LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 191: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 2

Zadok Elijah Johnson joins me today. Zadok is Evangeline and Howard’s oldest son, who runs the BSC courses for young men (BIBLE, SURVIVAL, AND COMBAT).

We continue speaking about the first description of the land—IT IS A GOOD LAND! One of the good things is to be home, mothers! How does Zadok fit into this? You’ll have to listen to find out!

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Well, today I have my oldest grandson with me, Zadok Johnson. That’s Evangeline’s son. Actually, I think if we were to pronounce your name correctly, it would be “Za-DOK Eli-YA-hu.” Would that be right?

Zadok Johnson: Well, it’s definitely not an American version.

Nancy: I know. I don’t think I’m even saying it correctly for Hebrew. My lovely Israeli listeners, you’ll have to forgive me that I don’t always pronounce the Hebrew words correctly. But Zadok, as we say here in America, means “leading many to righteousness.”

Right from a little boy, Zadok knew what his name meant. I think names are very important. As you speak them into your children, they get the destiny of their name. Zadok grew up knowing this was his destiny, to lead many to righteousness. He’s always had that anointing upon him. He’s still doing it today at 29 years of age. He leads the, what do we call it? BSC, Basic Survival Course. Did I get it right?

Zadok: Bible. Yes, so it’s BSC, BIBLE – SURVIVAL - COMBAT.

Nancy: Well, I heard completely wrong. Bible and Survival and Combat. Maybe some of your sons have already been and absolutely loved it, even though they came home and had to sleep for a week!

Zadok will be having many this coming year. Have you got any organized yet, Zadok?

Zadok: We have six Bible bootcamps planned for this coming year which is super exciting.

Nancy: I guess that’s so far, because they seem to pop up along the year as well, don’t they?

Zadok: Right, right.

Nancy: Where is your first one?

Zadok: We actually haven’t launched that officially on the website yet. I’ve been so busy with logistics and speaking at youth events this winter that I haven’t had time. It will get launched up probably in the next month or two.

Nancy: I see. Yes. So, they can go to the website, which is. . .

Zadok: www.bsccourse.com. That “bsc” is separate from “course,” so you’ll have to type that in clearly: www.bsccourse.com.

Nancy: Yes, so your sons will love that! So, I have Zadok here because he popped over this morning and we were chatting together. He was telling me about how’s he’s been out speaking at some youth events. He has a few little things to say that I’ll ask him along the way.

We are now in our second session of “The Land that Flows with Milk and Honey.” We’re on point number one, IT IS A GOOD LAND. We’re looking at the good things, the beautiful things that God wants the older women to teach the younger women.

We are up to “keepers at home.” We were mentioning how many women don’t like that phrase. But it is a Bible phrase. We either believe the Bible or we don’t believe. I’m amazed at how many “Christian” women don’t actually believe the Bible! Well, they say they do, but there’s so many things that they don’t really believe in it!

Well, let’s look at this word “keepers at home.” There actually are two translations of this word, coming from the different manuscripts. The first is oikourogo. Maybe I’m not pronouncing it correctly. But it comes from two Greek words, oikos, meaning “home,” and ergon, meaning “to work.” So, the literal meaning is “home workers.”

Now, I believe in women working. I’m a great heralder of working women. But where do they work? That is the issue. God wants women to work in the home! Home-workers. This is where we work. This is our life’s work! And it is work! It takes everything of you to work in the home. It’s not a holiday. It is work!

But it’s a marvelous work. It’s a wonderful work. It’s a glorious work. It’s a good work, as Titus 2 says.

But there is another translation, which comes from the Received Text, oikouros.  It also is from two Greek words, oikos, “home,” and ouros, meaning “to guard, to watch, to keep, to have the oversight and responsibility for something.” So, this time it means “home-guarders.”

Both meanings are so wonderful—homeworker, home-guarder. We are in the home to guard over our home, to guard over our children’s lives, to watch that the enemy does not intrude into our homes. It’s a full-time job to be a home-guarder. To be a guarder, you have to be there!

Many of you have a watchdog at your home. When someone comes, your dog will bark, letting you know he’s a good watchdog. Now, if your dog wasn’t at your home, he couldn’t be a watchdog. And we cannot be a watchdog if we’re not in the home.

This is another aspect of the home-guarding. In the King James version, it says, “keepers of the home.” It’s a picture of the keeper of the castle. He guards that castle. He will not allow any intruders into that castle, because that’s his job, to guard over it. It’s also our job, not only to work in our homes, but to guard over our homes.

Now, this word is the only time it’s used in the whole of the New Testament. So, to truly understand it, we can’t go to any other Scriptures. We have to go back to what was happening at the time when that Scripture was written, to understand the actual Greek language at that time.

This word was always used at that time of a stay-at-home mother, and also of a stay-at-home father, who didn’t go out to war. He was called a “stay-at-home father.” It was used even of a dog who was a watchdog, so that is the actual meaning.

Although sometimes those words “stay-at-home” can seem negative and binding. Oh, goodness me, sort of like a prison! Oh, no! No! To be in the home is a glorious thing! Our home is a place where we can accomplish so much! We are in the home. God gave the home to women.

I love going back to Genesis and seeing how God did it all. We read there, in Genesis 2, how God created the man. And then, before He created the woman, the next thing He did was create the Garden home. It was the next thing! He got the home ready before He brought the woman into the world.

We don’t even read about the woman until we go right down in that chapter to verse 18. Genesis 2:18: “I will make you a help-meet.” And then God creates the woman. He brings her to the man. When Eve wakes up to life, she’s already in her home! God had it all ready for her, because this is where He wanted her, in the home.

This is the place that He planned for the raising of children, a place of safety and security, and a place that we guard from the intrusion of the enemy, a place where we can raise our children in the ways of the Lord, away from all the deceptions and the ugliness of the world. Yes, they’re going to go out to face that ugly, deceived, sinful world. They’re going to go out to live in it.

But we have to first get them ready to live in it. It’s like when we plant a tree. You would understand this, Zadok, because you are the great organic farmer. But when you plant a tree, a little tree, a little sapling, if you don’t protect it, it’s just going to die. Yes, have you found experience with that?

Zadok: Yeah, absolutely. They call it “plant shock,” when you put out a plant that has been growing in a nice greenhouse. Now it gets planted out in the early spring, in the cold. It will actually suffer from that “plant shock,” as they call it. You actually have to harden them off.

There’s maybe a one-week time, when before you take your plants out to the field, you actually take your plants out for a few days, and let them experience the elements, shall we say. I think that even applies to humans. You don’t just, children don’t just get kicked out of the home at a certain point. There’s that maturing to be able to handle the things of this world.

Nancy: That is so true. I’ve ruined many, many little saplings and haven’t protected them enough. And they’ve died. They’ve got to be protected in those early years. They have to be, really, they’ve got to be strong enough, and ready enough, and have the Word of God in them enough, to go out and face all those deceptions.

Zadok: Amen. Amen.

Nancy: Yes, that is so true. You know, we’re there, in the home, doing this. It’s not some little insignificant thing. We are impacting the nation. Dear ladies, a nation is only what its mothers are. Because the mothers are there in the heart of the home, training the children. This is what we are doing. We are teaching, and training, and encouraging, and exhorting, and inspiring, and guarding, and guiding, and even commanding, and putting destiny into our children.

