LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 421: THE FLOURISHING MOTHER, PT 3

The flourishing mother knows who she is. Well, who is she? You'll find out in this podcast.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Here we are, together again. And we are continuing our series, “The Flourishing Mother.” Last week I was telling you how we can be a watered mother. That was NO. 3. A FLORUISHING MOTHER IS A WATERED GARDEN. We found that we are watered by the Word of God. So, we’ve got to make sure that we get that word into us as much as we can. The more that we’re struggling and facing difficulties, well, usually the more water we need.

I was just talking to a dear friend last night at our prayer meeting. I had actually just given her a little gift of The Daily Light on the Daily Path. That’s a devotional book that we read. I know some of you will have it. Maybe others of you don’t. But The Daily Light on the Daily Path is a devotional of just the Word of God. It doesn’t have anybody writing about their little story, or their little something or other. It’s just the Word. It is Scriptures on a certain theme for every morning and every evening, for every day of the year.

It’s so wonderful because it’s especially helpful for, I believe, for husbands who maybe didn’t grow up taking family Bible reading. They are not familiar with it. Often, they don’t know where to read in the Bible and they don’t feel confident, so they don’t do it.

But this book takes away all the excuses, because all we have to do is go to whatever date it is. What’s our date today? The 7^th of July, so there you’ll see some Scriptures for the 7^th of July. In the morning (there aren’t too many Scriptures, just a few) and then some for the 7^th of July in the evening— for every day of the year.

I was giving this to her because about a couple of weeks ago or so, we were blessed to have their wedding in our home. Oh, it was so wonderful! In fact, we have enjoyed three weddings in the last couple of months Two of our grandsons married. That was rather exciting. I love weddings. Every wedding is wonderful. But this was quite special because these two grandsons were grandsons with the Campbell name.

THE FAMILY NAME

Now, we’ve had lots of grandsons marry, but they didn’t have the Campbell name. Did you know that when we started having grandchildren, we waited for 15 grandchildren before we got our first grandson with the Campbell name? Can you believe it? And now, get this. We have 50 grandchildren, but we only have five out of all them with the Campbell family name. That’s pretty amazing.

It takes having a lot of children and a lot of grandchildren to keep that family name going. And the family name is important to God. In fact, we read back in the Old Testament how if the husband died, the next brother was to marry that wife, and to raise up children to her. The first child would have the name of the deceased husband for the reason, which it says: “that his name be not blotted out of Israel” (Deuteronomy 25:6). God didn’t want the name blotted out.

It is very sad that today, in so many families, the family name is being blotted out because maybe grandparents only had two children. Then the next generation, they only had two. The next, maybe only had two. Maybe they didn’t even have sons! Wow! It takes quite a lot of children.

So, we were so thrilled that now we have two grandchildren, we’ve got these two grandsons with the Campbell name. Now we are trusting and hoping that they will have babies with the Campbell name so it will carry down the generations. We had our grandsons weddings at the barn (the wedding barn) where we have lots of our wonderful weddings. We have another family one coming up this month.

But this one, this wedding we had in our home. It was a dear friend, Susan Tyler, who was marrying Patrick Smith. They weren’t young like these couples. They were both 62 years of age and never married before. We were blessed to have it at our home. We had it all decorated so beautifully. Colin married them out on our deck.

But it was very special, because Susan Tyler, did you remember or notice the name? Susan is the great-granddaughter of President Tyler, who was the 10th president of the United States. Now you think, “How can that happen?” Because here, I have, goodness, up to 40 great-grandchildren all around me here. Wow! We’re just in this fourth generation.

But here is dear Susan, a great-granddaughter of our tenth president! How can that be? Well, President John Tyler had 15 children. He had the most children of any president of the United States. His first wife had eight children and she passed away. He married again, and then they had another seven children. Susan comes at the end of that, and then her father, Lyon Tyler, who was a dear, dear friend of ours, very wonderful man. He was the grandson, and he was at the end of the line of each of his family. So then, Susan came at the end of his line, and here we are. She’s the great-granddaughter. So amazing.

But anyway, I was giving her this book and I said to her, “Susan, you're going to so love it, because Patrick is going to be able to read these Scriptures to you every day, and wash you with the water of the Word.” I mentioned that last week and the Scripture is Ephesians 5:25-27: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.”

One of the ways that a husband shows his love for his wife is not only loving her as he loves his own body, not only loving her by giving himself for her as Jesus gave Himself for the church, but by washing her daily with the water of the Word. It is a such beautiful thing. Of course, a husband not only washes his wife with the water of the Word, but his whole family.

This is one of the greatest responsibilities of a husband and father, to wash his wife and family with the Word. I published this book, The Daily Light on the Daily Path, available through Above Rubies. You can go to the website, and you can order it if you don’t already have it. It gives you the Word. It’s already waiting for you. There’s no worry. “Where will I read? I don’t know where to read.” It’s all there! And the Scriptures are there on a theme. It’s so wonderful.

And in this book, The Daily Light on The Daily Path, I actually put this particular book together, not the Scriptures, because you can buy The Daily Light on the Daily Path on the internet. You can get it in different translations of the Bible. All generations have been getting it, back to the last 150 years. All the Scriptures, morning and evening, are the same.

I was able to pick them up from the internet, but I have given at the beginning of each month an idea for how you can conduct your family devotions, keeping the interest of your children. It’s so easy, you know, when Father is reading, for everyone to get in a little dream. I can get in a dream. I want to have my ears intently open to hear the Word, and yet still, I can get into a little dream. So, Colin always asks lots of questions to keep us on our toes.

You will read lots of ideas in this book, one at the beginning of each month of how to keep your children on their toes and participating so that they’re part of it, and they’re really with it, and they’re loving it. It’s not some boring thing, but it’s an exciting thing as they hear God speaking to them. They’re learning from the Word.

But at the beginning of the November month, I have a little story. It’s written by the guy who wrote the editorial for the book. This is a family, the Barry Smith family. Barry Smith has now passed away. He was a fellow New Zealander. He was a great teacher of the Word of God, especially on end times. Oh, goodness me! You could sit with your mouth wide open, and never ever blink your eyes hardly. He was so interesting.

Even my children, at a young age, would be sitting on the front seat for two hours, listening. He was just an amazing communicator of the Word of God. He actually passed away while he was preaching in London, but his son wrote the editorial. I asked him to do it, because I knew that Barry read The Daily Light to his children every single day.

I remember one time they had come to our home. They were speaking at our church. It was time for them to go and he was gathering all the children from here, there, and everywhere, into the car, and they were ready to go. But before they drove off, he said, “Wait, children. We’ve got to read the Word.” And he read The Daily Light to them.

They were traveling evangelists. Barry traveled throughout New Zealand, throughout the islands, other countries, speaking the Word of God, specifically on end-time events. But he never failed, no matter where he was or what he was doingto read the Word of God, morning and evening, to his children. His son writes about this in his editorial.

In the November one, let me go to it. He tells a little story his father told about this Scripture, how that we are sanctified by the washing of water by the Word. So, here’s the little story. It’s a story from New Zealand, about a little Maori boy, and his grandmother.

An elderly Maori woman in New Zealand was gardening with her grandson, putting manure around their kumara (Kumara, sweet potatoes. They are the New Zealand sweet potato, but they’re a little different to our orange sweet potato here in the States. Oh, I love New Zealand kumara. It has a different flavor than the one here. I love our sweet potatoes here in the United States, but, oh, I drool over kumara in New Zealand. Whenever I go back, I say, “Please! Cook kumara for me!”)

Anyway, she was putting manure around the kumara that she planted in a pit in in the ground. Then she said to her grandson, “Take the flax basket, the kete.” (That’s the Maori word for the flax basket, which was a basket woven out of flax). “Run to the stream, and bring me water,” she said to her grandson.

He took the flax basket, filled it at the stream, and began walking back to his nana. But when he arrived, there was no water left! It had run straight through the woven flax, and out onto the ground.

“Nana, it’s all gone,” he lamented. “Oh, go again, and bring water,” she said. Back to the stream he ran, and scooped up as much water as he possibly could. He filled the flax basket and sprinted back as quickly as he could.

Once again, to his dismay, the water had all run out of the basket! “It’s no good, Nana,” he said. “It’s all gone” She looked into the empty kete and said, “Go one more time. Scoop up as much water as you can, and run back!” Frustrated, the young boy trudged back to the stream. Thrust the kete into the water, and ran as quickly as his puffing friend could carry him.

He got back faster this time, but once again, the water had slipped through the weave, and the kete was empty.

“Nana,” he said, “It’s hopeless!  This bag cannot hold the water.” His Nana looked him and smiled. “That’s right, son. But look how clean the kete is!”

So, that’s how she got him to wash her basket!

But it’s so true. Sometimes we may not think that we’re getting anything special from the Word, but don’t worry. You’re getting washed clean. That’s what the Word does. It washes you clean. And, of course, too, there will be many times you get revelation. Oh, I just love getting revelation from the Word. Well, I have to admit, I think I get new revelations every day!

I can never wait to get up and get down to my little room where I spend time with God and get into His Word because I find it so exciting. I am excited to get there because I am excited to see what revelation I am going to receive.

You know, I love this Scripture in Mark 4:24: “And Jesus said unto them, Take heed what you hear: with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.”

Now, that’s an amazing Scripture because we don’t think like that in our society today. In fact, we’re very influenced by the democrats who believe that they should take all the money from those who have it, from the rich and give it to the poor. Isn’t that what we should do?

Well, it’s not God’s plan. And there are other Scriptures in the Word where He confirms this. He does not believe in doing that. In fact, here He says: “To those who hear, I will give more. To those who don’t hear, to those who don’t have anything, I’m going to take away that which he has.” That’s hard for us to understand.

