Serene’s sons are all having babies. Their wives are all pregnant.

Arden and Esther, which is a miracle baby, and Halle and Cedar with their second baby. And now, Vision and Eden with their first baby. So wonderful! We’re really family now. Of course, there’s a lot more children in the family. You never know what’s going to happen yet.

Allison: That’s right! That’s right.

Nancy: We had such a glorious Thanksgiving yesterday, didn’t we?

Allison: It was so wonderful!

Nancy: The last two Thanksgivings we had over at the wedding barn. But everybody was saying, “Oh, Nana, it’s just not quite the same as being here at your place! Do you think we can come back?” We decided we’d squash in! So, we squashed in, about 90-plus people for a sit-down meal. How we did it, I don’t know, but we did it! It was so precious.

We always end our great big feast . . . Can you believe how much food we had? Everybody took food home. We’ll all eat for the next three days! We’ll have another Thanksgiving meal tonight, won’t we?

But it was so great. We always have speeches, giving toasts to people we love or remember. There’s something so wonderful about that. To me, to just have a meal, and all just go your merry way, there’s not so much meaning to it. But when we can get up and share about people, and toast the different ones, it’s so much more meaningful, isn’t it?

Allison: It’s so special.

Nancy: Any comments you've got?

Allison: Oh, it was just the most perfect day! It was such a fun day, just seeing all the different families come from all walks of life. The girls from Australia who came over for the first time ever to America, that was fun meeting them. Then the games that we played. Oh, the egg toss was incredible!

Nancy: Oh, wasn’t it? And Allison’s sons were the ones who were still going!

Allison: 2024 champions!

Nancy: I couldn’t believe it! How that egg survived! They were still throwing it and catching it, for how far apart were they by this time? Because every throw, you go further and further apart.

Allison: Oh, but it was so fun, watching! You mainly think of an egg toss as little children, but no, these were grown adults! Married couples, my teenage boys; they were extremely competitive. They loved it.

Nancy: Oh yes, and tug-of-war! Can you believe how all those young sons actually won against those big tough men who all work out, and they’ve got all these huge muscles?

Allison: I know! And then the dads called for a rematch, and they got beaten again!

Nancy: I cannot even believe it! [laughter] It was so glorious!

But today there was something I thought we could discuss together. A while back, on my Facebook, I posted a little post. This was actually very popular. I think it got over a thousand likes. But it had some negative comments too. Let me read you what I posted, and for fun, we’ll look at the negative comments and see, well, why did people say this?

This is what I wrote.

I was talking to a mother, expecting her tenth baby. She shared with me that on a recent Sunday morning at church how some of the young mothers asked her how she survived with so many children! What did she reply? “Oh, more is easier!”

“Truly?” they gasped in surprise.

She then shared with them her testimony of that very morning. “I hadn’t slept well last night, and because I’m pregnant again, I slept in a little later. When I got up, I noticed my 13-year-old daughter preparing breakfast, and getting all the clothes ready for the other children to wear to church. Another daughter was looking after the baby. All was well. So, I leisurely took a shower and then spent some time reading the Word. When I came out to the kitchen, breakfast was waiting on the table, and we all sat down together.”

Then I commented, “Oh, it is so true that when you have many children, they’re not all little toddlers. Each child grows every year, and each child you train to take a little more responsibility, to do their specific task.

Each time a new baby comes along, there are more and more arms wanting to hold the baby and play with him. There are more helpers to help with meals and keep the home running smoothly. I think the most overwhelming time of motherhood is when you have your first two or three children. You’ve got no helpers.

But as more children come along, you have more and more helpers. Yes, it's true—more noise, but also more love, more cuddles, more joy and laughter, more entertainment, more playmates for your children, more excitement, and more blessings! Who wouldn’t want more children?”

Well, most people agreed, and loved it. But there were a few negatives. I thought maybe we should discuss them and see why they thought like that.

One lady said, “It’s not fair to make your daughters raise your children! It’s just not. I know so many women who were in this situation who don’t even want to be moms because they spent their childhood raising babies.”

I know you’ll want to comment. but I’ll just say some little thing here. That post was not about the children raising the babies. We, of course, as mothers, have that total responsibility, but that doesn’t negate our children being involved and helping. I can’t help but wonder . . . if children, unless there was some wrong attitude in the home where they were made to do this, and they resented it. But I find, Allison, when the families around here, and I even see it in your family, there’s no “You must watch over the baby! You must go and do this, or you must . . .” They want to do these things! They’re trained, little by little, how to run a household, which every child should be. But this inherent thing of children, they want to hold the baby, they want to look after the baby. If that’s not inherent, there’s something weird. What do you say?

Allison: Yes, I think it’s really a mindset. Of course, it’s our world, and it’s the way we were raised. Very possibly, this mother may have been forced to do things when she was a child, and her mom made it to where it was almost a punishment. We’ve looked at it so differently. Our children fight over wanting to take care of the children.

Today, this morning, you and I were talking to three of my girls. We asked them all, the little girls, “If you had a choice between going outside to play, or going to the beach, or going and doing something really fun, or watching children, what you choose?” We didn’t prompt them. They all said, “Oh, we would much rather watch the babies!”

In their minds, it’s a privilege, it’s a fun thing. It’s not a job. It’s not a burden. It’s really just a mindset. I think it’s our job as a parent, it’s not what we say, it’s how we say it.

Nancy: Exactly! I think if, as you mentioned, as a punishment, “You have got to watch over this baby!” No! “Do you want to watch over little darling Susie while Mommy’s doing this?” Oh, goodness me! They run to it. Of course, we had little Ruthie there. Ruthie lives next door to us. Ruthie is the youngest in her family. She has no little babies! All her friends have got babies all around. But Ruthie . . .

Allison: She will grab babies!