It is so powerful! We not only affect the nation, but we affect other nations of the world. My children have grown, of course, and now they’re raising their children, and their children are raising their children! We now have the great-grandchildren coming on

But my children have been to countries I haven’t even been to take the Gospel. My grandchildren have been . . . you’ve been to countries I haven’t been! Oh my, I’ve been to many countries of the world, but you’ve been to some countries I’ve never got to, some interesting countries. What are some you’ve been to recently?

Zadok: Well, not recently, because God has pulled me back to train up young men. But I have been to the jungles of southeast Asia, and in China which was exciting, Bangladesh, and Burma.

Nancy: I haven’t got to those countries yet. But how did you get there? Only because I brought your mother into the world and trained her to be an evangelist for God. She trained you and you went out!

Zadok: Right. Right. I will say I have often thought, everyone I have ever shared the Gospel with, it’s my parents’ reward, and your reward, that what they have sown, I get to reap. Even Jesus said that. “I send you out where others have sown, and you get to reap the reward.”

Nancy: Yes. So lovely ladies, you darling young mums who have just, you’ve got your little ones around you, and you’re tearing your hair out, and you hardly know what you’re doing. Oh, be encouraged! Not one moment of motherhood is wasted. It’s an eternal career. You’re not only preparing them to impact the world but you’re getting them ready for eternity!

Just think, these little children, you can hardly even imagine what will happen one day and where they will go to serve the Lord. Just begin to plant those seeds in them. Give them that inspiration. Put it into them. Don’t just let your children amble along.

It’s become a thing today, that parents like to let their children just do what they feel. Parents have lost that anointing of commanding their children and really impacting their lives powerfully and purposely. That is parenting! Parenting is not just being good friends. Well, that’s important. You’ve got to be good friends. But just letting them, you don’t want to put anything too much on them, because, well, they may not like you. They may just rebel. Oh, for goodness’ sake!

OK, what was Abraham, the pattern father? And what does it say about him? Let me have a look here. It’s in Genesis 18:19: “For I know him, that he will COMMAND his children and his household after him.” Yes! He commanded them in the ways of God.

He didn’t let them decide for themselves whether they would follow God or whether they would come to church. I have some mothers who, their children don’t want to come, “Well, OK, you can stay home.” I beg your pardon! That’s not parenting! Parenting is commanding your children in the ways of God. And that’s what Abraham did. “And they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment.” That’s parenting. Yes!

So, there we are. We’re in the home. We’re doing a great, great job. And you don’t actually have to be running around everywhere. Years and years ago, and I haven’t even seen this car sticker in, I can’t remember how many years, because how long have I been married? Fifty-nine years in March! Whoo!

But when I was a young mother, I saw this car sticker: “If a mother’s place is in the home, why am I always in the car?” Well, actually, the car isn’t the best place for mothering your children. It’s meant to be the home.

Of course, we’ve got to go out. We’ve got to get our groceries and we’ve got to do certain things. But I think because every mother has a car today, they get tempted to be running around too much. Watch it, dear mothers. It doesn’t say, “You’re to be the keepers of the car,” but the “keepers of the home.” That’s where you’ll accomplish so much more.

Now, did your mother run you around everywhere in the car, Zadok?

Zadok: Absolutely not! And, in fact, I’m thinking she probably hiked us more places than she walked us. I mean, more places than she drove us. You even know this, with Mum even turning down many Above Rubies events, even though there were mothers who wanted her to come, that she wanted to see. She would say no, just to hang out with us, and to disciple us.

The other problem with the car is that you can’t spank your children because they’re in the back seat! There’s always the rowdy four-year-old in the very back of the seat, who’s pinching the next brother or sibling. You can’t be on top of them with a family. We were in a big car ride, going up in northern Minnesota. It was so interesting. Why is it that always in cars, it’s maybe a little harder to be on top of them, in a beautiful way.

Nancy: Did you go to lessons, and sports, and everything, all the time?

Zadok: No, not at all. It came from, I think, a focus of leadership. Mum didn’t allow us to control her life. We were, if Mum was into sewing, we had to learn how to sew. If Mum was into knitting, all of us boys know how to knit! Because Mum was determined to have us for friends. We were jumping into her world. Where I see it often the other way around. “Oh, well, my children are into soccer.” I was into soccer, but they never took me to soccer games. I didn’t play soccer on a team.

Nancy: They had plenty of soccer out here on this lawn!

Zadok: Right! Right! I think, yeah, Mum and Dad didn’t take us everywhere. They would take us to the things that mattered to them and to the family. But often it’s the whole family, running around for one of the special children that gets the, shall we say, the point. That can be healthy if it’s monitored. But, yeah, I couldn’t agree more, Nana.

Nancy: I think this has become a way of mothering in our society today. The mothers think that this is what you have to do. You’ve got to take your children to this lesson, and this sport, and that. And the children think that’s what has to happen too.

Zadok: They’re not missing out. That’s the thing. The temptation of the society is, oh, your children won’t develop right, they’ll be missing out of something if you don’t look like all the other mothers. My Mum was the radical and very individualistic. But all of us turned out following the Lord, all ten of us. I think that’s because we saw it in her life. She would rather spend time with us than us going and hanging out with peers somewhere here or there.

Nancy: That is so true. There’re certain things you will do, but just watch over it, and guard it, because you don’t have to. I just want you to know, lovely mothers, you don’t have to do what every other mother is doing. You don’t have to be running around everywhere.

Actually, half the time, when I was raising our children, I didn’t have a car anyway! Therefore, my children didn’t go to all these things. But they all survived. They didn’t only survive, they all have done such incredible, great, amazing things! And they didn’t even have to do all that to do them! No! That’s not what makes room for your children. The Word of God, in Proverbs 18:16 says: “Your gift will make room for you and bring you before kings.”

But, talking about cars, actually, believe it or not, I haven’t even had a car for the last two years! I borrowed my car to someone, out of my good heart, and they never gave it back! So, I just never had one.

The amazing thing is, I survived. Do you know, ladies, I really hardly noticed that I didn’t have a car? Life in our home is so exciting. We have so many functions, and bridal showers, and baby showers, and weddings, and parties, and people coming and going. Hospitality continually.

I give myself the impression that I’m going everywhere! Actually, I’m not going anywhere! I’m staying here. I’m in the home, but everything’s happening. Life is exciting. I’m seeing so many people, and hundreds of people! It’s exciting.

But you see, you make your home what you want it to be. You are the one who makes it. If your home is boring, and you’re bored at home, there’s something wrong, because your home can be the most exciting place in the world, a place where you can accomplish great things.

Yes, because, and especially as a mother, it’s far more than just, OK, looking after your little children. It’s more than that. It’s being inspired to what they will be and putting that into them. You were created, you were chosen, you were commissioned for motherhood. God wants you to be committed to it. And He wants you to complete it!

Many mothers, oh, I’ve just sent out the new Above Rubies, as you know. Each time an Above Rubies goes out, I always have this sad time when older mothers will email me and say, “Thank you, Nancy, for sending Above Rubies to me all these years. But my family has grown now, so I don’t need it anymore. So, I’m going to cancel my subscription.”

And I feel so sad! Because they haven’t yet completed their career! We are mothers, not for a certain time. We are mothers until we meet the Lord. It’s who we are. And motherhood does not finish when our children leave the home! In fact, it doubles, it enlarges, it becomes bigger, because not only do grandchildren start to come along, and then great-grandchildren, but as older mothers, by this time you are an older mother. . .