But you see, God sees the heart. He sees those who come who’re not really interested. “Oh, I have to have my Bible reading. Well, OK, let’s read for five minutes.” We don’t even know what was read. And we don’t get anything because we’re not looking. We’re not anticipating. We’re not coming in faith. We’re not excited. We’re not expecting God to speak. And so, we don’t hear.

But when you open your ears, your mind, and your heart to hear, God will give you revelation and understanding. Then, as He gives you that, He’ll give you more, because revelation is progressive. Did you know that, ladies? It’s very progressive. You get a little bit of revelation, and then God gives you a little bit more on that subject. That’s what I find is so exciting. I think, “Wow! This is amazing!” And then I will find something more.

Remember our MORE AND MORE walk? “The path of the just is as the shining light. It shineth more and more” (Proverbs 4:16). And there’s always more and more, even more and more revelation. It’s always progressive. Even through God’s Word it’s progressive. We read something. God lays down a foundation. He lays down that first principle. Yes, the first word, the first principle is the foundation. But then He gives more. And it’s progressive revelation and understanding.

All right, lovely ladies! So, we get watered through the Word, and we get watered through the Holy Spirit. I love that Scripture in Isaiah 44:3: “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.” God has promised to pour water on those who are thirsty for water, who want to be watered.

And then He goes on to say: “I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses.” Oh, that’s a beautiful promise. You can take that promise and pray, “Lord God, please pour out Your Holy Spirit. Pour out Your water on my children, on my seed, that they will be watered.”

Isaiah 59:21: I love this Scripture: “As for Me, this is My covenant with them, saith the LORD; My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth . . .” Do you notice two things there? The two things, we need them both so much.

We need the Holy Spirit and we need the Word. If we just have the Word without the anointing of the Holy Spirit, it can be dry. And if we just go after the Holy Spirit without the Word, well, we can get into deception. We must have the Holy Spirit and God’s living, eternal word of truth.

And here this Scripture says that God makes His covenant: “that I will give you My Spirit and My Word.” Yes, “And My words which I have put in thy mouth.” Not just in our minds, not only in our hearts, but in our mouths. God wants us to get the Word into our mouths, and not only into our mouths, but “This Word shall not depart out of thy mouth.”

Did you get that? This Word, this truth, this living Word “shall not depart out of your 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.” Wow! This is actually the vision God gives us for parenting, that we will, through the power of the Holy Spirit, because we cannot do it in our strength, dear mothers. But looking to Him and asking for His anointing of the Holy Spirit upon us, the strength of the Holy Spirit and His Word, so that we will get His Word not only into the minds and hearts, but the mouths of our children. And the mouths of our grandchildren, and continuing for generations. That’s what God wants us to do. That’s His plan. Amen.

All right, lovely ladies . . .

NO. 4. THE FLOURISHING MOTHER KNOWS WHO SHE IS

Now this is the bottom line. This is so important. If we don’t truly know who we are, who God created us to be, well, we’re not going to flourish in our homes. We’ve got to know who we are, know who God created us to be.

I love that Scripture in Acts 17:28. Paul is preaching to the people in Athens in Greece. They were worshipping many, many gods. And then they had a big sign up, “To the unknown god.” They didn’t want to miss out on any gods, but they didn’t even know who this unknown God was!

So, Paul began to speak to them and he’s telling them who this unknown God was, the true God, the God of Gods, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, the Savior of the world. While he was preaching, he says these words: “For in Him (that’s in Christ, in God) in Him, we live, and move, and have our being.” Do you get that, ladies?  In God, we have our being. We come to know who we are and who God created us to be. We find our being.

There are many today who are so deceived that they don’t know who they are. We are living in a confused age, especially regarding the genders. God made male and female. He made no other gender, only male and only female. And He made them both so uniquely different, oh, so very different. It’s amazingly different.

If you do some study, you will be amazed at all the differences that they have found. There are over 100 differences, even in the brain, between male and female. And recent studies have shown that they cannot be duplicated. They are so different. Many times, we think, “Oh, why doesn’t my husband understand me? He just doesn’t understand.” No, he doesn’t. He’s a man. He’s a male, and he doesn’t even think like you. It’s a very good thing to remember that.

Often, I have to think, I have to remember. “Yes, he doesn’t think like me. He wasn’t even made like me. I can’t expect him to be thinking like me and thinking emotionally like me.” How ridiculous! Many wives expect their husbands to think emotionally like them. And they weren’t even created that way. You’re getting them to do something that is impossible!

Now I remember one time talking to a woman at an Above Rubies retreat. One of her parents had passed away, and, of course, that was so sad. But she was telling me how her husband just didn’t seem to have the empathy for what she was going through. She was just about to divorce him because he could not get with her in her empathy, and all that she was going through emotionally. I had to share with her, “Look, he is not you. He is not a female. He’s not going to feel it like you. He’s different. He’s a male.”

We’ve got to release our men to be male, to be who God created them to be. God created us physically different and He created us innately different. He created us mentally different and He created us emotionally different. And yet, the amazing thing is, He puts us together, and makes us one.

ONENESS IS NOT SAMENESS

These two different people, but we are greatest in our oneness, because that’s another thing we must remember, that oneness is not sameness. If you can get that revelation, dear wives and mothers, it will help you immensely in your relationship in your marriage. Oneness, yes God wants you to be one, because He makes you one flesh, the most beautiful thing in the world. He wants you to have one purpose and one vision, but in your oneness, you will not be the same. Oneness is not sameness.

God created the male to be the one who is to be the head of the home, and to lead, and to be the provider and the protector. That’s how He created man. Sadly, that is being sort of brainwashed out of our younger male generation. It is so sad. There are so many young men today who are getting into their mid-twenties, late twenties, early thirties. They’re still not married. They still have not taken up the responsibility of taking a wife.

Yes, the Bible talks about taking a wife and marrying her, and providing for her, so she can bring forth the children, the godly seed that God so longs to see (Jeremiah 29:6 and Malachi 2:15). This is God’s heart. OK, it may not be what’s happening in our society, but it’s God’s Word, and it is God’s heart and it’s God’s culture. It’s the culture He wants for this world, and we are living in it in the midst of a deceived culture.

It’s time we stopped getting influenced by it. We dare not be influenced by what society is doing all roundabout us. We must be influenced by the Word of God. We must not be influenced by all the influence of society around us. Let’s be those who know who we are and who God created us to be. He created us as mothers. He created us differently to the male.

There are only two kinds of people in this world; a man without a womb who is the male, and the man with the womb, the woman, the wombman. The womb is our most distinguishing characteristic as a woman, a wombman, which is who we are. Even the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary brings this out and calls us a “wombman.” This is who we are.

We live in a day where woman want to disown their womb, disdain their womb, make sure their womb cannot function. And yet, this is our most distinguishing characteristic. It’s even more than physical. It’s even more than where a babe is conceived and grows. It’s the very seat of our emotions. We feel from our womb. We show compassion and pity from our womb. We love from our womb.

Our womb is so powerful. Yes, even the woman, the wombman who cannot for some reason, give birth to children, or who never married she can still innately from her womb, bring forth that anointing of compassion, that beautiful nurturing compassion that God has put within her to nurture the hurting and the needy. Because motherhood, yes, the greatest revelation of motherhood is mothers having babies.

But it’s more than that. It’s the actual revelation of the mother heart of God pouring out from us, from our womb. Yes, even from mothers who cannot have babies who will pour it out to mother and nurture others who have needs.

You think of Mother Teresa. Why was she called Mother Teresa? Because she was the greatest mother. She mothered more than any of us will ever mother. She didn’t have her own children, but she mothered greatly. Mothered thousands. She was a mother. There have been many women like her, who never even married, who were the greatest mothers, because our womb is physical. But it’s also innate, transcendental, yes, and we must embrace our wombs. Embrace who we are, embrace our womb, embrace our breasts to nurture life that God gives from our wombs.

There is even the breast also. You see, the womb is a picture of God Himself. The word “womb” in the Bible—there are four different Hebrew words for “womb”, and they are not only used as a physical womb of a woman, but to describe God’s compassion, and His love. Same Hebrew words.

And then the breast. Yes, the breast is physical, but it is named after God, El Shaddai. He is El Shaddai, Almighty Shaddai. The word is translated “almighty” in the English but it’s Shaddai in the Hebrew. The root word of Shaddai is shad, the breast. It’s a revelation of God as the Breasted One who wants to pour out His love and nurture and gather us in His arms. This is God.

The woman . . . we as women, we reveal this part of God. We reveal His wombness, His compassion. We reveal from our breasts His nurture, and His nourishing. Yes, and if we don’t reveal it, who else is going to do it? Because the male can’t reveal that aspect of God. He reveals other aspects of God. And especially when we marry and have children and we embrace having children through our womb, and yes, babies at our breast, we are showing physically who God is in the spiritual. We are revealing God. We are living and walking in the image of God.

Dear ladies, we must know who we are and embrace who we are. Embrace our being. Oh yes, it’s not just doing this, doing that. No, God wants us to embrace our being and who He created us to be. This is how we glorify Him most, being who He created us to be!

There are so many young women who are so deceived. They are rejecting motherhood, rejecting their womb. They are going through life being . . . well, they’re not even being, they’re doing the opposite of who God created them to be!

Embrace your being. Embrace your womb. Embrace who God created you to be as a wombman. Oh, you think, “I don’t know of all about this.” Let me tell you. This is God. This is His heart. This is His Word. And as you begin to get this revelation and embrace it, you will walk in joy. You will walk in glory. You will be fulfilling God’s plan.