Nancy: That’s true. She is the mother of the Hilltop. Oh, she is unbelievable! Her whole life is just to hold babies! In fact, Cherish, that’s one of Serene’s daughters, has got two little ones. Ruthie goes over to her about twice a week just to hold the babies, play with them, so Cherish can get a few things done.

Every family function, and church function, there is Ruthie. She’s always got a baby in her arms! It’s not even her own baby. It’s someone else’s baby. And they all love to go to her. I’ll say, “OK, come and see Nana.” They don’t want to go to me! They want to go to Ruthie! [laughter]

Allison: Right, right. Think about the one toy we always buy a little girl. A baby doll.

Nancy: A baby doll!

Allison: Why wouldn’t that be the best thing that could play with?

Nancy: They’d rather have real babies. That’s what I find. After church, and then fellowship meal, the little girls are all wanting to play “babies.” They’ve all got a real baby if they could get one. If there’s not enough real babies, then they go and they get baby dolls. Often, I’m taking pictures of them. Some have the real baby, and some have baby dolls (they’ve got the second best)! They all want real babies!

Allison: I know. I know. There’s another comment that I read about a mom saying something about “That’s not their job. It’s my job, as a mother, to take care of my children.” Yes, what you said earlier, it’s not our job to let our children raise our children.

But when you're taking all those, let’s call them “jobs,” even though “jobs” normally is a negative word. “Privileges” is more of a positive word, so really, again it’s all how we say it. “Hey, will you watch the baby? Will you go and do the job of cleaning up the kitchen and then bathing the baby?” If you say it like that, then it’s a negative. “You’re being punished. You go get . . .”

When I had babies, even my teenage boys would fight over who got to change the baby’s diaper! That’s unheard of! They would say, “If I get my chores done first, can I go?” So, taking care of children shouldn’t be considered a chore. Scrubbing a toilet, ok, that’s a chore. That’s not a fun job. Nobody loves scrubbing the toilet. But taking care of a household, making food for your siblings, helping a sibling with school. That’s why so many mothers don’t enjoy mothering, because they’re trying to do it all by themselves. They think it’s their job.

But we were talking earlier, if it’s my job as a mother to do all the dishes, well then, surely all those dishes should be mine. But they’re not. All the laundry, I guess, is all just Mother’s, who was saying, “It’s my job. I can’t let my daughters do the laundry, or let me sleep in, or make the food.” Why wouldn’t you want them to?

Again, it’s the way we look at it. If you're not allowing them to make . . . You know, when I went to college, I didn’t even know how to make rice. I didn’t know how to start a laundry, a washing machine because I was never taught. My mom would hire a maid.

I’m sure she thought she was doing the best thing, but really, you’ve heard me talk about raising adults. This mother who was saying, “Oh, it’s not my children’s job!” Well, what are you raising? Are you raising a bunch of children or are you raising adults? You want them to start their home life as a mother being able to run a household.

The girls that we talked to today, they’re what? Eleven, eight, twelve, and thirteen. Our four little girls that we were talking to.

Nancy: And you were saying to me, that Emily Kate, she’s just turned 13, that if you went away for a week, she could handle the whole household.

Allison: Absolutely. Don’t hear what we’re not saying. I wouldn’t leave her for a week! Thankfully, I have older children that I can leave. But if I were to leave her, not only would she survive, she would thrive. She would do an excellent job.

Sometimes I’ll go into my room. We own a family business, so a lot of times, I’m working in my room. I’m listening, and it’s so interesting because they’re repeating things I would say. They’re practicing. They’re playing Mom and Dad. They’re playing parents. They’re playing nursing mothers. Why wouldn’t we want our children to not just pretend that they . . . That’s the funnest thing to do as a child, is pretend you’re this, or you're that!

Nancy: When they play, what do they play? They play mommies and daddies. That’s their favorite game! If they can be allowed to really do it, in fact, as children they’re getting older. Often children feel, oh, they’re just having to do it for Mom. But when they have the responsibility, and feel, “I’m in charge,” whoo, they will just thrive.

Allison: When I was a child, I loved this little toy, it was called “Easy Bake.” It was this little pretend oven that you would go and put this little, tiny piece of cake in. It would take about 15 minutes, and it would pop out, and it was this tiny little cake. I loved it, but how much more fun did our girls have Wednesday when they went over, and they helped Eden make Thanksgiving for hundreds of people? And they really did.

I went over there and watched them. I couldn’t believe it. Eden, my daughter, was making four turkeys. She made all the sides for three meals because she wanted to have leftovers. But she didn’t do it by herself. She had the 11-year-old working, she had the 13-year-old working, and she was giving them big-girl jobs. They were loving it!

They didn’t want to go shopping. They didn’t want to go play outside. They wanted to be right there learning, and the reason Eden knows how to do all this is because I let her. I let her! “Here’s your kitchen. Have fun!” I’ve never, ever, ever had my girls complain about taking care of children, cleaning the house, fixing food. Those are things they love to do.

Nancy: Yes, because it’s real life. Of course, sometimes there are things in life that are duty, but duty is very much part of life. If children don’t realize that when they’re young, that life is duty, that’s why there are so many women coming to motherhood who have never been trained. They have never been prepared for it. It’s a big thing.

But these girls, even as your girls who are now married just flow into it, because they’ve let their mind set. Now all these little girls, all they think about is being moms and running a household. It’s their lifestyle. But even the boys, like last time you were here, and this time. Ethan, who is how old now?

Allison: Eighteen.

Nancy: Eighteen. I can’t believe how handsome he’s getting! Whoo! But this 18-year-old boy, the day before Thanksgiving, spent the whole day totally cleaning, not just cleaning, but what would you call it? Deep cleaning and shining every little thing in my kitchen. It’s so amazing.

Allison: And it was his idea!

Nancy: And he’s not some wimpy boy!