If you happen to be an older mother listening, you’re an older mother, and now you are commissioned. You are mandated. You are commanded in the Word of God to teach the younger women. So, what are you doing? Cancelling Above Rubies? I don’t think you’re teaching the younger women. And what about your daughters and your daughters-in-law? Help!

You see, we’ve got to pass it on to the next generation. This is a deceived generation like no other generation before. There is such deception. There are so few women in the home. We have got to get the message out. Older women are needed! There needs to be an army of older women who are teaching the young women and showing them the way. In their homes! How can they even show them if they’ve left the home? We can’t even show them.

It’s not just mothering our little ones, then our middlings, then our teens. But it’s them mothering other mothers! That’s our life work.

Oh, Zadok! While you’re here, you must tell me. You were sharing this morning about how you’ve been out speaking at these youth. You know, these are Christian youth, and yet, and yet, you couldn’t believe where they are at in their lives.

Zadok: Yeah, it’s so sad. God brought me back from the foreign mission field to raise up the next generation here in the West. It’s young missionaries. I get the great privilege of working with lots of teenagers and hundreds of young men. It’s just so sobering. Every single time that I get to preach to young people, or share my heart, I come away going, to be honest, first I thought, “Wow, is the next generation just missing it?”

And then I realize, no, they’re not. We are, because we haven’t realized that our words carry the weight of destiny that they will run on. Young people are raised with a “Well, I’m provided for, and I have boundaries in my home,” but not necessarily having the life being spoken into them of destiny.

I was sharing with you, Nana, earlier, how I’ve been at some youth events, and I realized youths are not necessarily purposed with destiny, with vison over their life. They’re lacking in that area. That is really the foundation of other things in our Christian faith. Without vision, people perish. With vision, we have life, that vision of the glories of eternity with God, and living with Him for eternity. We are the most despicable among people if we don’t have that resurrection, that vision.

And yet, teenagers today are living, “Well, you know, hopefully I’ll have some fun." I’m going, “I love fun, but our fun as believers comes from this purpose, my destiny. We’ve got a life to live in this amazing job called the life for God!”

I was thinking, as we were talking earlier, in some ways I have no choice. Yes, I was given a choice to not follow the Lord. But at the same time, I was telling someone just recently this week, “Yeah, my grandparents and parents were determined to make me a public speaker, whether I liked it or not!” I can remember you, Nana, getting up to speak in front of your motherly friends when I was only, what? Ten or eleven years old?

Nancy: Oh, yes. At our Christmas parties and functions, everybody has to get up and say something. When you were little, you could hardly put two words together!

Zadok: Oh, I hated it! I absolutely despised it! In fact, sometimes I thought, “Man, I’ll just hide in the woods this Christmas!” I was thinking, “How can I sneak away from a Christmas shindig?” Because I knew that my grandparents would make me practice, to get me to be a public speaker.

And without even knowing it, it laid the foundation for me now. . . I love sharing the Gospel to hundreds of people. I think that next generation, we’re talking, of course, with you guys being mothers, and you’re two, three, four years old. What if we were speaking life into these young children?

Not just like, “Oh, you’re a great blessing,” but “You’re going to be a world changer! You’re going to share the Gospel with many. Nations are your possession.” These are all Scriptures. Yes, it’s prophetic. Destiny upon people’s lives.

But it’s also just straight Scripture. Actively teaching the nations that you are an inheritance. You are a saint, a royal, holy priesthood, a royal possession unto the Lord. Your heart will be steadfast unto the Lord. Train up a child in the way he shall go, and he shall not depart from it. Well, now we just speak the “not depart from it.” We take that as a command for our own lives. Well, speak that now over them. “You will not depart from the ways of the Lord. That is not your portion.”

To speak that life over children, I am so thankful I was raised in a home where my parents, which received some of these blessings from you guys, Nana and Granddad, spoke that over my life. “You’re going to change the world. You’re going to share the Gospel with many. You won’t be afraid of the darkness, for the Light is in you.”

As a young child, that laid a foundation for my life of confidence in God. I actually, I just have something I want to read here. Someone just recently asked me, “What’s your favorite thing about your family and the family culture I was raised in?’ I was like, “Wow, that’s kind of a heavy question to ask here.”

All of a sudden, the answer came to mind. I really want to honor you, Nana, for this, because I’m getting life out the fruit of that. So, the first thing that came to mind was the heritage in confidence in God’s ability to pull off the unobtainable, to pull off what is too big for man.

I think of my uncles and aunts. I think of my parents, all six of your children. They’ve all been able to pull off what man cannot do. God was upon their life. God was writing their destiny. Then I look at your grandchildren. How many? Because I don’t know how many cousins I have! I should.

Nancy: Fifty plus?

Zadok: Yeah, that’s awesome.

Nancy: And greats? Over twenty plus. We’ve got to keep counting now.

Zadok: So awesome. It’s great to be part of a great big family. But I look at our lives, and God doing impossible things in our family life. Our destiny, our legacy has been blessed by God’s ability to do things that we couldn’t do in our own flesh.

I think part of that is the confident expectation, the spoken word of destiny that you will do things that God can only pull off. I would so much rather train a young man that hasn’t got to go to soccer practice, but instead had parents that were his close friends. Because they were his friends, they were able to speak those words of life and empowerment, “You’re going to be someone who will change the world.”

It’s not just generic because it’s not coming from some random person. But it’s coming from a parent that’s your friend, who’s invested in your life. As you were saying earlier in the podcast, that has not gone off with doing everything else, but instead sacrificed on behalf of their children. Being invested. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, the next generation is missing destiny that we ourselves are responsible for implanting at a young age.

Nancy: Yes, and I think today there’s so much outside pressure on parents to be involved in this, and that, and going here, and going there. There’s not the same time for family togetherness. Especially, I think, to me, I’ve always put a great weight upon the family meal table. That’s always been so important to me. I’m so glad that I have been faithful to that throughout the years, especially as the children were growing, because it was our togetherness.

I believe it was something that cemented us together, because we didn’t only come together and just sit and eat a meal. We came to talk, to discuss, to even debate, even though children would be up on their chairs, waving their fingers, getting their point across! We really discoursed. We really communicated. But, you see, that was better than just going off somewhere. It was cementing us as family. It is so important, I believe.

Zadok: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that, because that was our household, too. There might have been missionaries sitting on the floors some of the time. But it was always that discussion! And Mom and Dad were very invested in our lives, making sure it wasn’t a one-sided communication. Not just parents sharing, “OK, go to your room now. OK, clean up the dishes.”

But “What is God speaking to you, Zadok, as a young boy? What is God talking to you?” I love this. I think this is upon the family. It’s transferable, that conquest of seeing God invest, seeing God in small things, and in the big in our lives.

Well, even for example, my family. I can remember almost every day of my life, my mother coming up and saying, “Oh, you’re a world-changer! You can change the world! What’s your plan this week on changing the world? What’s your plan?”

We’d talk to my brothers, my siblings, Rashida or Sharah. “What’s your goal? How are you going to affect history this year?” It was those big, grand, glamorous ideas that sowed in us destiny for not being the average mediocre, or DMR’s as we call them (Daily Minimum Requirement). That was, of course, illegal in our household—the average roadside worker attitude.

I think that’s spiritual, too. Paul doesn’t say, “Oh, well, if we all share the Gospel with a few people.” And then I was sent out to Asia! I went first without asking permission. I went out to Arabia. It was on a purposeful conquest to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth, rather than just, “Well, it’s in my home, and we’re just going to do whatever.”