And not only for this earth, but for eternity, because motherhood is an eternal career that lasts into the eons of eternity. When we meet Jesus, when we go to this place called Heaven where we will one day be on a new earth (there will be a new earth and a new heaven), this glory place. Wow! So amazing.

We will take our own redeemed soul. We won’t take a career. We won’t take all the things that we tried to accumulate here on this earth. Everything will be left behind. All we’ll take is our eternal soul and the eternal souls of our children. Yes, and what we have put into their souls and their spirits, because we prepare now for eternity. What we have of the Word in us now will go into eternity. We will build on it, even there.

But some may go in very shallow and have much more to catch up on. We prepare now, and we prepare our children now for eternity because God’s Word is going to be in eternity. What does it say Jesus said? “Heaven and earth will pass away” because they’re going to pass away with a great noise They’re going to be burned up. There’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth (2 Peter 3:10-14). He says: “They will pass away, but my Word will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).

There will be revelations beyond revelations that we will see in the heavenly realm that we couldn’t even ever understand here on earth. But we prepare here, and we’re preparing our children here. Oh, dear precious wives and mothers, let’s be living for eternity. And we are living for eternity when we embrace who God created us to be!

Anything else is a waste of time! Left behind. Wasted! It’s only the eternal, that will count. So, let’s embrace it with all our hearts. Amen?

“Dear Father, we thank You. We thank You that You are our God. We thank You for Your precious eternal word that shows us the truth. We thank You. We are here by Your design. We are here because You planned for us to be here. You planned for our precious children, who we have brought into the world. Lord, every one of them is planned before the foundation of the world.

“Oh, we thank You, Lord, and we pray that you will just help us, Lord. I pray that You will help every wife and mother who comes to the fullness of revelation of who You created her to be, to embrace it with all her heart. Lord, to live, oh God, in You, that she will learn to know that in You, Lord God, she lives and has her being, the being that You gave her, created her to have and to fulfill the destiny that You have for her. Oh Father, all these glorious destinies to be fulfilled in all these precious mothers and children and young people listening, Lord, to this message today. In the Name of Jesus, amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

DAILY LIGHT ON THE DAILY PATH

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~ Nancy Campbell

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LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 420: THE FLOURISHING MOTHER, PT 2

Plants can’t survive without light and without water. Nor can mothers. How can you be watered? Check in.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world

Nancy Campbell: Good morning! Or good afternoon! Or good evening. I know that many of you will be listening at all these different times. So good to be with you again and we are continuing our new series, “The Flourishing Mother.”

Well, that’s what we aim to be. Sometimes we feel as though we are wilting. Sometimes we’re barely surviving. But God wants us to flourish. So, I am giving you some very good points about how to flourish.

Today we’re up to . . .

No. 2. THE FLOURISHING MOTHER LIVES IN THE LIGHT

Now it’s impossible for plants to grow and to thrive unless they have light. We notice this, especially with potted plants. If you put potted plants in a dark room, they are just going to die. They cannot survive without the light. It’s the same with us, ladies. We have got to have the light.

Now, talking about plants, I now have some beautiful potted plants. I’ve got loads of beautiful potted plants in my home. But I decided I wanted to have some potted plants in my special secret place where I meet with God each morning. It’s in my library. I have a desk at the window, so on the windowsill I have potted plants. Then I have four other shelves on either side which Colin put up for me.

I have gradually filled them with potted plants. It’s so amazing. You know, I started off with one potted plant. I bought that potted plant, and then I thought, “Help! I can’t just go and buy all these potted plants. They’re quite expensive.” So, I began to get little cuttings from friends or people where I saw they had an extra shoot coming out. I’d say, “Can I have that little shoot?” And I planted them from little shoots.

Now, oh, I wish you could see all my potted plants that are surrounding me. As I go down in the mornings to meet with the Lord, I just love it! It’s just so beautiful. The ones on my windowsill at the moment are all flowering. But the thing that I notice is that they all bend towards the light because that’s what they long for. That’s what is going to make them grow. So, often I will have to turn them around. Then that part of the plant will go toward the light. It’s so necessary.

Talking about where I meet with the Lord with all my lovely potted plants, the other morning I was reading a Scripture. It was Psalm 5:3. It’s David talking to the Lord. He says: “My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up.”

When I read that Scripture, I realized there was something that I wasn’t doing. Wow! Now, when I come down to this lovely, special place, I begin to read the Word and pray in my heart to the Lord over what I’m reading. Meditate upon it. And so, I’m communing with the Lord as I read.

But I noticed that this Scripture says: “My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning.” And I realized I wasn’t praying out loud! God wanted to hear my voice. And so, I like to obey the Word of God. Now I’m making it my habit, every morning when I first get there to my desk, I vocally, out loud, speak to the Lord, worshipping and praising Him, talking to Him about things on my heart before I even start to do it in my heart as I reading. Now I’m making this habit because I realized God wants to hear our voice.

We go over to the Song of Solomon 2:14. That’s the picture of Christ and the Bride. It says here: “Oh, my dove (that is Christ speaking) “that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.” (Or “beautiful,” which is what the word actually means). And so, I read again here that God wants to hear my voice.

Then I went over to Song of Solomon 8:13, where it says: “Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause Me to hear it.” Now lots of people get to hear our voice, don’t they? He says here: “In the gardens, the companions harken to thy voice: cause Me to hear it.”

In the New English Translation, it says: “My companions are listening attentively for your voice. Let Me be the One to hear it.” 

Then the New Living Translation says: “Your companions are fortunate to hear your voice. Let Me hear it too!” Now I understand. God wants to actually hear my voice. He should be the One who hears my voice first in the morning.

In fact, I noticed three things in Psalm 5:3.

Number one: He wants to hear our voice.

Number two: it says: “In the morning.” Two times! “In the morning, O Lord. In the morning I will direct my prayer.” So, God wants to hear our voice first thing in the morning.

And then the third thing David says: “I will look up.” What a wonderful way to start the day, letting God hear our voice in the morning. The first thing we do is we let Him hear our voice. We talk to Him and then we look up. We look up to Him.

Often, we can have so many pressures and things weighing on our mind. Things that we have to face. Worries, concerns. But God doesn’t want us to be bowed down with things. He wants us to look up. Look up to Him. Give our burdens to Him. As we look to Him, as we give our burdens to Him, He will take them. What does it say? “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, for He cares for you” (Psalm 55:22 and 1 Peter 5:7). He’s waiting to take your burdens. And He wants us to look up to Him. If we start the day looking up, then we keep looking up through the day.

Well, I thought I’d just pop that in because that’s something the Lord was speaking to me about. But we get back to our plants and see how they must have the light. That’s how they’re going to grow. So, let’s have a look at a few Scriptures, shall we? There are so many Scriptures about the light.

I love the celebration of Hanukkah. I wonder if any of you have ever celebrated Hanukkah? That’s at Christmas time; it’s around the Christmas period. It’s also called “The Festival of Lights.” We celebrate Hanukkah to remember the time of the Maccabees and when they rose up to take back Israel. Israel was being taken over by Antiochus Epiphanes. They were in servitude. This man had taken over their land, and even the temple.

But this family rose up, and they were able to get back the temple. It was full of rubbish and everything. They had to clean it out and cleanse it. Then they wanted to light the menorah again and get everything started again. But there was only enough oil for one day. They had to make the special oil, because in the Bible, it talks about the special oil and gives the recipe (Exodus 30:22-33. Use no other oil (v. 32).

It took eight days for them to get that oil ready. But a miracle happened and we read that the light kept on glowing.

Now that word Hanukkah, when we take the verb chanak, it means “to train, to dedicate.” It’s the word that is used when it says: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” But the word literally means, “to dedicate.” We dedicate our children to the Lord, but we don’t have just one dedication. When they’re born, we have a time when we dedicate them to the Lord. No, we are dedicating them every day to the Lord.

And why it was called Hanukkah was because they had to dedicate the temple again to the Lord, because it had been so overrun, and had been filled with such junk and everything. So, they dedicated it again to the Lord. And also, it’s called “The Festival of Lights.” In the Bible, we read of how Jesus went up to Jerusalem at the Festival of Lights, to commemorate that celebration. He loved to do that.

At the time of Hanukkah, in our Bible reading morning and evening, we read Scriptures about the light. We have quite a number of Scriptures for every morning and every evening for the eight days of Hanukkah. It’s a wonderful time of the year, where we read all the Scriptures in the Word about the light. It’s wonderful, and if ever you get to that time of the year, and you’d love to celebrate it, and you want to have those Scriptures, well, you can email me and I’ll send them to you.

But let’s just look at just a few today, because we’re talking about the light. Jesus, of course, said: “I am the Light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” That’s John 8:12. Jesus says, “Follow Me.” Yes, He is the Light. We’ve got to follow Him to walk in the light.

It’s just like our plants. They’ve got to have light. So, they reach out to the light. You see the branches reaching out towards the light. They’re following after the light. So, that’s what we have to do, lovely ladies. We’ve got to follow after the light, follow after Jesus, follow after His words. He says in John 12:35, 36: “He that walks in darkness does not know whither he goes. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.”

2 Corinthians 4:6: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Let’s go to the Old Testament. Psalm 36:9: “For with thee is the fountain of life: in Thy light shall we see light.”

I love that, because as we reach out for the light, that’s reaching out for Jesus, for His Words, for His truth, we will begin to see more light. Did you know that the more light you get, then you see more light? It’s just how it works.

We go to Psalm 43:4, 5: this Scripture starts with an “O.” “O send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy.” This was David’s prayer. “O send out Thy light and Thy truth; let them lead me.” I love to pray that. “Lord, oh, lead me into Your Light. Lead me into Your truth.”