Allison: No!

Nancy: He is tough, and he is amazing!

Allison: Muscles, volleyball, actually.

Nancy: Oh yes! And then the next thing you see, he’s holding one of the little ones, and the baby. These are what a real man is like.

Allison: Absolutely!

Nancy: Oh, can you imagine what wonderful fathers they will be? I love going to our Above Rubies retreats where all the families come. You look around, and you see all these big, tall, tough teenage boys, and what do they do? They’re out playing volleyball, they’re doing this, and they’re doing that. But in a minute, they’re gravitating to the babies! They fight over them. Who’s going to hold them? It’s just so wonderful. That’s the real world!

And yet, we’re living in this world where many young men are being brought up in these one, two-child families. They have no idea of family or babies. They have no interest in them, and they’re not really prepared for family or for the real life of getting married and raising a family. It’s so sad that they’re being raised in an unreal world.

Allison: I mentioned to Eden this topic before we came here. She said, “It’s not just the one and two-children families. Even some of our friends who have a lot of children have this mindset that they don’t want to ask them to do things, because they don’t want them to . . . It’s not their fault that we had all these children.”

I’ve even had friends at these retreats that we put on, “I don’t want to ask them to not play with their friends. They need to go have fun. This is their time to have fun. I’ll stay back with the littles. I’ll do all the cooking.” I really don’t understand it because they are not doing a service to their children!

Nancy: That’s surprising.

Allison: If we are raising servants, then we need to let them think that serving can be fun. Serving is not a negative. It’s a positive. Jesus was the greatest Servant of all. We can’t let our children think, “Oh, Mom will do it all,” because we want you to have lots and lots of fun. Yes, we want them to have lots of fun. But there’s nothing wrong with having fun while serving.

People know when they come to our house, our house is a lot of fun. But I will put a broom in anyone’s hand. A second ago, you said something, and it made me remember to say, recently I’ve been saying, “As mommas, only do what only you can do.”

Yes, we have a huge responsibility, but there are certain things that only I can do. I want to be the one who teaches my children to read. I want to be the one who gets to tuck them in at night. I want to be the one to share the gospel with them for the first time. I’m the one who nurses them. There are certain things that I do. But then there are so many things that, as a mother, you are allowed, in my opinion, to allow your other children to help you with, so you give them that privilege.

Nancy: You’re growing up in a family where you're learning the most basic thing that Jesus exemplified, that of serving. If you're just raising, “Oh, they’ve got to have their little time to play,” well, you're raising them in the opposite way, to be self-seeking and self-pleasing. That is the biggest problem in most people’s lives— self. They haven’t even learned to put down self and serve others. But when it can become a habit in your life, well, it’s just so wonderful.

Allison: Look at the adults around us. Our world is full of absolutely self-centered people. We are constantly seeing people, young people specifically, that everything they do is for themselves. You wonder, is it because their mother said, “Oh, don’t do that. That’s my job. You go and do your school, and you go and do your fun. I will do it all for you.” Those children are learning. They’re paying attention.

Nancy: Actually, they’re going to be more put off motherhood, because they think, “Do I have to live that life where I’ve got to stay home and do everything?” But no, it’s family.

Allison: And my mother was miserable. She always had to do it all. She complained. Probably these mothers giving you negative comments, they’re probably complaining. But they think they’re doing it out of duty and it’s their job. But it’s everyone’s job.

We always say, “We are a team.” Daniel might be the head coach, and I’m the assistant coach, but we’re a team, and this is not an individual sport. It’s a team sport. We will never clean our house individually. We always clean it as a team, because you can get a lot more done. I probably get told five times a day, “I don’t know how you do it with 11 children.” My latest answer is, “I don’t know how you do it without 11 children!”

Nancy: Yes, exactly. And that’s what the original post was all about! More is easier. It’s the moms with many children who are able to do so much, because they have all these, as they get older, these older children who are helping, and taking on more responsibility.

The fact is, your children, there’s nothing they can’t do. They know how to run a household. I can remember going down to one of the retreats and all the food you had ordered did not arrive on time. You gave a list to Eden who was about 18 at the time. “OK, go to Costco and get the food for . . .”

Allison: 800 people.

Nancy: 800 people.

Allison: For nine meals.

Nancy: Yes. And she had to work it out, get everything. Could you do that with your 18-year-old? Well, she could do it because she’d already been trained. She could already run the household so she could just do it bigger and bigger and bigger.

Allison: It’s amazing.

Nancy: The other thing is, “OK, well, I must let my children have their time.” Well, what are they usually doing with their time? They’re on social media, and what’s that doing for them? In fact, most children today, their heads are down, just looking at their phones.

That’s something I noticed. I think you noticed yesterday too. With this absolutely crowded place, no one was looking at iPhones. All the young people there, they were chatting and fellowshipping when they all went out together to do our tug-of-war.

Allison: We had about, what, 100 people, and probably the majority were young people. I didn’t see anybody on their cell phones, sitting in a corner by themselves, checking their feed, or checking their Instagram posts. They were all living life. They were all creating content for making those toasts.

Last night I saw a friend of mine’s Thanksgiving post. It was so sad, because she commented, “OK, let’s let the festivities begin at Thanksgiving!” And we had just had this day full of egg toss, tug-of-war, and fun. We did games; we had speeches. We had all this fun watching children. They played volleyball. I didn’t see anybody on a phone.

But her comment was, “Let’s let Thanksgiving begin,” and I could tell in the photo that most of her young teenagers were all on their phones. I thought, “Is that what Thanksgiving is all about anymore? Are we just living our normal lives?” Obviously, that was normal. She does all the cooking. They sit and watch football or be on their phones. There was nobody interacting.

Yeah, I think when we’re not filling their time with valuable things such as learning how to raise a family, again we’re not asking them to do what our job is. I don’t want to give away the things that only I can do. I want to do them.