You’re raising . . . I say mothers change the world. You are raising dynamite. I was in an airplane flying back from a foreign country, Belize, as a missionary. I’m always excited about world missions, but I’m also excited about the mission of the person in front of me.

We’re flying through the night, and there’s that baby, that one baby on the airplane that’s just screaming his little ears off. I feel sorry because all of our jaws were hurting. I’ve got my stevia gum, and I’m trying to yawn and break the pressure in my ears. It’s a 17-hour flight. This mother is flustered and she’s coddling this little baby, jiggling it up and down.

I could see the first five people around here were just quite irritated. It was like a wave. The five people around her were pretending to not notice and they’re looking away. Then, as you get farther and farther away from the mother, people are louder and louder about their irritation of the baby because the mom’s not going to hear and not going to be offended. “Man, I wish that baby would shut up!” It's just that kind of irritation. Of course, no one enjoys hearing constant screaming, but the honest answer is, all of us were babies in that plane at one point. All of us were that baby screaming.

So, afterward, we arrive, we land, everyone is getting up, and this mother is four aisles ahead of me. I quickly slip up and I say, “Excuse me.” She looks at me like, “Oh, here it goes. I’m going to get ratted out.” I said, “Listen, thank you so much for being a mother. Mothers change the world. I want to tell you something.” And she looked at me, very stern-like, because I said it very seriously.

I said, “You know, one of my friends is a nuclear scientist and he works in a power plant in California. He spent his whole life, years and years, over 14 years, I believe, in college, learning nuclear science. He’s got in degrees in abstract math. He’s a genius” I said. “And then there are these scientists, so they built these nuclear weapons, and these nuclear reactors that go on to power whole states and society. They’ve spent their whole life locked away in a little cubicle doing mathematics.

“And then there are mothers, just like you, who spend their whole life, not, shall we say, locked away, but shall we say, pulled away from normal society to build one nuclear reactor, a human being.” And I quoted her a Scripture. I didn’t give her the reference because I wasn’t preaching. I was just encouraging.

I said, “You know, the Bible says to shine light in a crooked and perverse generation.” I said, “You’re creating a weapon called a human being, which will shine like a bright light in this crooked, broken society, and will carry out those implanted things, those destinies that you get to sow.”

I think so many parents, like you said for so many years, Nana. People think children just come and go. And that’s not the truth. They come, they get built, and then they get launched like an arrow. And unless we seize that opportunity to build them with our words then they will just continue to indecisively choose their destiny We’re here for a vapor. So, I think the sooner we can instill that, the better.

Nancy: Amen! And what did the lady say?

Zadok: Oh, she was actually totally speechless. She’s like, “Uh . . . thank you!” [laughter]

Nancy: Well, our time is gone. Thank you so much, Zadok for joining us today. It’s been a good time together, hasn’t it? And we’re over time, but you wanted to say one more thing.

Zadok: I wanted to say, this is the first time I’ve ever sat in on a podcast you’ve done. It’s like a woman’s podcast. I was like, “Oh, oh!” But, no, it’s good. You’re amazing, Nana. Love you.

Nancy: Oh, well. I hope, and I know you’ve been blessed. Let’s pray together, shall we?

“Father, I thank You that we have an inspired one another again today in our great commission and calling of motherhood. I ask, Lord, for Your anointing to fall on every mother, Lord, today.

That they will see, Father, that it’s not an insignificant thing to train a life that You have given and put into their hands. Lord God, it is a powerful thing, and I pray that, Lord, You will pour out Your Spirit upon them, and Your wisdom, and Your anointing, and You will give them a new vision for, Lord, imparting, and inspiring, and commanding Your ways into every one of their children, praying destiny into them, Father. I ask it 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.

You’ll want to check out the Bible – Survival – Combat website:

Bible-Survival-Combat (bsccourse.com)

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 190: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 1

This podcast begins an exciting series about your LAND OF MOTHERHOOD. God wants to pour out blessings upon you IN THE LAND. The blessings are not for when you are out of the land, but IN YOUR LAND! He doesn't want you to be in your land grudgingly and grumblingly, but joyfully and purposefully.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Always good to be back with you. Today I am starting a new series. It’s called “The Land That Flows with Milk and Honey.” You’ll soon find out what it is all about.

I’m sure you have received your new Above Rubies magazine by now. That’s if you live in the States. If you live in some other country, it will be still on its way to you. So, you have to have a little more patience.

For those of you in America, I’m sure you have already loved this issue of Above Rubies. I think it is so important to get this message out into the nation. I started Above Rubies nearly 45 years ago. The need was great then, but the need is greater now. There’s more deception.

Even since this magazine has gone out. I have received, oh goodness me, I can’t even believe it. Letters from people who are rejecting the magazine because they have embraced these new alternative lifestyles. Even Christians are being deceived. We must get the truth out!

I encourage you to share your magazine. That’s a little difficult if you only get one, because you want to keep it to yourself and your family. But you are welcome to email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and ask for more magazines. I’m happy to send them to you if you can get them out to people.

We’ve got to get the message out. Take some in your handbag with you, in a plastic bag, so they don’t get all tattered and torn. When you go out to the supermarket or church, or wherever you go, always have one ready to pass on to another mother when you meet them.

Most restaurants and supermarkets have bathrooms where they have changing tables. That’s a lovely place to put a magazine. You can put one in the baby changing table. There it is, waiting for the next mother who’s going to come and change her baby. So, think of all the ways you can to get out this message.

I also have in my hand here the two new volumes of 100 Days of Blessing. I’ve had Volumes One and Two out for a long time. At last, Volumes Three and Four are printed. These two volumes are packed, absolutely packed full of truth, revelation from the Word of God to you, as a wife, as a mother.

They’re not flighty little devotions. They are devotions to get you into the Word, into the truth, to tell you what God wants to tell you about your wonderful role as a mother. I would encourage you to get them. You need them. You’ve got to know the truth. We’ve got to be filled with the truth, ladies. Not just have a little bit of it. We’ve got to know it! It’s got to be in us. It’s got to be part of us.

You will find these devotions, 100 days in each book, that will really encourage you, fortify you, and bless you. You can order them over the internet. Go to the webpage, and you’ll find them there. If you already have One and Two, when you get Three and Four, you will have 400 days of blessings, more than enough for one year. Even when you read them, you can’t get them all in one reading. You’ve got to read them over again.

So, they’re valuable books and wonderful gifts for mothers having a new baby, or even a mother having a birthday, or whatever. You’ll find them such a blessing.

Now, here we are. “The Land That Flows with Milk and Honey.” Well, of course, you know that is talking about Israel. It is talking about the land that God discovered, that He found for His people Israel. That’s what He called it.

But He didn’t only call it “The Land That Flows with Milk and Honey.” I found 20 descriptions about the Land. And ladies, I want to take those descriptions, and I want to relate them to us, as wives and mothers, because every description really and particularly does relate to us as mothers.

Of course, these Scriptures were written about a literal land, the land of Israel. Oh, there are so many Scriptures. The Word of God is filled with them. I’d love you to go, if you have time, go to my webpage:

www.aboverubies.org.

Then go to, under “Articles and Stories.”

Then go to “Israel and the Land.”

Then you can click on the article called “Everlasting Possession.”

There I have listed all the promises about the Land of Israel. Even after Israel, even after the people were thrown out of the Land because of their sins, God did not give up on them. He gave so many promises that He would bring them back to the Land. All those promises are listed there. It’s just a marvelous study that you can look up.