And dear lovely mothers, as we come into the light of God’s truth, that’s when we will begin to flourish. You see, the plants that are getting all this light just flourish. And so it is with us. As we seek after the light, we’ll begin to flourish. Often, we just live in the darkness. We live in the darkness of deception many times, because many precious mothers, especially I think this young generation of mothers.

You know, I started Above Rubies well over 48 years ago, getting it out to my generation of mothers back then. And then, I was getting it out to the next generation of mothers. Now, there’s a third generation of mothers. Sadly, I really haven’t accomplished what I set out to do because there’s a generation of mothers now who are even more deceived than I think we were back in those days.

And because they haven’t got the light, they have been brainwashed. They’ve been propagandized in their schools, and in their colleges, and even in society against motherhood. What’s been put into their brains is that motherhood is insignificant. When that’s in your brain, and then suddenly you get children and you're having to care for these children . . .

Of course, every mother loves her children, but oh, many times, she just doesn’t love this motherhood. “Oh goodness me! I could be doing something more, something better, something more powerful!” And because that is their thought life, they are not flourishing in motherhood, and because it’s disdained in their minds, it’s been put into their brains.

We have to know the truth. We have to be filled with light because when we’re filled with the light and know this is what we were born for, “Yes, I’m in the perfect will of God,” well, then we can flourish. So, if you're feeling a little, well, “I don’t know about this or that,” just pray that prayer, “Oh Lord, send out Your light and Your truth. Let Him lead me.” Don’t be led by what is around you, dear ladies.

OK, Psalm 119:105: “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” I’m sure you learned that Scripture as a child. I hope you have taught it to your children. I believe that’s a Scripture every believer should know. The Word, it’s the Word that’s a light to our feet to show us the way to go. It’s a light to our path.

Now, I was just talking before this podcast to my wonderful Above Rubies helper, Kerianne, and she was telling me how from a little girl, her father gave them all Bible memory verses to learn every two weeks. Now, Kerianne, do you know that one? Psalm 119:105: “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet.” Did you learn that one?

Kerianne: I didn’t.

Nancy: You didn’t! Isn’t that funny? You know so many Scriptures and that’s one of the real basic ones. Well, you’ll have to add that one to it. She knows so many Scriptures. This is so true. We’ve got to have God’s Word and then it lights our path.

Psalm 119:130: “The entrance of Thy words giveth light. It giveth understanding unto the simple.”

THERE IS ALWAYS MORE AND MORE

And then, of course, Proverbs 4:18: “The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” It’s one of my favorite Scriptures. In fact, we have just finished a series about “Welcome to the Land of More and More.” This is how I started and ended that whole series with this Scripture.

I wonder if you have memorized it yet. It’s such a wonderful Scripture to know and to confess out loud. “The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”

Another translation, The God’s Word Translation, says: “But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that becomes brighter and brighter, until it reaches midday.” This is a testimony also for us in motherhood. As we come into the light of God’s truth, and we walk in it, we keep reaching for the light. We keep learning more and we keep understanding more.

Now when I begin Above Rubies over 48 years ago, that was a time when God was just beginning to reveal to me His ways for motherhood. I didn’t start out knowing His ways but as I began to seek His truth and reach out to the light, God began to show me His ways. That was when I began for the very first time in my whole life to embrace who God created me to be.

Up to that time, I’d always thought, “Oh goodness me! It must be more exciting to be a guy. They go out and do all the adventures, and here we are. We’re just in the home, raising the children.” Although I just loved my children, I hadn’t come to that place of embracing motherhood.

God began to show me. It was revelation that I was in His perfect will, that He had created me physically, innately, for this purpose. And I was fulfilling the destiny that He had created for me. I embraced my womanhood, my motherhood, with all my heart. As I did that, that was when I began to live in the joy and the fullness of it.

But that was only the beginning. As I continued to live in His Word, God kept showing me, even to this day. I keep getting new light and new understanding, because there is always more and more. Isn’t that wonderful? Yes. Truly our walk, and even our motherhood walk, is a more and more walk.

LITTLE BY LITTLE YOU WILL BECOME AN AMAZING MOTHER

You may be, at this time, just feeling as though you're maybe even wilting. Or maybe you're just surviving. You haven’t got to that flourishing yet. But don’t despair. You will get there. We don’t suddenly become great, amazing mothers overnight. We grow into it, little by little. And we also come into more and more understanding and revelation as we continue to reach out for the light.

One last Scripture. I’ll read Isaiah 60:1-3. Now, this Scripture is actually speaking to Israel, and about Israel. It says: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”

We, as believers, we can take the Scriptures that God speaks to Israel. We can take them to ourselves, but only as we do not realize that we replace them. We never replace Israel because these Scriptures were written literally to and about Israel.

I was talking to someone recently, and they said, “Oh, I don’t believe it. I don’t see any future in the Word of God for Israel.” Well, that person I don’t think reads God’s Word because His Word is filled with the promises of what He is yet to do for Israel! Yes, they haven’t come into them yet, but there is coming a time, even this one (Isaiah 650:1-3) where it says that they are going to rise and the glory of the Lord will shine upon them.

But, of course, now, as believers, we’ve been grafted into this olive tree. We can claim these beautiful Scriptures that we will also walk in the light, and the glory of the Lord will be upon us. And so, we want that, even in our mothering, dear mothers, that you can walk in the light with the glory of the Lord upon you. Yes, God wants you to walk in His glory in the home. Wow!

I did a podcast on that, a little series. It was about the home, and how God likens the home . . . He likens the home to heaven, and He likens the home to the Holy of Holies that was in the temple. It’s very amazing and that’s where God’s glory dwelt. God’s glory was in the Holy of Holies. God’s glory fills heaven. But He also wants His glory to fill our homes too. So, may this be a testimony, that you “arise and shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.” Amen.

Well, let’s go on to our next point, shall we?

No. 3. THE FLOURISHING MOTHER IS A WATERED MOTHER

Now this is another thing about the plants, ladies. You know, don’t you, if you’ve got potted plants, or even if you've got a garden, you know that if you don’t water that garden, it dries up. If you don’t water your potted plants, they begin to wilt.

There have been times when I have forgotten. I don’t forget very much because I just love my potted plants. I want to keep them all wonderful. But there have been times I have forgotten. Ooh, I see them beginning to wilt! So, I’ve got to go and get that water. And my, you simply can’t believe it! Just water revives them so quickly! It’s absolutely amazing.

And, of course, the drier they’ve got, the more water they need. And when it’s hot, the more heat there is, the more water they need. That’s an interesting little observation, because when we’re going through the heat, when we’re going through difficult times, and the heat and the pressure are on, that’s when we need even more water.

I have some plants at my front door. I have four pots of plants out there. Two of them are marigolds. I love them at my front door because it’s very hot. The sun pours down, right there at my front door. Not very many plants can survive. But the marigolds do and they’re just blooming and shining in all their glory. But I do have to water them every day.

There are two other plants. They are surviving too if I water them. In fact, two of these plants, they’re the same kind. I have to put a huge bowl of water on them every day, sometimes twice a day, to keep them flowering. If I do, ooh, they just keep flowering and keep blooming. If I forget, they all just wilt away. But then, if I come and throw a whole bucket of water over them, wow! They revive so quickly again! I’m just so amazed. And so, lovely, precious wives and mothers, we’ve got to stay watered if we’re going to flourish.

All right. So, let’s look at some Scriptures, shall we?

Psalm 1:3: “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.” Now let me understand that, but let’s go to Psalm 1, because who is this person? Who is this person? It starts off: “Blessed is the man [or woman] that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his [or her] delight is in the law of the Lord. And in His law doth he meditate day and night.”

That’s the one where it says: “And he [or she] shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” Remember last week, we talked about the point, THE FLOURISHING MOTHER IS PLANTED? Well, here it talks about it again. Planted, but where is she planted? “Planted by the rivers of water.” She has access to the water. If she doesn’t have access to that water, she wilts. She’s got to have water to flourish.

Then we go to Ezekiel 19:10. This is the allegory that talks about Judah going to Babylon. But God likens her to a mother. And oh, “She was fruitful and full of branches by the reason of many waters.”

Now, do you notice something here in Psalm 1:3? It says he’s “planted by the rivers of waters.” And here in Ezekiel 19:10, she’s planted by “many waters.” Do you notice, it’s not just a little trickle of water. It’s “many waters.” A little bit of water, yes, you’ll survive, but if you want to flourish, you need much water.

You will survive with a little bit of water but to flourish you need much water!

Ephesians 5:26, and here it’s talking about Christ and His Bride, but it’s also in the context of the husband and the wife. It says here that “he might sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of the water by the Word.” Now we’re getting to find out how we get watered. There are two ways we get watered, precious wives and mothers. By the Word, and by the Holy Spirit. In the Word of God, both the Word and the Holy Spirit are likened to water.

This is a wonderful Scripture for husbands, because God wants husbands to wash their wives with the Word by reading the Word to them each day. I love . . .  My favorite time of every day, is our morning and evening devotions when we gather together as a family, or whoever is in our home, and my husband Colin reads the Word. I love to bask in that Word, because I’m being washed.

And, of course, we’re usually doing this together as a family, but if we go away together, and it’s just Colin and me, we will do it on our own. And often, that’s even more special, because it’s just me and him. I’m sitting close to him, and he is washing me with the Word. That is the number one responsibility of a husband, and such a blessing for the husband, and a blessing for the wife, and also the family when you do it as family devotions.

Now, some of you mothers get so busy, and so overwhelmed, and you don’t get a lot of time to get away and read the Word on your own. But, as you have your gathering of your family, and you have devotions morning and evening, you are getting the Word. You’re being washed. You’re getting watered. Make the most of those times.