Nancy: Here you are. We’re doing a podcast, and your little four-year-old’s still nursing! [laughter]

Allison: That’s right! That’s right. And she likes to be right near me. But everything we do with our children has to be intentional. This morning, we were talking. If we didn’t have all those activities yesterday, and you did not intentionally have plans for this; you have to think ahead. You had to tell us a few days in advance, “Don’t forget the tug-of-war rope.” Somebody had to buy those eggs. It takes planning. 

I noticed, last night we started to do some worship music. But guess what? It wasn’t planned, was it? It was hard to keep it going. But when you have an intentional plan, I always say, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” With your family, even if you don’t have 100 people coming over for a holiday, you can do fun games together. Young people love it. They love it. They will not be on their devices if you have fun things for them to do.

Nancy: Now, it seems that we have more older young people than little ones. But now, of course, we’ve got all our great-grandchildren. They’re all little babies and toddlers. But it’s not long, and they’re going to be grown, and we’ll start again.

Another one of our traditions at Thanksgiving was all our three-legged races, and our sack races. Oh, the children loved them so I can see you have your seasons. I can see that’s going to all start again now as our great-grandchildren are going to grow up into that phase.

Allison: I have to put a plug in, because so many people are probably listening going, “I don’t have 100 people to hang out with.” I never realized how important community is. Just this past weekend, we’ve all been praying for this little girl, Ellie Cate, who we’re all believing for a miracle. She’s had a life-threatening crazy fluke accident where she choked on a popcorn kernel. It went straight to her lungs.

I realized that community is so important. If you don’t have a community, then what do you always say? “You’ve got to make it happen.” Our Above Rubies Family Camp, which we have another one coming up in January. If you're listening to this, a day before Christmas, you're not too late, because we will fit you in. It’s going to start right after the New Year. But that is like you're intentionally saying, “I am going to go out and get a good community for my family.”

We talked about, and we may not have time to finish talking about it, but how important peers are for children. If their peers are looking at things, and they’re on their devices, well, guess what? Our children are going to want to do what their friends are doing, right? We’re the same way. You want to do what your friends are doing. If our children’s surrounding people, their peers, are on devices, that is what our children are going to do.

But the other direction, if our children’s friends are not on devices, it’s almost like they want to do. Right now, all these young guys, all of our young guys have flip phones. Old-fashioned, non-internet flip phones. Well, they think it’s really cool! They’re not flashing their newest iPhone that they can get on and do stuff that they shouldn’t. They’re flashing their flip phones they can do nothing on and they’re having fun laughing about it. I think it’s so important who you hang around.

Nancy: That’s another thing we have to make happen. Like my little saying I have to say all the time, “Things don’t just happen. You have to make them happen.” I found, when raising our children, that being determined and working it out, you will find families for your children that are like-minded, and that you're happy that they are with them.

Of course, that means being a hospitable home and having those families over for meals. Then it becomes reciprocal, and your children are being with families. That was one of the blessings of our children growing up, having friends that were of families who were like-minded. Now, of course, it’s the same with our grandchildren, and now with your children.

It’s a very wonderful thing. I think I’ve shared with you before, but I do believe so much in the Scripture in Proverbs 13:20: “He that walks with wise men will be wise. But a companion of fools will be destroyed.” You see so many young people today who are hanging out with young people who have the same kind of mindset. They’re on the iPhones all the time, and they have no vision, really, of where they are going. If you hang out with them, well, you're going to be lost, really.

Allison: I was talking to you earlier today. I think we’re in such a different time, raising our children, than when you were raising yours. If I can be extremely blunt, any kind of device that is connected to the internet, if you have children, and you are not . . . I’m not even going to say if you're not just watching them, because none of that matters.

Daniel and I felt like we were doing everything right. We had everything on lockdown. We had so little exposure, but we still, we still had a situation where the enemy got into our home and got into this device. It wasn’t even the original intent. It was actually YouTube videos on fishing that turned into YouTube videos on fishing with girls that had bikinis on. It started so subtly, and they were genuinely wanting to learn about fishing.

But when you understand the behind-the-scenes of what these big companies are wanting—they want to destroy our children’s purity and destroy their minds. All of a sudden, they started flashing different pictures and different videos, slowly but surely. Thankfully, my husband was able to nip it in the bud.

But we would be in the same living room with them not even knowing what was going on, because when you have more children than you have eyes, there’s a really good chance you're not going to be able to see everything. My encouragement to a mama listening right now, it is going to be one of the toughest things you ever do. But literally take every device in your home. and throw it in the fireplace. It is not worth it.

I understand, they need GPS. Well, guess what, there are ways to do GPS. “Oh, but they need a home phone.” Well, there are phones that you can use that don’t have internet capabilities. Take it from somebody who really thought we were doing everything right, almost to a point where I got a little cocky, thinking, “We’re doing great!” And then I realized “Oh no, we’re not doing great!”

And we have had to rein it in so tight that my mission in life is to scream from the mountaintops, “Get rid of devices. It is not worth it.” You’re not being a cool, fun mom by letting your ten-year-old have a device, or 15-year-old have a device, and then go their bedrooms, shut the door. You are in for it! You are in for it.

And it’s not them. You can say, “But I trust my child.” You can trust your child all you want, but don’t trust those that made that device! Their goal is to destroy your children’s innocence. The pictures that my sons saw, there’s no way I can undo it. It was not his intention, but I can’t undo it, so I’m saying from experience, don’t trust these devices. It’s so critical.

Nancy: Amen. Amen.

Allison: We’ve got to guard our children’s hearts, and their minds, and their eyes.

Nancy: Absolutely. Well, now it comes to an end. What are we going to do now? We’re going to go off to The Trim Healthy Mama Café. Allison and me, and Serene, and little Selah’s coming with us.