But the Word of God is so powerful. And although when we read it, we first of all read it literally. But then there are always layers. There’s the spiritual significance, what speaks to us personally. Because God’s Word is alive! It’s not dead. It’s alive! It’s literally alive. It’s the living Word of God.

So, every word that God wrote is not only written about people back in those days, or promises to them, but it was written for us. Listen to this Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:11: “Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”

So, ladies, here we are! We’re getting closer to the end. These words are written for us. That word there, that are written “for examples” is the word tupos. It means they are a type, a prototype. These types are written “for our admonition.” What does that mean? Well, that’s the Greek word nouthesia. It means, “to put into the mind a word of encouragement, but, if necessary, a word of reproof.”

All these Scriptures that I’m going to give you, they are going to relate to us. And I know you’re going to be blessed. But of course, we’ll start off with just a few about Israel so we know, OK, this is where it literally starts.

We’ll go way back to Genesis. Genesis 13:14-17: “And the LORD said unto Abram,” he wasn’t even Abraham yet. “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed,” that means his descendants, “forever.”

That is the literal, living Word of God. That promise was given, and it has never been rescinded. There are people today who despise Israel. They want to get rid of the land of Israel. They want to get the people of Israel out of the land. They want the Palestinians to take it over. No, this promise was given to Abraham and his descendants forever!

We go over to Genesis 17:8. Now here’s the chapter where God changes Abram’s name to Abraham, bringing the revelation that he will now become a father. He says, in Genesis 17:8: “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.”

You can’t get away from that Word of God. No matter what some countries say, no matter what some people say; there are even some Christians of our generation who say that now they’ve taken over all the promises for Israel. No, this is not true. They are literal, and every word that was given for the land was for an everlasting possession.

Psalm 105:7-12: “He is the LORD our God: his judgments are in all the earth. He hath remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant: Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance.”

Jeremiah 7:7: “I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers,” for how long? “Forever and ever.” That is the Word of the Lord.

Now, there’s hundreds of those promises. You can go to that link, “Everlasting Possession,” and check them all out.

But we see such a parallel, ladies. It’s amazing. What God loves, Satan hates. God loves His people, Israel. God chose the land for them. God loves that land because it’s God’s land. It’s even more God’s than it is Israel’s, but He gave it to them. But Satan hates it. He hates it. And he hates God’s people. He wants to eradicate them from the face of the earth.

And then it is the same with motherhood. Motherhood is God’s plan. He chose women to keep the generations going, to bring forth the godly seed, to be the foundation of the nation as they raise godly children in the home.

But because God planned that, it’s His plan, Satan hates it. And he wants to eradicate motherhood, just like he wants to eradicate Israel. You see, if Satan can eradicate Israel, he’s wiped out the Bible, because Israel is in the Bible, right from Genesis, the first book, right up to the last book of the Bible, where the gates of Jerusalem are named after the twelve patriarchs. Then the foundations “and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” It’s from Genesis to Revelation. There’s no Bible if there’s no Israel.

That’s why Satan wants to eradicate them. And the same with motherhood. He tries to eradicate motherhood. Even now, we’re living in an age where we have all this transgenderism. Even our Supreme Court has lawed that we can have homosexual marriages. I cannot even take it in. I hope you don’t get used to these things that are so evil and so antithesis to the Word of God.

But, you see, they cannot bring forth children. Satan has abortion, and birth control, and everything. It’s all masterminded by him, to eradicate the godly seed. He wants to woo mothers out of the home so that he can take control. Because mothers are so powerful.

THE DEVIL IS SCARED OF GODLY MOTHERS

Did you know you are so powerful, mother? You’re so powerful that the devil is scared of you. The devil is scared of mothers who know who they are, who know that God has chosen them and created them to bring forth the godly seed, and raise godly children who can impact a nation and make it a righteous nation. We are the ones who have that power to do that. We are in the home raising the children. Of course, the devil knows that if he can get the mothers out, well, he’s won the victory.

So, here we are, we’re looking at two things today that God love but Satan wants to eradicate. So, as we look at these descriptions of the Land, we’re going to be hearing what God wants to say to us as mothers.

THE BLESSINGS ARE FOR YOU WHEN YOU ARE IN THE LAND

OK. So, dear lovely ladies, I WANT TO WELCOME YOU TO THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD. It’s a glorious land. Oh, you’re going to find out so many wonderful things about this land. But, you know, all the blessings that God has for Israel, they are all to His people in the Land. All these promises, they’re not for them when they’re out of the Land. No, when they were out of the Land, they were not under God’s blessing.

But even now, we see, as His people are coming back to the Land, because they were vomited out of the Land years and years ago. But God will never break His covenant with Israel. He said, “I’m going to bring you back from the four corners of the earth.” I’ve got one or two Scriptures about this, but you can find, oh, so many more if you look up “Everlasting Possession.”

Deuteronomy 15:4, that’s about being in the land. I’ll give you those ones now. “The Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, to possess it.” If you want to get all God’s blessings, you’ve got to be in the Land. Israel has to be in the Land. We, as mothers, we’ve got to be in the land of motherhood, not out of it, if we want God’s blessing.

Isaiah 61:7: “In their land, they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.”

Ezekiel 20:40: “For in My holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve Me.” Where does God want His people to serve Him? In the Land. Where does He want mothers to serve Him? In their land of motherhood. That’s where the blessings are, ladies. In the land. Say it with me:

IN THE LAND!

Well, most of you listening, you are in the land. You’re in that whole realm of mothering your little ones, and your middling ones, and your bigger ones. You’re in the land.

But, sadly, some of you are in the land grudgingly. You’re stuck there.  I mean, these children came along, so you’re stuck looking after them. You’re there, but you’re there grudgingly.

 Some of you are in the land despairingly. “Help! How can I get through this? Help! What am I doing here?”

Some of you are in the land grumblingly. Yes, lots of grumbles and complaints come from you every day.

Some of you are in the land ignorantly. Well, yes, you had these children, but you really don’t know what you’re doing. You hardly wonder why you’re there.

You’ve never been taught anything about this land of motherhood! But we’re going to start learning about it, because God wants you to be in the land joyfully, happily, embracingly, purposefully! Yes, purposefully.

IT IS A GOOD LAND

OK, well, let’s just start with point number one, shall we? The first point is, it is a good land. Did you know, that 24 times God speaks in His Word, that the Land of Israel is a good land. More than good. Numbers 14:7: “It is an EXCEEDING good land.”

In Judges 18:9: “It is a VERY good land.” Now the word “good” in Hebrew is tov. It’s a little word, tov. But it has a huge meaning. The lexicon in my bible gives all these meanings of the word “good” in the Hebrew. It means, “pleasant, beautiful, excellent, bountiful, lovely, delightful, joyful, fruitful, precious, sound, cheerful, kind, sweet, correct, righteous.” It involves all these meanings.

A little word with such a vast meaning. It’s for the Land of Israel which was a beautiful land. Of course, for 2000 years just about, it languished, and it became like a desert, rugged, and nothing was growing. But now that God’s people are coming back to the Land and they’ve been coming back before 1948 when Israel became a nation.

Do you know that date? You all should know that date. Teach your children that date. You don’t have to know every date of when things happened, but I believe this is an important date that we need to know, the date that Israel became a nation. It was the 14^th of May, 1948.