As I said, when you have little ones, you have babies and little ones, and I was saying how you don’t have a lot of time to get away on your own with the Word of God, and you've just got to make special times. I had to have such a big, huge change in my life, because before I got married, I set aside three hours a day to wait on the Lord in His Word and in prayer.

Then I got married, and then I had babies. I had my first baby and 17 months later, I had two more babies! We had twins! So, I had three babies in 17 months. Did I have time to go away for three hours and spend time in God’s Word? Help! I hardly had time to even think! I hardly had time to go to the bathroom!

Oh goodness me! I didn’t have time to do it, and I wondered what had happened to my life! What am I going to do? I can no longer be in the Word! Then I had to find other ways. I put my Bible on the windowsill. I would usually put it at Proverbs or Psalms so I could just get a little Scripture even without context. And I could look up as I was doing the dishes and just read a Scripture.

I’d have another Bible in the toilet. Sometimes I had to go, even though I hardly had time in those days. And there I could read a Scripture. I had another Bible where I would nurse the babies. I would just get a little Scripture here and there. I just had to get that little watering. Wow! It wasn’t very much, but it was some watering.

Then also, as time went on, I decided to have a Bible basket. And I still have my Bible basket today. I just love it. I have in my Bible basket . . . I’ve been through many, many baskets, and they wear out. But I have my Bible, and I have two notebooks, because I always have a sort of a scrap notebook to write little notes for when I have more time and I can write more carefully, and meditatively. I also have a hard-covered journal for writing what the Lord says to me each day. And then I have a hymn book, because sometimes I might want to meditate on the words of a hymn.

And, of course, when I had little ones, what do you do? Well, you have some extra little scrap notebooks or paper, and pens and colored pencils in your Bible basket. Summertime, you can go outside with the little ones. You can take your basket. You can have some little toys in your basket. They can play with them, or they can write or draw. And you can have a little time for reading. And so, you make little special ways of getting the Word into you so you can be watered.

Then, we’ll continue next week, because we’ve got to speak about how the Holy Spirit also waters us.

“Dear precious Father, we thank You. We thank You that in Your Word, You tell us that You want us to flourish in our homes as mothers. Then, Lord, You show us the way, because Your Word waters us. We thank You for the watering of the Word.

“I pray for the young moms who find it difficult to get time, but I pray, Lord, that You will help them to find these special times, and these little ways they can get Your Word into their hearts and their minds. Just bless them, Lord God. Encourage them, and I pray that all the lovely wives and mothers listening today will be watered by Your Word. I pray they will be watered by this podcast.

“Lord, you know that how in these podcasts, we give Your Word. As Your Word goes out, it waters us, and we thank You. In the Name of Jesus, 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.

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 419: THE FLOURISHING MOTHER, PT 1

How are you mothering in your home? Are you wilting? Just surviving? Or flourishing? Today we begin a new series, discussing how you can go from wilting to flourishing. Psalm 128:3 states: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine, FLOURISHING within your home.”

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Well, today I was hoping to have a dear friend with me to share the podcast, Kristina Friedman from Minnesota. Anyway, Kristina started to come and, on her way, out the door, she slipped and fell. By the time she got here, she could not even get out of the car!

Instead of getting out and doing the podcast together, she had to drive to the hospital and found she had a very badly broken foot. So now, she can’t even put her foot to the ground, and she doesn’t even know how she will get back to Minnesota.

Sorry about that, ladies. You’ll just have me today again. I trust that when Kristina is healed, and she comes back again (she has a daughter living here), that we’ll be able to do this podcast together which is going to be a very special one.

Anyway, I’m with you today again. I would like to start a series called “The Flourishing Mother.” Now I know that you don’t often feel as though you are flourishing in your home. In fact, I think there could be three different kinds of mothers.

THE WILTING MOTHER

Firstly, the wilting mother. Oh, do you often feel as though you are wilting? I know. I can remember times of feeling like that way back when I had little ones. So many little ones all at once. I just felt as though I was wilting.

It’s like a plant. Sometimes they will wilt. It’s so sad to see a wilting plant, isn’t it? But the wonderful thing, ladies, about a plant that is wilting is that you can make if flourish again. Yes, I have done that many times. In fact, I had a potted plant a year or two ago. We went away for a week or ten days. By the time we got back, this plant was dead! Well, it just looked completely dead.

But I did notice the tiniest little bit of green. “Oh, I wonder if I can resurrect this plant?” So, I kept watering it, and watering it. Little by little, it came back to life! It took quite some time, but today, this is a very flourishing potted plant. It’s the same with us. We may be wilting, but I’m going to tell you in the next few podcasts of how you can be a flourishing mother.

THE SURVIVING MOTHER

Well, you may not be wilting, but perhaps you are one of those who are just surviving. We can have plants also that are just surviving. They’re not dead but they’re not flourishing. They’re just surviving. I think, perhaps, that’s where many mothers are today. You are just getting through each day. You just did it. You got through another day.

Of course, you didn’t do everything you wanted to do. I don’t think I’ve ever done that in my whole life. I do like to write lists. In fact, most days I will write a list in the morning when I get up, thinking about what I need to get done. I write all these lists of what I have to do and the people I have to call and this and that.

Well, I don’t think I have ever got through a list in all my life! I can remember thinking, “Oh dear, I need 48 hours in a day!” Until the Lord really convicted me, and said, “Nancy, I gave you 24 hours and some of those are for sleep. And so, you have to be content with what I give you. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” And so, I’ve learned that, even though I don’t get through all my lists, maybe in a few weeks, I will.

THE FLOURISHING MOTHER

But anyway, you didn’t get everything done that you were going to do. None of us ever do, but you just feel as though you just survive. Well, dear ladies, I want to tell you that God’s plan is for us to flourish! “Oh my, how can I flourish?” you think. Well, we’re going to talk about it over the next few podcasts. I do have 13 different points of how we can flourish in our home.

But first of all, let’s go to the Scriptures, shall we? Because this is what I’m basing this on. The Scriptures are not making it up. Now you know, ladies, when I share with you, I share with you from the Word of God. I don’t make it up. Sometimes you may think I’m making it up because it sounds so amazing! Because the Word of God is so amazing. And most of us live subzero. We live below what God intends for us.

Well, let’s go, shall we, to that beautiful family psalm, Psalm 128. It’s a psalm that talks about the husband who is working with his hands and providing for his family. Then it talks about the wife. “Your wife is like a fruitful vine within your home.”

Let me read the Living Bible Translation: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine, flourishing within your home. And look at all those children! There they sit around your table, as vigorous and healthy as young olive trees. That is the Lord’s reward for those who fear Him.”

We go to the Berean Standard Bible. It says the same thing: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine, flourishing within your home.”

Now, this word “flourish,” is really a picture of a flower that’s in a bud and it’s opening up. It opens up to the sun and gradually it opens up into full flower. It also means “to thrive, to grow luxuriantly, to enlarge as a healthy growing plant, to bloom, to expand, to shoot out.” Yes, this is the picture of a flourishing mother. This is the picture that God gives of the mother in the home.

MOTHERING IS A FULL TIME PROFESSION

Now you notice that it is the mother in the home. It’s not so easy, dear ladies, to flourish if you're also working outside the home, because, oh, then you've got two things you're trying to cope with, because mothering is a full-time profession. It’s a full-time career. Really, it doesn’t have any rivals. Yes, mothering is a very powerful role. And God wants us to flourish in it.

So, lovely ladies, if you're flourishing, you will be blossoming, flowering, blooming, growing luxuriantly, thriving, increasing, enlarging, expanding, abounding, and shooting out. Wow! Can you think of yourself mothering in this way? Well, that’s sort of hard to get your mind around, isn’t it?

It reminds me of why I changed the name for this podcast. Did you know I used to call it “From My Home to Yours”? But I changed it some time back to “Life to the Full” because I kept bringing up Scriptures that talk about us living abundantly and aboundingly.

So, I wanted my podcast to portray the picture that God gives us of the way He wants us to live in this abounding, flourishing way. But sometimes I think I really didn’t do it justice, because if we were really to keep to the Scriptures, it shouldn’t be just “Life to the Full,” but “Life to Overflowing”!

So, let’s see. We’ve got 13 points.

No. 1. THE FLOURISHING MOTHER IS PLANTED IN HER HOME

To flourish in your home, dear ladies, you must first be planted. That’s the very foundation, to be planted in your home.

Now, do you know the first time this word is used in the Bible? I wonder if you know. Well, shall I tell you? It’s found in Genesis, right at the beginning. Genesis 2:8. This is what it says: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden.” So, here we see the first time the word “planted” is used, and it’s talking about God. “God planted.”

That’s an amazing thing. I wonder if you've ever noticed this Scripture, dear ladies? When you read chapter one of Genesis, we read how God created the world. And how did He do it? All He did was speak the Word, “Let there be light.” And there was light! “Let there be a firmament.” And there was a firmament. All He had to do was speak the words and it happened!

But then, it came time for God to make a garden. The amazing thing is, God didn’t say: “Let there be a garden.” No, He didn’t say that. The Bible says, “And the Lord God planted a garden.” Isn’t that amazing? God, the Creator of this vast universe, not only the earth, but the heavens above. This God got down on His knees and planted in the soil that He had created. Wow!

Now, it’s interesting that in the Bible, it talks about this Garden of Eden. It was the first home. But it was a garden home. Home and garden are actually twins. God puts them together. A garden is meant to be part of a home. It’s a big job doing a garden. I’m sure we’d love to be able to say, “Let there be a garden,” and there was a garden! But no, actually, to do a garden takes work. And you have to get down, and you have to plant this garden.