Allison: And Solly.

Nancy: All the little girls, Eden, that’s Allison’s married daughter. She’s taking all the middling little girls shopping. Once again, that’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t have to do that, but she wants to take all the little siblings, and Serene’s siblings, because it’s her mother’s heart. It’s our mother heart. If we let our children not be taken over by the world, and go according to what’s inherent within them, that’s what they want to do.

What are the boys doing? They’ve gone in to visit Niles in the hospital and be with him. The Schrum family who live next door to us, just before Thanksgiving, Niles shot a deer, but bringing it home out of the woods, he had an accident, and he’s got broken bones in both legs. But they’re in seeing him and what are they going to do after that?

Allison: They’re going to go work and help build his house. I was just thinking, you always say, “We mothers have the greatest job in the entire world. Why wouldn’t we want to share that with our children? Wouldn’t you want your children to get experience?”

I think, as mothers, to look at what we do as such a privilege, and you're just bursting at the seams to share it with people. I loved watching you yesterday prepare for Thanksgiving. You had all my children surrounding you, and it was a mess. There were potato peels flying everywhere! But they’ll never forget that. Not only are you teaching them how to peel a potato properly . . .

Nancy: They’re pretty good at it!

Allison: Yeah! But you're teaching them how to love to cook and how to love to prepare. Most grandmothers, most mamas say, “Get out! Get out! Get out of the kitchen!” But they’re missing that joy of being able to teach them.

Nancy: Amen! Well, we love you all. Have the most beautiful Christmas Day tomorrow with your family. Those who are celebrating Hannukah, may you have the most blessed time. Maybe you can pray for them all this time. And pray against the iPhones!

Allison: Absolutely!

“Dear God, we just thank You for every mother that’s listening right now. We pray for their marriages, pray for their families, pray that they would have a supernatural joy that is in them right now, and that they’re so excited and willing to take on the challenge of motherhood, and look at it as such a positive thing, and look forward to training their children.

“We pray for our young people. We pray for their minds, and their hearts, and their eyes to be pure. We pray that the parents will desire total purity and holiness from their family. We pray for our Above Rubies community, that You will continue to grow it, and that You will protect it against any schemes of the enemy wanting to come and destroy what we have. It’s such a wonderful thing.

“Thank You for the Campbells being so hospitable, and opening up their home, and being willing to pour into our children, and to teach them all the wisdom they know. Bless all the mamas listening. May something that we said today just encourage them and grow their family in the Lord. In Your Name I pray, Amen.”

Nancy: Amen!

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 340: THE BLESSINGS OF BEING PLANTED

God promises that when we are planted, we will be fruitful, flourishing, healthy, fresh, and bringing glory to God, especially when we are planted by the waters. Is this possible? And what are the waters?

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hi, ladies! Last week we were talking about dwelling in our homes and being planted in our homes. Did you know that the word “dwell” occurs 468 times in the King James Bible? I found, as I was studying, 31 different Hebrew words for the word “dwell,” and 16 different Greek words in the New Testament.

Then I found 23 Hebrew words and 31 Greek words about eating our meals and sitting around our tables in our homes. That’s well over 100 words altogether, all about dwelling in the home. God is a dwelling God. He loves to dwell in our hearts. He loves to dwell in our homes. He loves us to be there too.

When a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, what happens?

Number one: she leaves the sphere that God intends for her. This is what God has intended for her from the very beginning.

Number two: when a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, she leaves her babies and little children whom God has given to her as His loved gift. When God gives us a baby, He doesn’t give us this baby to give to someone else to look after. He gives this baby to us. He gives this child to us, to love and nurture, and to train for His kingdom.

Number three: when a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, she goes out to make another man wealthy. She serves him, rather than her own husband. She’ll spend so much finance on cars and gas and clothes and daycare and fast food, and so on.

Actually, really, we can live so much more frugally when we’re at home. We can save so much, rather than gadding about and even going out to work. As my husband has always said, “A husband cannot afford for his wife to go to work outside the home. Too much is at stake.”

Number four: when a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, she is no longer fulfilling the biblical pattern God has given in His Word. God plainly states that He wants mothers to be keepers at home. He pictures the mother in the heart of the home. This is not modern theology but is biblical theology. The only correct theology is biblical theology.

Number five: when a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, her children are deprived, because no other woman, no matter how caring, no matter how efficient, can take the place of a mother. It’s only the mother who really knows that innermost needs of her child. Now stats are showing that in many daycares, children are being abused mentally and psychologically.

Number six: when a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, there is no one at home guarding and guiding the home. We, as mothers, are the watchdogs of our homes. We are the guarders and protectors, not only of our children’s bodies, but their souls and their spirits.

That’s why satan loves wooing mothers out of the home, plucking them up out of the home, because then he can get his chance, his claws on their hearts and their minds. Watching over our children is a full-time job because we’re not just watching, caring for their physical needs, but their souls and their spirits. Amen?

Well, what is our next point? Oh, yes, I’m going to tell you all the blessings of being planted, being planted naturally in the home, and being planted spiritually in the Lord, in His Word, and in amongst His people.

Here they are. These are all biblical blessings, ladies.

No. 1. YOU WILL BE FRUITFUL

I’m sure we all want to be fruitful, don’t we? We want to have a life that’s full of fruit and blessings.

Psalm 1:3: “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.”

Who is that person? The one who meditates on the law of the Lord, day and night. God says he is like a tree planted and he’ll bring forth fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters . . . neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”

Ezekiel 19:10: “Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.”

Psalm 92:13: “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall . . . still bring forth fruit in old age.”

Do you notice, ladies, every one of those Scriptures where it mentions that we are planted, the blessing is fruitfulness. Fruitfulness comes from being planted. We can’t be fruitful without being planted.