That was a miraculous thing that happened, when a people who had lost their land, that they became a nation again. It was all promised by God. And as they have continued to come back to the Land, this land has become what the Bible says. It has blossomed like a rose.

I remember years ago when we went to Israel. We saw something of the blossoming, but it was still very arid. But the last time I went to Israel, just a couple of years or so ago, I couldn’t believe it! I just couldn’t believe the lushness, and the growth, and the blossoming, and the fruitfulness. It’s just amazing.

But it’s the same, all those words, lovely ladies, they apply to motherhood. The land of motherhood. Now, we all live in this land. I live, I’m living in the USA, and I live on a parcel of land here in Tennessee. But the real land in which I live is the land of motherhood, the land of my family.

This is my real land. This is your land. It’s the land, it’s a realm, it’s a domain, that God has given to you. He’s given you this domain. He wants you to embrace it because He gave it to you.

Everything about it is good. Good. See, ladies, we have got to get the Word of God into . . .

not only our brains but into our hearts.

Not only into our hearts but into our mouths.

Not only into our mouths but every part of our being!

So, we know! We know motherhood is good! Exceedingly good. Very good, because God planned it for me. God planned it for you. It’s who you are, who He created you to be. He gave you this land for you to fulfill this task.

Now, you see, all around us, we hear the opposite. Those who go to the public schools and on to college, they can hear continual negative and derogatory remarks about motherhood. The whole of society puts down motherhood, to make it sound inferior. It’s not very significant. Oh, it’s so much more important to have this career!

That is false! It’s not Bible. And it’s not true. But we’re being brainwashed. We have to be re-brainwashed. Our minds have to be re-changed and renewed by the Word of God so that we know motherhood is good. It’s good! It’s the best! And it’s all those wonderful descriptions that I read.

Now when we go to Titus 2:3-5: “The older women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers o f. . . " OK, ladies, you know the Scripture. You know what it says. “Teachers of . . .” Can you just say if after me? “Teachers of . . .” What are they to teach?

OK, in case you didn’t remember, here it is. “Teachers of GOOD things.” Did you notice the word “good”? Good. “Good things.” Yes, and it’s all about the home and motherhood. “That they may teach the young women to be sober.” We’ll look at some of these things that Titus 2 tells us, because every one of them are good!

Actually, ladies, that word, “the teachers of good things,” that phrase in the Greek is kalodidaskalos, coming from two Greek words, kalos meaning “virtuous, beautiful, valuable,” and didaskalos, meaning, well, that means “instructor or teacher.” So that word “good” there, “teachers of good things,” we could actually say “teachers of beautiful things.” In fact, some translations of the Bible translate it “beautiful, beautiful things.”

So, the first one on the list is “sober.” We are to be sober, sophronizo. It comes from the word sofron, meaning “to have a sound mind, to be self-controlled.”

Next one: “To love their husbands.” The word there in the Greek is philandros. It comes from two words. The word phileo means “affectionate love, friendship love.” OK, affectionate love to the husband.

It’s interesting, ladies, the word that God chooses here, because there are a number of words for “love” in the Bible. There is agape love which we know is the most ultimate love. That is God’s love. We don’t always have agape love of ourselves. It’s just not in us. We only have it by the power of the Holy Spirit because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given unto us.

So, we have His agape love, to love even when our husbands aren’t loving, even when they upset us, even when they make us mad, even when we don’t feel like loving them. We can still love them because we have God’s agape love, which loves the unlovely, which loves beyond where there’s even love. So, that’s such a glorious thing to have in our marriage.

Then there’s eros love, which is sexual love. Then there’s phileo love which is friendship love, affectionate love. This is the one that the Bible uses here. It’s interesting. Affectionate love. So, the Bible is telling here that He wants us, as wives, to be affectionate to our husbands. Very practical. The Bible is very, very practical. It’s really down to earth.

So, older women have to be an example. Not only teach by words, but an example. You see some older couples, they’re pretty boring. But an older couple is still meant to be very affectionate to one another, because that is showing to the young couples how they are meant to live, how they’re meant to be best friends and affectionate to one another.

The next one is “to love their children.” The Greek word is philoteknos, from two words, phileo, affectionate love again, and teknon, child. We’re also to be affectionate mothers to our children. We’re to be touchy wives and touchy mothers (not in a way of being touchy by being offended), but touchy by caressing, and touching, and loving, and hugging. This is the way the Bible wants us to be, and God wants us to be, because these are good things.

“Discreet.” That is also the word sofron, meaning “a sound and disciplined mind.” The lexicon in my Bible describes this word, “a person who limits his own freedom and ability with proper thinking. Demonstrating self-governance, with proper restraint on all the passions and desires. One who voluntarily places limitations on her freedom.”

She’s not someone who just does what she likes because she feels like it. No, she does what is right. What is right for her husband, what is right for her family, what is right for her home. There will be freedoms that she has to curtail for the blessing of her husband, and the blessing of her home, and the blessing of her family. She’s not putting herself first.

“Oh, well, I want to go here, and I want to do that!” No, she will curtail those things if it’s not for the blessing of her home, because her heart is for the blessing, and the building up, and the strengthening of her home, and her marriage, and her family. OK?

Next one is “chaste.” Like someone I heard some time ago saying, “It doesn’t mean ‘chased,’ but it means ‘chaste.’” It actually means “clean, pure, modest.” It comes from the word hagios, which means “holy, consecrated, blameless.” Hagios is translated “holy” 167 times in the New Testament. It’s translated “saints” 62 times. So, the meaning is, “a holy life, clean and pure and modest.”

Then we get to “keepers at home.” OK, “keepers at home.” Oh, my. There are so many women who don’t like that phrase! Oh, they don’t even believe it’s in the Bible! And even if they notice it’s there, they don’t believe in taking any notice of it.

In fact, this phrase, “keepers at home” is a GOOD thing. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s God’s plan, but it’s very sad that even the church has been so brainwashed that most Christian women are no longer in the home today. Most of them are out of the home. They’re in their career, or they’re out doing something. “Keepers at home! Help me!” They’re not very happy about that at all.

Well, time is going, so we’ll finish it up here for today. Next time we’re going to go into looking, “What does this phrase really mean?” It actually has a wonderful meaning.

“Father, we do come to You. We want to thank You for Your Word, Your Word, that sets us straight. Your Word, which keeps us on the path that You’ve chosen for us. Your Word, which is alive and active. Your Word, which pours blessings upon us as we walk in Your ways.

“Lord God, I pray that You will help each one of us to be receptive to Your Word, to embrace Your Word, and to live the way You have planned for us, even if it is different from the rest of society.

“Lord, I pray Your blessing upon every mother, and every wife, and every family listening today. 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.

CHECK OUT THE PROMISES FOR THE LAND OF ISRAEL

http://aboverubies.org/EverlastingPossession

 

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 187: We Love Our Kitchens – Part 3

Erin Harrison and I share our third session about the GLORY OF THE KITCHEN. Did I say "glory"? Yes. It certainly can become glory when we get the right attitude and vision! We also talk about how important it is to have a meal ready for our husbands when they come home from work.

What does a husband want more than anything? A WARM WELCOME HOME, A WARM MEAL ON THE TABLE, and A WARM BED! This means more than an electric blanket!!! We get down to the nitty gritty of this most important point. Our marriages hinge upon it! You'll love it!

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Here we are again for our third session, WE LOVE KIOTCHENS! I do hope you’re already loving your kitchen by now and that it’s your favorite place to be. Not only do we love kitchens, but we love cooking.