Well, I’m very blessed at the moment, because my daughter, Evangeline, is doing my garden. For the last, well, we’ve lived out here on the Hilltop for 26 years. For the last 23 of those years, I have done the garden. I love gardening. But Evangeline loves gardening, I think even more than me! She is an amazing gardener. She has taken over my garden, and it is just so amazing. So, I’m very blessed about that.

But anyway, this is the thing: planting. So, God loves to plant. He planted the first garden. He was the very first gardener. Some ladies say, “Well, you know, I don’t really need a garden.” And to tell you the truth, dear ladies, you can get away with not having a garden because today we live in this age where you just go down to the supermarket and get what you like, every vegetable you want, any season of the year, from any country of the world. There it is. You buy it.

But, oh goodness me, there’s nothing like the blessing and the nutrition, oh, the freshness of getting it out of your own garden. Without all the sprays, and the chemicals, and from having traveled by truck for a few days before it gets to the supermarket. And how long does it sit there?

Oh, it’s like when you purchase one of those plastic containers of organic lettuce. Oh yes, you get organic, of course. But you bring it home. In a couple of days, it’s already all slimy. Ooh! Goodness, you have to throw it out! Then it makes you wonder how long was it sitting in the shop before you even got it!

But when you have your garden, you just go out there, and you pick it straightaway and you eat it straightaway. I think God wants us to live that way because that is the healthiest way to eat. But lots of people have lots of excuses why they can’t do it. I think we have to try, even if we do a little garden.

So, God loves to garden. And He also loves to plant His people. In fact, there’s a lot of Scriptures about God planting His people, Israel. Because they were the people God chose to bring forth the Word of God and to bring forth our Savior. They are His very chosen people, and He chose a land for them.

Now we know that they, of course, didn’t live the way they were meant to. They sinned, and they did all the terrible things that the heathen were doing before they went in and possessed the land. And because of that, God had to, well, throw them out of the land. He cast them out to the four corners of the earth.

But God is a God of promises, a God Who will never break His promises, never break His oaths. He promised that He would bring His people back again to the land that He gave them for an everlasting covenant, and that He would plant them. This time, He said: “I’m going to plant you, and you will not be plucked up again.”

Exodus 15:17: “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them.”

2 Samuel 7:10: “Moreover, I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more.”

Psalm 80:8-11: “You have brought a vine (it’s talking about Israel) a vine out of Egypt: You have cast out the nations, and planted it. You prepared rooms for it, and caused it to take deep root, and it filled the land.”

Jeremiah 24:6: “For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and will bring them again, back again to this land. And I will build them, and I will not pull them down. And I will plant them, and not pluck them up.”

Amos 9:15: “I will plant them, and they shall no more be pulled out of their land, which I have given them.”

And many other Scriptures. Let me give you one more. Jeremiah 32:41: “Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and will plant them in this land, assuredly, with My whole heart, and with My whole soul.”

This is one of my favorite Scriptures, because I feel and hear God’s heartbeat. His heart beats for His people who He scattered to the four corners of the earth, that He will bring them again and plant them. He’s going to do it. He’s been doing it, and is doing it, and will do it with all His heart, and with all His soul. But this is also God’s heart for me, for you, in your home. He wants to plant you in your home.

GOD PLANTS, THE DEVIL PLUCKS UP

To be planted; that means you're planted there. You’re not easily pulled away. No. God wants you to be planted in the home. In fact, God wants to plant mothers in the home. Guess what? The devil wants to pluck them up and get them out of the home. God plants, the devil plucks up.

Now, lovely ladies, we are either planted mothers or we are plucked-up mothers. Sadly, there are many, many plucked-up mothers. They are plucked up out of the home. Yes, they live at home. They come home in the evening, but many are out all day. They’re away from the home. They’re away from their children. This is not where God wants them. He wants mothers in the home. He wants planted mothers, not plucked-up mothers.

There are many blessings of being planted. Let me just give you a few from the Word of God.

1)    YOU WILL 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.” Flourishing. It’s such a beautiful word.

We think of 1 Corinthians 15:58. It doesn’t use the word “flourish” but a similar word. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the word of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” Now that word “abounding” is a word that I often talk to you about, because it pops up all the time in the Bible. It’s perisseuo, and it means “to superabound, to be in excess, enough and to spare, over and above, beyond what is necessary, flourishing.”

What is this verse about? It’s about abounding in the work of the Lord. Well, the work that God gives us when He gives us children, that’s our work—to nurture them, train them, prepare them to be lights shining in this world, and ultimately preparing them for the eternal kingdom. This is our life’s work and God wants us to do it in this abounding, flourishing way.

2)    YOU WILL BE FRUITFUL

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.” When you're planted, you’ll be fruitful. You’ll be flourishing.

Now let’s read another Scripture. Ezekiel 19:10. This Scripture is taken from an allegory that the prophet is speaking forth. It’s an allegory about how Judah was taken to Babylon. It likens the tribe of Judah to a mother. So, as we read this, we get to understand how God sees a mother: “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.” You notice there that this mother is planted. Once again, this is why she’s fruitful, because she is planted.

 It carries on about this mother who is fruitful and full of branches, speaking of her children. “And she had strong rods for the scepters of them that bare rule.” That’s also talking about her children, and her sons growing up into stature and becoming mature, even in their youth, as the Bible says. It goes on: “And her stature (the stature of the mother) was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.”

And here it’s speaking about the career and the role of the mother. God says: “her stature was exalted.” That word means “to rise to a great height.” This is where God has placed motherhood. He’s placed it high. It’s highly esteemed in His eyes. He says: “Her stature was exalted.” It was exalted above all the other trees and branches around. And motherhood is the highest career. There are many careers that mothers can have in this world, but motherhood is the highest.

But then, this allegory continues in verse 12. And it’s so sad, because even though God says she was exalted but now she is plucked up. You see, we see here again this picture. We’re either a planted mother as it says in verse 10, but now, this mother is plucked up. “But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.”

This is a picture of the destruction of motherhood because she was plucked up. And what happens to her children when she’s not there in the home? They are cast down to the ground. They are dried up. In fact, she doesn’t have time to have more children, because she’s not even in the home.

And it goes on: “And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.” Now that wilderness, of course, is speaking of Babylon, because this is an allegory. It’s a type. But what happens when a mother is plucked up out of the home? She is then planted in a wilderness. It’s not the place that God has for her to be planted.

Then it goes on to say, yes: “And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a scepter to rule.” The children aren’t rising up.

“This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.” Well, that allegory was written so many years ago but it’s the picture of what is happening to motherhood in this time in which we are living.

Let’s go on to Psalm 92:13-14: “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall . . .  still bring forth fruit in old age.” You cannot be fruitful without being planted. But the more you are rooted in your home, dear mother, the more fruitful you will be. Often, when we get involved in so many things outside the home, we get scattered. We get fragmented. We’re maybe doing lots of things but are we truly fruitful in what God is wanting us to do?

In the raising, and mentoring, and teaching, and training, and preparing of our children for this life, and for eternity, it is so very sad that that statistics today are that only six percent of Christians have a biblical worldview, only four percent of Generation Z. How can that be?

It comes back to us mothers, the mothers in the home. We are the ones who are responsible to give them that biblical worldview, that they know what God’s heart is, and what His truth is on all manner of subjects. That is just so important. I believe that we need to be planted, not only physically.

Oh yes, we can be in the home. In fact, you can be a homeschooling mother and not be truly planted. Are you really planted emotionally, psychologically, and mentally, as well as physically? You see, we can be in the home, but our heart and our mind can be somewhere else. It’s not really focused where it’s meant to be. But God wants us planted and focused so we can flourish and be fruitful in that which He has given us to do.

3)    YOU WILL BE VIGOROUS AND HEALTHY

Psalm 92:13-14: “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall . . . be fat and flourishing.” Well, none of us want to get fat, do we? But it doesn’t mean that. The word in the Hebrew means, “full of sap, full of oil, healthy.” When a person is filled with oil, and sap in their bones, they are healthy.

What happens to people as they get older? Their bones get dry and brittle and they show their age. They begin to walk with a walking stick and so on because their bones are getting dry and brittle and no longer fat and full of sap.

 I love reading about Moses. Oh, when he was 120 years old, he died, but even when he died, the Bible says: “His eye hath not become dim, nor hath his moisture fled.” His bones were still full of sap.

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

Another commentary says: “Nor had his sap fled or ebbed.”

So, that part of being planted is amazing. When we’re planted, we’ll be full of healthy sap in our bones.

4)    YOU WILL BE LUXURIANT AND FRESH

These are the blessings of being planted that the Scripture talks about.

Psalm 92:13-14: “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall . . . be flourishing.”

Now this time, it says “flourishing” but it’s a different Hebrew word. And this Hebrew word means, “to grow luxuriantly, to be fresh, to be verdant.”

Do you know what the word “verdant” means? It means to be very green, a really luminous green. I think of “verdant” when I go back to my home country of New Zealand. Down in New Zealand, there’s something about the ozone layer, I think. It’s so very, very green. You can be driving along and looking at the beautiful green hillsides and they just look luminous! They’re so green!

Oh, and I remember coming from the USA, going back to New Zealand, going into a vegetable shop and looking at the green vegetables. I couldn’t believe it! They were just sort of, whew! So green! It’s so amazing!

Of course, we have our downside of that. In New Zealand in the summer, you can go outside. It can be a cloudy day, and yet, somehow the sun’s rays get to you. I can remember, as a child, going out when it was cloudy. You don’t even think it’s really sunny. You come home, and you're just sunburned! Oh, I was always getting sunburned. My shoulders would always be blistered, full of blisters. My nose, full of blisters. Oh, that Down Under sun is quite amazing!