Then we go to John 15:1, and we see it in the spiritual realm. Jesus said: “I am the true Vine, and My Father is the husbandman.” Then He goes on to say: “Every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth, that it might bring forth more fruit.” God isn’t satisfied with our fruitfulness. He wants more fruitfulness, and even more than that, He wants much fruit.

Down in verse six it says: “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”

We can be fruit bearers, but God is wanting us to bring forth more fruit. Then He says: “Oh, I want much fruit!” God is a God of fruitfulness, and this is what He looks for in our lives. But we cannot have fruitfulness without being planted. The more we are rooted in our homes, the more fruitful we will be. This is what the Scripture says.

No. 2: YOU WILL FLOURISH

You will not only be fruitful, ladies, you will flourish! Who wants to flourish? Some mothers feel they’re just wilting in their homes. Some feel they’re just barely surviving. That’s not God’s will for us. He wants us to flourish.

Psalm 92: 12-15: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.” The word “flourish” in the Hebrew is parach. It means “to bud, to sprout, to bloom, to blossom.”

Psalm 128:3 in The Living Bible says: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine, flourishing within your home.” When you are flourishing, what will happen? You will be blossoming, flowering, blooming, growing luxuriantly, thriving, increasing, enlarging, expanding, developing, shooting out, and abounding.

1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” That word “abounding” in the Greek is the word perisseuo. This is what it means: “to superabound, to be in excess, enough and to spare, over and above, beyond what is necessary.”

That sounds a little bit over the top, doesn’t it? But that is the Scripture. That’s what that word means. It says we’re to be “always abounding in the work of the Lord.” And what is the work that God has given to us as mothers? If God has blessed you with children, your work is to nurture, and to train these precious children, and to build a godly home that glorifies God.

How are you to do it? “Well, I’m just surviving from day to day.” No! God wants you to do it FLOURISHINGLY! Yes! Meaning to be excessive, more than is necessary, over and above. It’s an over-the-top lifestyle! Wow! What is the lifestyle in your home? What is the atmosphere you're making in your home, dear mother, today?

Some other Scriptures: Proverbs 11:28 (HCSB): “The righteous shall flourish like foliage.” (Like lots of green leaves).

Proverbs 14:11 (NLT): “The tabernacle (or the home) of the upright, shall flourish.” Flourish is not just a normal word. It’s more than being fruitful. It’s more—It’s flourishing!

No. 3: YOU WILL BE VIGOROUS AND HEALTHY

Psalm 92:13-14: “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall . . . be fat.” The Hebrew word is dashen, and it means “full of sap, full of oil, healthy.” Not really meaning “fat.” You’re not meant to be getting fat, but you're meant to be filled with vitality, filled with sap.

When people get older, their bones get brittle and dry. Often. it’s easy for an older person to break their hip or break their leg, or something. That’s because the sap is filtering out of their bones and their body. A healthy body is full of sap and vitality. When Moses was 120 years old, God took him up to the mountain because it was time for him to die. But do you know what? He was still so healthy!

The Young’s Literal Translation, which is a literal translation of the Hebrew says: “His eye hath not become dim, not hath his moisture fled.”

The New Living Translation says: “His eye had not become dim, nor were the juices of his body dry.”

The New English Translation commentary says: “Nor had his sap fled, or ebbed from his body.” That was because he was planted, planted in the house of the Lord.

God wants you to be planted in your house. God has promised health and vitality when you are planted in your home. Many times today, women are spread so thinly that they’re trying to make everything happen in their home, but they’ve got a job out of the home and are just being pulled in every direction. Really, it’s not what they’re meant to be doing, and it’s not for their health. God has promised, when you're planted in His house, when you're planted in your house, that you will be healthy and vigorous.

No. 4: YOU WILL BE LUXURIANT AND FRESH

There’s more yet, ladies!

Psalm 92:13-14 again: “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall . . .  be flourishing.” But this time, it’s a different Hebrew word, different from the first one. This Hebrew word means “to grow luxuriantly, fresh, verdant.”

Have you heard that word “verdant” before? That’s a word which means a very vivid green. It’s mostly translated “green,” in the Bible or speaks of very green trees.

The New American Standard Bible says: “very green.”

The Berean Study Bible says: “Healthy and green they will remain.”

There can be different types of green. We look out on our green grass, and our green trees, especially in the springtime. Isn’t it beautiful when the green leaves come out? They’re greener when they first come out, aren’t they? They’re so beautifully green.

I always think of when I go back to New Zealand. There’s something about the ozone layer in New Zealand. It grows such green grass. Sometimes it’s just like, oh, you can hardly believe it! And the vegetables are greener. I remember going into the vegetable shop. I’d just come from the States. I walked in and my eyes could hardly believe it! How much greener the greens were! The cabbages and the green vegetables were so luxuriantly green.

It was amazing. This is the kind of green it’s talking about, verdant green. It says that this is what we’ll be like when we’re planted.

Jeremiah 17:8: “Her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought.”

I love this Scripture in the Song of Solomon 1:16. It’s writing, of course, about the husband and the wife. It says here: “Our bed is green.” Well, I’m not sure that it was colored green but I think it was speaking of a bed that was fresh and luxuriantly green with growth. I believe that’s how God wants our beds to be in our marriage. Yes, flourishing, never dry and boring. No. It says: “Our bed is green.”

That’s an amazing, beautiful thing, because sometimes when some couples get older, wow! They seem to move out of their bed, and they get into single beds. How boring! And then, even worse, they get into separate rooms. But here, in the Scriptures, it says: “Our bed.” “Our bed is green.” Is your bed flourishing? Is it beautiful? Is it intoxicating? Satiating? Captivating? Green? Always fresh? Never cold or boring.

All right, ladies. One more promise: when you're planted.