Did you know that Jesus loved cooking too? He sees it as very important. I love reading that passage in John 21. Jesus had died and He had risen from the dead. But the disciples were forlorn. They didn’t know what was going to happen. Everything was finished.

They were down at Lake Galilee, and one of them says, “I’m going fishing.” So, the others said, “OK, we’ll go, too.” They went out, and they were fishing all night. They didn’t catch a thing. Then, they heard this voice on the shore of Galilee, saying, “Hey, guys! You caught any fish?”

“No!” they replied. Then He said, “Well, put your nets down on the right side, and you’ll catch fish!” They did. Their nets were nearly breaking, and they caught 153 fish! Then John said, “It must be the Lord!” They were coming into shore, and they were tired and exhausted.

But then, when they got to shore, they saw this little fire of coals on the shore. On this fire, there were some fish cooking, and some bread. Jesus was there, and He said to His disciples, “Come! Come and dine!” And He invited them to breakfast.

JESUS COOKED BREAKFAST

A breakfast, ladies, that He had cooked! Now this is Jesus, the One Who had just risen from the dead. The One Who is King of Kings and Lords of Lords, the One Who had just conquered death and risen again! And what is He doing?

Ladies, He’s cooking! He’s cooking breakfast. Sometimes you think that it’s too mundane for you. “Oh, no, I’ve got to go and cook another meal.” Dear ladies, Jesus knew the power of cooking! In His risen form, He cooked for His disciples. He served them and served them breakfast.

Now we know the story of after that breakfast. Well, of course, while they were having breakfast, we don’t know what happened, but I’m sure they enjoyed the most wonderful, wonderful fellowship together. Meals are places for fellowship. Tables are places to fellowship. Our meals together are meant to be face-to-face, table fellowship.

But after the meal, Jesus took Peter aside, and said to him, “Peter, lovest thou me?” And we know how Peter said, “Yes, of course I do, Lord!” “Feed my sheep.”

Then He asked him again and Jesus came back with the words, “Feed my lambs.”

Then again, after He talked to him, He said again, “Feed my sheep.”

You see, Jesus had a particular word that He wanted to minister into Peter’s life. But Jesus knew the power of food, the power of cooking. He didn’t go down to the Galilee and say, “Hey, Pete! Got a word for you!” No, he first cooked him a meal.

After his belly was full, and he was satisfied, and good fellowship, and oxytocin was flowing, he was in a place where He was ready to receive. And Jesus spoke those words into him.

You see, lovely ladies, this is the power of a meal. We’re not only cooking a meal just to feed hungry bodies. No, it is far more than that. The meal makes the place where we can gather our family together, where we can talk, fellowship, discuss, and feed the soul. Then, of course, we can open the Word and speak God’s Word into their spirit and feed the spirit.

But it’s a meal that paves the way. If we don’t prepare the meal, we don’t have all those blessings that come with the meal. And so, we learn from how, even Jesus, the One risen from the dead, was willing to do the humble job of cooking. He didn’t see it as humble. He saw it as so worthwhile, so important, so needful.

I think of 1 Kings 19:4-8. We see there, God’s heart about cooking a meal for His servant. Elijah was worn out after all that happened out there with the prophets of Baal and how God brought a great victory there. But now, Elijah stretched out and fell asleep under the shrub. He was worn out. He didn’t know what he was going to do.

But all of a sudden, an angelic messenger touched him and said, “Get up and eat!” He looked, and right there by his head was a cake baking on hot coals and a jug of water. He ate and drank, and then slept some more.

Then the Lord’s angelic messenger came back again, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, or otherwise you won’t be able to make the journey.” So, he got up and ate and drank. That meal gave him the strength to travel for 40 days and 40 nights until he reached the mountain of God.

Dear ladies, do you see how God was so concerned about His servant? He sent an angel to cook a meal, to cook a nutritious cake. It may have even been Jesus Himself who came. That meal enabled him to go for 40 days and 40 nights. That was some meal, wasn’t it?

Anyway, I wrote, as we’ve been doing this series on the kitchen, I wrote this little acrostic. I like acrostics, don’t you? It’s the word “Kitchen.”

                           K -- Keeping the home fires burning.

                           I –   Intently interested in looking after the health of my

                                     husband.

                           T – Tenderly caring for my family.

                           C – Cooking up great meals.

                           H – Happily preparing food for my family.

                           E – Enjoying life in my kitchen.

                           N – Nourishing my family with wholesome and delicious food.

Did you notice number “I”? “Intently interested in looking after the health of my husband.” I do believe that’s a responsibility that we do have, as wives, is to care for our husband nutritionally. I know my husband, if I didn’t care for him, he would just eat any old thing! He would just eat junk! He would just eat anything! Whatever’s there, he’ll eat. He doesn’t ever think to know if it’s healthy.

So, if I want to keep him healthy, and he is 81 years of age, and I want to keep him around for at least another 20, perhaps 30 years, I’ve got to keep him healthy. I do have to wait on him. I have to look after what he has for breakfast, and I have to make sure he has a good lunch, and a good supper.

Of course, it’s not always perfect, because when he’s not around me, he will eat junk. When he’s out, he eats junk. But at least I’m keeping him healthy at home! To me, that is a very important part of what I do in the kitchen, is looking after my husband. What do you think, Erin?

Erin: That’s very important, very important indeed. I was going to say from the last one that we were talking about. . .

Nancy: Keeping marriage warm?

Erin: Yes.

Nancy: What was the first one?

Erin: Warm welcome.

Nancy: The second one?

Erin: Warm meal.

Nancy: What’s the third?

Erin: Warm bed.

Nancy: Ooh, that sounds good! Yes, tell me more!

Erin: Well, that just means. . . Men are very basic. A lot of women say, “Oh, my marriage is failing!” I’ve counseled so many different ladies about their marriages, and it’s always the same junk. It’s always selfishness that gets us in the end when we focus on ourselves. It wasn’t meant to be that way.

The Lord Jesus didn’t die on the cross so you could worry about yourself. He died on the cross so that we could be less of ourselves and more of Him! We’re here to minister, and to keep our homes. It’s a ministry. A lot of women think, “Oh, I need a special ministry,” or “I want to do this, or I want to do that for the Lord.”

Ladies, the greatest ministry you’ll ever have is being a wife, and then a mother. Both are ministries, the very most important critical ministries that you’ll ever have, and the only ones that matter in the end. You can go out there and win the whole world, but if you lose your own soul, or the souls of your own children, you’ve lost everything. It doesn’t even matter.

The children and your husband are the ones that you can take with you into eternity. Those are the ones you focus on first and foremost. To deny yourself, which Jesus came, He said, “If you want to be with Me, you must deny yourself. Pick up your cross and follow Me.”

It doesn’t mean a physical cross that you’ve carved out of wood or anything like that. That means daily, whatever your cares are, to put them at the feet of the cross, to go after Jesus with all your might, and all your soul, and all your life. It means denying yourself. It means don’t worry about you.

Why can we actually do these three simple things? We know that men are created differently than women. They have a sense to conquer and dominate and be out in the work force. Women have a sense, and they’re created by the Lord, to keep their homes, and to nurture. To build their homes on the Lord.

Men weren’t created to nurture as much as women were. A lot of times women get in the very bad way of expecting their husbands to be nurturers. They’re not really designed that way, to be nurturing. They’re more designed to go out and provide, and protect, and to fight. Part of the way that they love, the picture is the marriage.