And then, we moved to Australia for ten years. We lived on the Gold Coast, the beautiful place of sun. Everything was glorious. It was so amazing to live there. But they had this sign because we lived right on the Pacific Ocean. Of course, everywhere you went, you saw this sign: “Flip, flap, flop!” Everyone had to flip, flap, flop this zinc on their noses to save them from blistering. So, everyone went around with white noses. Isn’t that amazing?

But anyway, talking about green, just a little thought as we are closing this session. Here are some Scriptures.

Jeremiah 17:8: “Her leaf shall be green (that’s the same word “flourishing”) and shall not be worried, even in the year of drought.”

Hosea 14:8: “I am like a green tree.”

Last one, Song of Solomon, 1:16. And here, the bridegroom says: “Our bed is green.” Even our bed? Now what does that mean? Did they have a green bedspread? No, I don’t think so, because the word means “fresh and luxuriant.” It’s talking about how our bed is always new and luxuriant. So, with your husband in your bed, it’s not a boring old bed. But no, it’s a place of beautiful freshness, intoxication, satiating, and captivation—and always fresh.

Oh yes, there’s one more.

5)    YOU WILL GLORIFY GOD

Isaiah 61:3: “That they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.” Yes, God is glorified when we’re planted. John 15, that’s the abiding chapter. “He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” So, we’re planted, and then we flourish and bring forth fruit, and God is glorified. Amen?

All right. Well, that was just No. 1 that the flourishing mother is planted in her home. We’ve got 12 more points to go, ladies, so we will continue that next session.

“Dear Father, we thank You for Your Word again. I’m always thanking You for Your wonderful Word which is so fresh and so glorious and shows us the way You want us to live. Lord God, I pray that You will help each one of us, me, each one who’s listening, to live, not by the humanistic standards of this world, not by the way society is living all around us, but by Your Word.

“Lord, it is Your Word that counts. Your Word is eternal. Your Word is alive before every generation. When we embrace Your Word, we will have all Your blessings. I pray, dear Father, You will bless every wife and mother listening. Lord God, just give them that longing to be planted in their home. I pray that they’ll get to enjoy and reap and know the blessings, all the blessings of being planted, for not only her, but for her children. I ask this in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you have a moment, it would be lovely if you could email a little thank you letter to Darlene. She sacrifices much of her time to transcribe these podcasts for you and I know it would encourage her to know that you are blessed by her hard work. Thanks so much

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 415: WELCOME TO THE LAND OF MORE AND MORE, Part 21

This is the last session in this series. Don't miss it. We talk about learning how to wait. To walk with God is learning to wait. What about your children? Are you teaching them this very necessary attitude?

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Welcome to this last session on our series of “Welcome to the Land of More and More.” Today we begin with . . .

No. 42. MORE VALUE

Matthew 10:29-31, Jesus is speaking: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”

Isn’t that comforting, ladies? You are of more value than many sparrows. And, of course, you know that God says He cares for even the little sparrows. He knows how many hairs you have upon your head and that changes from day to day! And yet He keeps an account of every hair. So, He’s reminding us here that we are of more value.

Remember that dear mothers. Remember that lovely Scripture, 1 Peter 5:7: “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” Isn’t that such a beautiful promise? And that word “casting all your care” actually means in the Greek, “to throw them upon Him.” Just get rid of it. All that care that you are carrying around. Sometimes it can be so much that you even get bent over and you're walking around with your shoulders down.

Oh, I remember that happened to me once. I had to completely get rid of that attitude! But you see, once again, I was taking my problems on my own shoulders. We are not meant to carry them, dear ones. We’re to throw them off, and throw them on Jesus, because He’s promised to take them. And then, He says: “for He careth,” Oh, what a beautiful word! He cares for you, even in your home. He is watching over you. He’s watching over the walls of your home. He is right there with you, with you in your home. You’ll remember that, won’t you?

No. 43. MORE WAITING ON GOD

Psalm 130:5-6: “I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in His Word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.” It repeats that line a second time: “More than they that watch for the morning.”

Now, the watchmen take their different hours. There are four watches of the night. The early morning watch is the last watch of the night. That’s the hardest one. That’s the most difficult time to keep your eyes open.

So, it’s saying here, obviously, the psalmist knows what it’s like to have his turn at watching through the night and through that early morning watch. It says here how that those watchmen wait. They long, because they can’t wait for the morning light to come, so they can finish their watch, and they can get some sleep!

It says it two times, as I said before: “My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.” The word “to wait” here means “to yearn, to long for.” And so, this is how we are meant to have our attitude toward the Lord, to yearn after Him, to long after Him.

Also, that means waiting for Him. We must learn how to long after the Lord. If we pray, and boom! There in front of us is our answer. No.  God doesn’t work like that. God longs for our fellowship. He longs for our presence, just as we long for His presence.

And often, we have to wait. We have to wait for answers to prayer. We have to wait for things to happen. We have to wait often, for justice. Things can happen in your life. I’m sure that’s the case with many of you who are listening. And somehow, you don’t have justice yet. But it will come in God’s time for God is a God of justice. But you have to wait for it. You have to wait for God.

There are so many Scriptures in the Word about waiting.

Psalm 37:7: “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” Waiting means “patience,” doesn’t it? What does the Scripture say? “Through faith and patience, we inherit the promises.” Yes, not only by faith. Oh, you know, you think, “I’ve got faith!” No, no, no, no! It’s not just faith. It’s faith and patience. “We inherit the promises.”

Lamentations 3:25: “The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him; to the soul that seeketh Him.” God loves us to wait for Him, to yearn for Him, to wait in His presence, to have patience as we wait on God. Not thinking, “Oh well, this is not happening. Blow it! I’m just getting out of that!” No, just learning to wait. It’s a powerful thing. Ask the Lord to help you as you wait.

Isaiah 40:31: You all know this Scripture, don’t you? “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

So, we get these promises for waiting, that the Lord is good to those who wait for Him. When we wait upon the Lord, He will renew our strength. Did you know, ladies, I believe we need to teach our children, right from when they are little, this attitude of waiting. I think that many children today, because we live in such an affluent age, that they haven’t learned to wait.

I remember back in my childhood how, oh, this thing of waiting. I used to wait from one Christmas to the next, because at Christmas time, we’d get these presents. Oh, we just felt like we were going to Heaven, because we didn’t get stuff every time we went to town throughout the year. No, back in those days, we lived more frugally. We had to.

Our parents didn’t have all the money that’s available to so many today, even though they think they’re poor. And yet, they can go to town and buy this, that, and everything. No, we bought the necessities. And if we went to town with our parents, we’d dare not ask, “Well, can I have those lollies? Can I have that ice cream?” No, you didn’t ask, because you knew that you wouldn’t get it. Maybe on a special occasion you might. But you learned to wait for things.

Oh, I can remember at Christmas. My parents would put out a stocking for us. We knew it wasn’t Father Christmas. They didn’t teach us that. But they used to do this to make a surprise for us. Oh, there would be an orange in our stocking, or a packet of raisins, whatever they put there. An orange? Help! I can’t believe it! It was like getting something so incredible.

Well, today, goodness, you have your oranges in the fruit bowl and they all go rotten! People don’t even bother eating them! We are so affluent and we don’t realize how affluent we are today. I can remember doing this with our children too. We would put a packet of raisins in their little pillowcases, and a few other little things. They would think it was amazing! People would say, “What did you get for Christmas?” “A packet of raisins!” Well, goodness me, today, they wouldn’t even bother with it! They have something better.

I don’t think we have to say “yes” to our children every time they want something. There are things . . . maybe there’s something they really want. Teach them to pray about it. Wait for God to provide it. Learn to wait, because if they don’t learn this waiting, and waiting is an incredible feeling.

I can remember. It was so powerful. In fact, it was hard to control this incredible waiting. Waiting was so amazing. Then when you got something at the end of that waiting, it was so incredible. But I don’t know that many children even know what waiting feels like. If they haven’t learned to wait, how will they ever know how to wait for God?

It’s like the parable we were reading yesterday in our daily devotions. Jesus told them the parable of the sower. Some seed fell upon the wayside, and it grew up quickly. But it was all rocky and because there was no root, it just died. I think it’s a bit like this waiting. Many people can give up on God. They can get in a terrible state because they haven’t had the root of waiting.

It’s like, today, oh, forgive me for saying this. And I’m not in any way saying, “You must not do this at all.” But I’m just making a statement here, and that is that now, when a mother is having a baby, she, of course, wants to know whether it’s a baby boy or a baby girl.

There was a time, of course, when I was having my babies. We didn’t know, of course. We didn’t have ultrasound back then, so you always had to wait to find out, which was wonderful. I do believe that that is actually Scriptural. As you know, I’m one of these people who is such an advocate for the Word of God, and every word that God says.

In Psalm 139:15, it says: “And I was made in secret.” I do believe that God creates the baby in secret. God knows what He is doing. He is creating that baby. I know of many testimonies of women who have been told that their baby had Down’s Syndrome. Most of the mothers that I know who had been told that, were women who were women of light. They said, “Well, no matter what, it doesn’t matter what my baby has, I’m keeping my baby. I’m not going to abort it.”

Many times, this baby has been born totally, absolutely, healthy and perfect! Not according to the diagnosis that they were given, even through ultrasound. Some are, of course. But you cannot always trust it. How many babies have been aborted, because mothers have listened to these medical professionals?

But anyway, now, of course, it is the norm. It is so totally normal that I hardly know a mother who doesn’t find out what she’s having, boy or girl. I do know one. On the Hilltop here, there’s a lovely mother who is now having her fifth baby. She waited for every baby. It’s a secret every time, because she believes God creates the baby in secret. She’s waiting for the surprise!