No. 5. YOU WILL GLORIFY GOD

Isaiah 61:3: “That they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.” God is glorified when you bring forth fruit, and that happens when you're planted. “The planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.”

And also, dear ladies, you are glorifying God when you're planted in your home, because this is where, scripturally and biblically, He has planted you as a mother. When He gives you children, this is the place in His plan for you, to raise your children. When you obey Him, you bring glory to His Name. Amen? Yes! Glory to the Name of the Lord!

You’re not bringing glory to the Name of the Lord when you are plucked up out of your home. God’s plan is for us to be planted in our home. The devil’s plan is to pluck us up out of the home. We’re not bringing glory to God when we’re plucked up.

We go over again to John 15, where it’s talking about spiritual fruit. It says: “Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” Yes. This is where we bring glory to the Lord.

WE MUST BE PLANTED BY THE WATERS

We have all those wonderful Scriptures of promise and blessing, but did you notice, as we were reading them, ladies, that they were planted by the waters? Yes, by the waters. That’s a very important point. What does it mean? To be planted by the waters?

Psalm 1:3: “He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.” By the river, yes, and that river, that water speaks of the Word of God.

Ezekiel 19:10: “Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.”

There are two things that speak of the water, or the water speaks of these two things.

Firstly, the Word of God. The Word speaks of cleansing.

John 15:3: “Now ye are clean through the Word, that I have spoken unto you.” When we read the Word, we’re going to be cleansed.

I remember hearing this little story of a little Maori boy in New Zealand. In New Zealand, where I come from, our native people are Maori people, and they have their own Maori language. I think the Maori word for a basket is the kete. I hope so. Any Maori people listening to me? I think it’s the kete. It’s something like that. The Maori people make these flax baskets which they weave. They get the flax, and they weave them into a basket. But, of course, there are little spaces between the weavings.

This grandmother said to her little grandson, let’s see, what will we call him? Mohi. That’s a good Maori name. “Mohi, I want you to run down to the river, and I want you to fill this kete with water.” So, he wants to bless his Nana, so he runs down to the river, and he comes back running as fast as he can. But by the time he gets there, all the water has fallen out! It just runs through all the little holes between the basket weaving.

She said, “OK, I want you to do it again. Go down to the river and see if you can bring back water this time.” So, little Mohi runs down to the river with all his might, and he fills it right to the top with water. He's going to try to make it this time! He runs back as fast as he could, but by the time he got back, all the water had run through the weaving of the basket.

And what does his grandmother do? She said, “Mohi, I want you to go again. Try harder this time.” So, Mohi runs down to the river, and he fills it with water. This time he runs as fast as he can possibly go. When he gets back to his Nana, there’s no water in the basket.

“Oh, Nana, I couldn’t get the water!” She says to him, “Now, Mohi, don’t you worry. Look how clean it is!” She wanted a clean basket.

But it’s like the Word of God. Sometimes, even when we’re reading it, we may not feel that we’re really getting very much, or we don’t understand it. But you know what? We’re getting clean. Every time you read the Word, you’re getting clean. Isn’t that wonderful? That’s why we’ve got to be planted by the waters, to keep clean, because that’s when we’ll be fruitful.

Ephesians 5:26, this is the passage about husbands and wives: “That he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the Word.” Husbands are meant to read the Word to their wives. That’s how they wash them. We can be washed by having a good wash in our shower or bathroom, but we wash our inner man with the Word of God.

Secondly, the water speaks of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 44:3: “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, that your children, and My blessing upon My offspring.” What a wonderful prayer to pray over your children.

I love to pray that prayer every day, if I remember. Just say: “Oh, Lord God, please pour out Your Spirit upon my children today. Pour Your blessing upon my offspring. It starts off: “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.” Lord, I want You to pour floods of water upon them.”

Then we go to the New Testament, John 7:38-39: “He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Holy Spirit.)” So, if we’re planted by the waters, we’ll have the Word and we’ll have the Holy Spirit. We need both, don’t we? We need God’s Word in our lives, and we need the Holy Spirit. We need it as mothers, and our children need it, day by day.

I love that beautiful Scripture in Isaiah 59:21. I think I’ve shared this Scripture with you before, but I must share it again because it is so powerful. “As for me, this is My covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee” (that is the Holy Spirit. We cannot mother without the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot be fruitful without the power of the Holy Spirit.

But then it goes on to say: “and My word” (We also have to have the Word) “And My Word, which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of your children, nor out of the mouth of your children’s children, saith the LORD, from henceforth and forever, saith the Lord.”

That’s where we want to be planted, dear lovely ladies, in our homes, but let’s have the water flowing in our homes. Let’s have the Word. Let’s read it every day to our children. Let’s have the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Oh, this is the rivers of water.

MOTHERHOOD AND THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER

As we close this session, I just want to share some lovely thoughts from the parable of the Sower. Here I’m likening it to motherhood. You can read the parable of the sower in Matthew, and Mark, and Luke. I’ll give you the references in the transcript when I do it.

(Mathew 13:13:1-30; Mark 4:1-20; and Luke 8:4-15).

But in Mark 4:2-3, we read: “And Jesus taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine.” Jesus spoke doctrine. He spoke theology. But He spoke it in parables and pictures and stories. He said: “Harken. Listen well. Behold, there went out a sower to sow.” And He sowed the Word of God. It was the Word that He was sowing. But when He sowed this Word, there were different kinds of people, as you know, because you all know the parable of the sower.

But I want to liken it to us mothers.

NO TIME OR ATTENTION

The first one, “And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.” These people had no time or attention. Oh, yes, they heard the Word, but they didn’t have time to think about it or meditate on it at all. And so, the seed was devoured. They didn’t listen with their whole heart.

As one translation says: “They heard faintly with their ears.” Not a good thing to hear faintly, ladies. We’ve got to hear God’s Word closely.