I do believe you miss out on the surprise, where it’s something absolutely incredible, that when that baby is born, to find out what it is. There’s something even more exciting than even finding out beforehand. But I’m just getting back to the fact that I think the basis of it is, they can’t wait. When you ask, “Have you thought about waiting for the surprise? “Oh no, no, no, I couldn’t wait!” You couldn’t wait? Have we lost the art of waiting?

That’s just one little thing. But if we don’t learn to wait in the natural, how can we learn to wait for God? First that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. And so, I think maybe we all need to come into, not just learning to wait for God, but to wait for Him “more than those who watch for the morning,” because this is what it’s speaking about here: “more than those who watch for the morning.”

I’d love to read you a beautiful poem. I had this poem around me for years. In fact, I posted it once, and the lady who was the author wrote to me. She said, “Nancy, that is my poem. Will you put my name with it?” I was so happy to do that. But forgive me. Somehow, I’ve lost her name again, and dear, precious lady, if you happen to be listening, please contact me again, because I’d love to put your name to it. But I’m sure she won’t mind my reading it to you, because it’s a powerful poem about waiting.

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried;
Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate…
And the Master so gently said, “Child, you must wait.”

“Wait? You say wait?” my indignant reply.
“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is Your hand shortened? Or have You not heard?
By faith I have asked, and I’m claiming Your Word.”

“My future and all to which I relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to wait?
I’m needing a ‘yes’, a go-ahead sign,
Or even a ‘no’ to which I can resign.”

“And Lord, You promised that if we believe,
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:
I’m weary of asking! I need a reply.”

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate,
As my Master replied once again, “You must wait.”
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
And grumbled to God, “So, I’m waiting for what?”

He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes wept with mine…
and He tenderly said, “I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.”

“All you seek I could give you and pleased you would be.
You’d have what you want, but you wouldn’t know Me.
You’d not know the depth of My love for each saint.
You’d not know the power that I give to the faint.”

“You’d not learn to see through clouds of despair;
You’d not learn to trust just by knowing I’m there.
You’d not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence are all you can see.”

“You’d never experience the fullness of love
As the peace of My spirit descends like a dove.
You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,
But you’d not know the depth of the beat of My heart.”

“The glow of My comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight.
The depth that’s beyond getting just what you ask
From an infinite God who makes what you have last.”

“You’d never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.
Yes, your dreams for your loved ones overnight could come true,
But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I’m doing in you.”

“So, be silent, My child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though often My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still … Wait.”

And so, lovely ladies, may we learn to wait “more than those who watch for the morning.” I think of those old lines. I wonder if you've heard them. They say, “The wheels of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small.” Sometimes we want things to happen, to work out so quickly, but they take time, because God is working them out. When He works them out, He works them out properly. Amen?

No. 44. MORE WISDOM

Ecclesiastes 7:19: “Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in the city.” Did you get that? “Wisdom strengthens you more than ten mighty men.” 

Proverbs 3:15. This is talking about the Above Rubies woman here: “She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.”

Proverbs 4:7-9: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.” We, as mothers, know that we certainly need more and more wisdom every day.

David said, in 1 Samuel 18:30, “David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul; so that his name was much set by.” He was wiser in the house than everyone else.

And what is the testimony of the Proverbs 31 woman? “She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness.” She opens her mouth with wisdom.

“Yes, so dear Father, each one of us here today, me, as I’m speaking; each mother as they’re listening, we ask You for more and more wisdom. Lord, every day we need wisdom with our children, in the circumstances of life. We ask that You will give us more and more. In the Name of Jesus.”

All right, so now we are up to our last point. Can you believe we’ve got to the end? That’s amazing, isn’t it? It’s . . .

No. 45. MORE WONDERFUL WORKS

It’s a wonderful Scripture to end on—more wonderful works. ‘Psalm 40:5: “Many, O LORD my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.” Isn’t that wonderful? They are more than can be numbered!

Psalm 139:17, 18: “How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand.” Wow! Is that your testimony too? I think it is the testimony of all of us. And yet, often, we go through day to day, and we grumble, and we complain. We look at all the things that we’re facing, and we think, “Oh, poor me!” And yet, God is doing such wonderful things!

Even our children, even our children all around us are signs and wonders. It tells us that in Isaiah. Our children are for signs, and for wonders (Isaiah 8:18). Each one is a miracle. They are a miracle created by God, filled with wonderful talents, and unique abilities, and personalities.

Each one has abilities and personalities that no person in the world, since the history of time, has ever had before, or will ever have again! That’s how miraculous each one of your children is. There’s never been one like them on the earth before and there will never be one like them in the earth to come! Isn’t that absolutely incredible? Wow! And we should remember that.

In fact, we remember that, even as we’re mothering, because each one is so different. We think, “Why isn’t this child like my other child?” No, he’s different or she’s different. So different that there’s never been one like her or will be like her again. That’s a miracle. Each one of your children is a miracle.

It was a miracle how God brought them forth. Every day is a miracle that God keeps them in His care. You come to the end of the day, and everyone is alive. That’s God’s miracle of protection and care over you and your family.

You look around you. I just looked out the window now. It’s a glorious tree, so rich and green. I go out to the garden. There are flowers. Each one is distinct and beautiful. All the little butterflies, and the animals, and everything that’s around. Everything is a miracle.

And the provision that you have, the food and your provision. I know that you’ve got more clothes in your wardrobe than you need. I have. You’ve got more food in your pantry than you need. Well, sometimes we may get down, but, oh, God is looking after you. It’s all miraculous. It’s more than can be numbered.

So, are you taking time to thank Him each day? I believe every day we should take time to thank the Lord for His goodness, and for even just one or two of these numberless things that are more than can be numbered. Wow! Let’s become thankful people.

I think back to a story in the time of Jesus. Do you remember it? I’m sure. When ten lepers came to Jesus to be healed, Jesus healed them all. And then, as they went away rejoicing, the Bible tells us (you can read the whole story in Luke 17:11-19) one turned back and went back to Jesus. With a loud voice he glorified God, and fell down on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks.

But then, Jesus asked: “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” There was only one that came back. He belonged to the one-tenth company!

Now, which company do you belong to, precious mom? Do you belong to the one-tenth company that keeps coming back every day to give God glory and thanks for all His goodness to you?

Do you belong to the nine-tenths company where they forget? Oh, yes, they were healed. They got the blessings. But they didn’t come back to thank Him. Oh, I think we all need to be reminded. I need to be reminded too. Isn’t it amazing how we have to be reminded to be thankful? Wow! We don’t ever have to be reminded to grumble and yet we have to be reminded to be thankful!

I’ve told you this many times that one of the habits of my life is that every single day, I go back to Calvary and thank the Lord Jesus for His great sacrifice upon the cross for me. That is the greatest, greatest gift that I have ever received. But I want to thank Him every day. I want to come back and thank Him. But there are so many other things to thank Him for. Do you thank Him for your husband? Do you thank Him for your children? Do you thank Him?

One time I did an acrostic on “thankful.” You could do one too. I’ll tell you what I wrote. But you don’t have to keep to mine. Make one for yourself, and then get your children, who can all read and write by now, get them to do an acrostic too. So, I wrote the word “thankful” with the letters T-H-A-N-K-F-U-L down the side. Then beside it I wrote what I was thankful for with a word that belongs to the letter at the beginning. For example,

T         I thank God for TEACHING me His ways.

H         I thank God for giving me my HUSBAND. Marriage becomes more and more beautiful   every day.

A         I thank God for ANOINTING me to be a mother. Is             there any greater blessing, apart from            our salvation, than to enjoy the blessings of children and grandchildren?

N         I thank God for creating me to be a NURTURER and NOURISHER to my family and      those around me.

K         I thank God for His KINDNESS to me.

F          I thank God for my FAMILY, extended family, and those who consider themselves part   of our family.

U         I thank God for giving me UNDERSTANDING and revelation of His truths.

L          I thank God for LIFE. I thank God for LOVING me enough to die for me and shed His    precious blood for my sins.

Amen? So those were just some things I wrote about being thankful. Of course, there are so many specific things that we thank the Lord for each day. But that’s a good thing to do for yourself and get your children to do it. Maybe you can even do it as a project in your homeschooling.

Then at the evening meal, you can get each child to read out the things that they wrote about what they were thankful for using the acrostic of the word THANKFUL. It will be a wonderful evening fellowship and dinner together as you’re sharing each one. Each one is sharing all the things that they are thankful for.

Another time you could get your children. Say, “OK, let’s do this today, children. I’d like you to write down all the things that you are thankful for about Daddy.” You could get them to do that. And then, when your husband comes home for the evening meal, and you sit down together, each child could read all the things that they wrote about Daddy, and what they love about him, and what they’re thankful for about him. That’s a good thing to do.

You’ll think of many, many other things. Always be thinking of these little extra things you can do that show your appreciation for one another. Then always have time for sharing them at the family meal table. That’s a great place to do those things.

Well, once again, time has gone. We’ve got to the end of this series. Wow! I do trust that you have been blessed. Next week I have a very special person coming. I have Nadia Mutana coming. She will be sharing her story about little Gracie, and their life with her, and how recently Gracie went to be with the Lord. It’s an amazing, amazing story, and you're going to love hearing it.

“Dear Father, we do come to You this morning with great thankfulness for all Your goodness to us. You are such a good God. You have blessed us beyond what we can ever ask or think. Lord, Your goodness and everything beyond is more than, more than we can ever think about, more than we can number.

“We just praise You and thank You. Help us to be thankful people. Help us to belong to the one-tenth company, who is a praising, thanking, appreciative person, and never to the nine-tenths company who forget to be thankful. We ask it in Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.