And how terrible it is to have a scattered mind and heart!

Yes, they were by the wayside. They were going here. They were going there. They didn’t even have time to sit and think! No, they were too busy. So, the seed was devoured.

We see that over in Ezekiel 19:14. That is also an allegory about motherhood. “Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood. She was fruitful because of many branches” (speaking of her children). Then it goes on down and talks about how she was plucked up! Whoo! She was meant to be planted, but now she’s plucked up. And what happens? Her fruit is devoured. The fruit of her womb is devoured because she’s plucked up from the home, and instead she’s out there by the wayside.

NO ROOT

Number two, the next group of people. It says, in Matthew 13:5: “Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth.” They had no roots.

How terrible it is to have a stony and shallow mind and heart.

We have to be rooted. We’re only rooted, ladies, when we’re planted. And the Bible says that it got choked because of tribulation, affliction, or persecution because of the Word.

Yes, now these people, they were taking the Word. Oh yes, they were believing the Word, but they got persecution for it. So, it didn’t last very long. And sometimes mothers can, yes, they’re going the right way, homeschooling, but they get flack for it. “Oh, you’re having another baby?” Goodness me, the flack, from your mother-in-law, and your mother, and friends, and family. “What? You’re not having another baby, are you?”

And here you are, fulfilling the very first command that God ever gave to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. You are in God’s perfect will, but you’re getting persecution because of the Word! And so many other areas. Some mothers will give up. They can’t stand the persecution.

Really, it’s just a bit of flack, when you think there are Christians in the world who are being martyred for their faith. They’re being tormented and they’re being tortured! Help! You’re just getting a bit of flack? But we’ve got to be so rooted in the Word that no matter what people say, we will stand on that Word. We will not be able to be plucked up, because when you're really planted deeply, oh, it’s hard to be plucked up.

In fact, sometimes I go out there, and I’m weeding my garden. Some weeds, they’re so easy to pluck up. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. You pluck them up. Then you come to a weed that’s really rooted, and you're pulling, and you're pulling, and you're pulling, and you can’t pull it up! Sometimes I’ve got to go and get a shovel and dig down deep to get that shovel underneath the root, to pull it up. That’s the difference.

When you're planted, and something comes along—offenses, that’s another thing the parable mentions. Offenses. Oh, people get offended. That is the worst thing that can ever happen. To get offended, oh yes, we all get offended. But what do you do with that offense? Are you going to give up God’s Word because of an offense, or what somebody says? Help! No, we’ve got to be those who are so rooted, so rooted that it just doesn’t matter what happens. They can’t pluck us up! Amen?

NO MOISTURE

The next one, with no moisture. In Luke’s gospel, it tells us: “And some fell upon a rock, and as soon as it sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.” It wasn’t planted by the waters. Oh, ladies, we’ve got to be planted by the waters, by the Word, and by the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

How terrible it is to be dry and withered in heart and spirit!

We’ve got to be a watered garden, like Isaiah 58:11: “Thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.”

Jeremiah 31:12: “And their soul” (not just their physical body, but) their soul shall be like a watered garden.”

I read this commentary. I love it. “A well-watered garden is a place where plants grow, flowers bloom, fruit ripens. It is a place where birds sing, bees buzz, and butterflies flutter.” I remember a few years ago, I planted a garden of large zinnias. I love the large zinnias. They grew up and I was amazed. That little garden of zinnias was full of butterflies. Butterflies love zinnias. I think it pulled every butterfly from all around. It was filled with butterflies because they were growing so luxuriantly. It was so beautiful.

But the problem with these people is that they were “choked with the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things.” That happens to mothers too. Many mothers leave their home because of the lust of other things. “Oh, we haven’t got enough! I need this, I need that. We can’t survive with me here in the home.”

OK. You may not be able to have everything you want when you're in the home, and you've just got one income coming in. But, you know, it’s amazing how you can survive. You can do it! It is true. I remember raising our children. I used to often say, “I would live in a tent rather than leave my children.” I couldn’t leave. We lived on the smell of an oily rag. We lived from day to day.

But God was faithful. It is so true. I know so many mothers, many who even have big families, six, seven, eight, nine, ten children. Wow, you can’t leave them and go out to a career (It's usually the mothers with the one or two children who leave the home) and yet, they’re surviving, with one income! It happens. You see, we think we can’t, and so we go out and do it our way. But when we trust God, He will show up. He always shows up.

NO STICKABILITY

The fourth one is those people who have no stickability. They were choked, once again, with the cares of this world. Another translation says: “They had no staying power, no stickability.” We’ve got to have that stickability, ladies.

How terrible it is to have a thorny heart!

NO BARRENNESS

The last ones were those who were fruitful. They had no barrenness because they were planted. They were rooted. Amen?

How wonderful it is to bring forth fruit, even one hundred-fold!

Well, I think our time is flying away. But here we have, even in the parable of the Sower, that beautiful allegory for us as mothers. Yes, and we will be fruitful as we’re planted, and we’re rooted in the home.

I want to encourage you, dear ladies, that it is possible to be in the home. When you obey God, and you think it simply cannot happen, but it does happen. I’ve seen it happen over and over and over again. Those who have taken the step to come out of their career and come home, and God has been faithful. I’ve proved it in my own life.

May the Lord bless you, dear lovely mothers. I pray that you will know the blessings of being planted in the home, and that you will be a planted mother, not a plucked-up mother.

“Dear Father, I thank You for all these precious mothers listening. Bless them today. Pour out Your blessings upon them, Lord God. I pray that You will give them vision to know, Lord, that as they trust You and obey You, they will do it Your way, and You will show them Your blessing, and You will show them Your faithfulness, and You will show them Your provision. Because You are a faithful God. We thank You, and we praise You. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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