A lot of people just throw their marriages away and go onto the next one. They give up, and they quit fighting. Well, that’s all a bunch of rubbish, because marriage is the picture of Jesus and the church. It is the most sacred thing that you can ever covenant on, that you can ever have this side of heaven. We may as well put the most priority into that as we can because it’s an example and a legacy to our children, and our grandchildren.

I’ve been reviewing all this. My daughters have been pregnant, having their own families and everything. How jaded life would have been if my husband and I would have given up when things got really rough. And believe me, things have gotten rough for us, especially in the beginning years of marriage. It’s hard to adjust to another person. It’s definitely hard to put them first.

Then we expect that the husband should be the one to do everything right, and to love us first, before we do anything in his direction for him. But that’s totally contrary to what the Word of God says. It says the “wives, submit unto your husbands as unto the Lord.” You do it for the Lord.

You don’t have to do it because they deserve it. Today is the day. You just seize the opportunity to do what’s right and what honors God today. You don’t have to have it all mapped out perfectly. He doesn’t even have to deserve it, but when he comes home to a warm welcome, and a warm bed, with a wife who’s eager to be with him, and loves him and adores him, and wants to offer him the intimacy that he needs. All men need that intimacy.

You’ll see the scales fall off. The rough patches soften. When a man feels satisfied in the bedroom, and he feels satisfied from coming home after a long day, to a warm welcome and a warm meal on the table, he will become the most loving husband. It works every time, because it’s God’s way, and God’s way works.

Nancy: Yes. Yes. I think that is so basic, Erin, isn’t it? And yet so many women are actually depriving their husbands of all three. Their husband comes home. Sometimes they’re not even there! They’re out doing other things. A meal is not ready, so there’s not a warm welcome. There’s not a warm meal, which is so important.

And they’re too busy with other things even to be open and ready and thinking about a warm bed, which is not just putting a hot water bottle in the bed! That is being available to him sexually. We have to be always ready and available. I believe, even thinking about it because that is really part of what marriage is.

What does it say? Genesis 2:24: “A man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” That’s just a picture of marriage. So, if that’s not actually happening, we’re not really fulfilling what the marriage is meant to be.

Erin: It says to defraud not. It’s a mandate from the Lord. People talk about mandates all the time in the world and everything. But there are special mandates for marriage. There is something very sacred and holy about keeping that bedroom, the fire alive in there, and the warmth that it brings. It’s a very holy and beautiful thing that the Lord created between a husband and wife.

I will say, because if you read my memoir, you’ll know that I was terribly abused as a child sexually. So, my skew on things was very. . . I had the wrong perspective going in on marriage. The bed was often cold because I felt ashamed. I felt like I wasn’t worthy. I felt like I couldn’t bring myself to the occasion in order to be sexual. Sexuality was a dirty thing.

I had read a book about holy sex. I read about it, and it really imprinted on me. I realized right then and there that it wasn’t about me. It’s about this wonderful thing that God created. Satan perverted it and something happened. But it wasn’t my husband’s fault!

I remember him crying tears and saying, “I wasn’t the one that sexually abused you!” I felt so sorry, and said, “Why should he have to feel like that?” So many of you probably carry the scars and battle scars of years of being terribly misused by men, or by people in your school, or wherever you were, where you were sexually mistreated.

But there is hope. I have a great sexual relationship with my husband now because I put that burden at the foot of the cross. I denied myself. It was the best thing I could ever do. I denied all those feelings. I rebuked all of those feelings that were not right, and I had to bring my mind into the captivity of Christ.

Now I can sing victoriously the praises of those things and how much I enjoy those things now, coming from such a terrible, terrible past. Because God is here to deliver us. He’s our Deliverer. He can make straight ways. He can bring us to the life that we would never know possible.  Happiness and joy overflowing. It’s all on Him.

The secret is self-denial. It really is. Most depression and most marriages, it’s all selfishness bound. When you let go, and you have this freedom to wake up and shine for Jesus, and just be Him. Whichever you do, whatever you’re doing, whether it be cooking your meals, or making your bed in the morning, or preparing your home, do it unto the Lord.

Don’t do it for any other reason. Don’t do it even for yourself. Do it for Him. Do it for His glory. Make your home a haven of peace, and beauty, and glory of the Lord. You will be rewarded by denying yourself, and giving it all to Him, and living for His great Name.

THE BEAUTY OF THE MARRIAGE FEAST OF THE LAMB IN YOUR HOME

It’s not abruptness. The sooner you realize that the sooner your marriage will be fixed. The sooner your family will love and adore both of their parents and see the beauty of the marriage feast of the Lamb in your own home. It’s so worth it, to just lay it all at the foot of the cross, deny yourself, and follow Him. Do the wonderful things that He created you to do, the way He created women to be. To operate in that role is the highest calling.

Nancy: Yes. Yes. Oh, amen, Erin. Thank you for that testimony. Because you came from that darkness, but you’re come into light. You didn’t have to go through loads and loads of counseling to do it. You did it by faith and according to the Word.

Erin: I just looked at what the Word says. I wasn’t raised in a church, so when I read the Bible for the first time when I was about 15 years old, I would weep every time I read the words. I didn’t have false doctrines in my head. I didn’t have all these different theologies and religions and everything.

I just took God at His Word. I believed it. If He says it in the Word, then that’s what I’m supposed to do. I even went to churches where it was like, oh my goodness! They were all focused on this ministry, or doing this gift, or that gift, or whatever. All I wanted, because I knew it in the Word of God, it said right there, that women were supposed to be keepers of the home. I thought, “How come we’re not learning about that?” I thought, “Well, it’s the most important thing that I should be learning, because if you look anywhere it talks about women, we were created for the home. Created to be keepers of the home.”

We’re Titus 2 women. When we’re older, we teach the other women. Now I’m getting to be a Titus 2 woman, or mother, to my own daughters, because they’ve got questions about everything under the sun in their own homes and operating in their own maternal roles.

THE EXAMPLE OF A HEALTHY MARRIAGE

You’re never going to just be on hold. They always need you. Your children always need you for your whole life long. You’re always needed, and you’ve always got so much wisdom you can share with them. Having a healthy marriage in front of your children speaks volumes. They have such an example to live up to with their own marriages.

As soon as they start acting selfish or something, I tell them to stop acting selfish. I tell them right how it is, that it doesn’t honor the Lord. It gets them right off their high horse, because we all get on our high horses, of course.

Nancy: Exactly. Yes. Oh, that’s so beautiful. So, dearest ladies, I pray that you can take those three things. I think they’re so important, so simple, so basic, but so glorious! They’ll bring gloriousness into your home. Erin and I are always talking about the glory.

Erin: That’s right! We even have glory meals. We put fine China all over the table, and candles, and special music. It makes such a beautiful glory for the Lord.

Nancy: Oh, yes! A home is meant to be glory. Our relationship with our husband is meant to be glory. It is. It’s meant to be glory. I think intimacy is the greatest glory of all. It is beyond glory. So, just take this for your husband, to always remember as he comes in that door, to give him a warm welcome, a warm meal, nutritious and delightful. And then a warm bed, with lots of excitement.

Erin: Oh, and I was going to say, there’s different kinds of hunger, too. You know, men are hungry for the first thing, the warm welcome. They’re hungry for love and appreciation for what they’re doing. And then they’re hungry for physical food.

But there’s also a hunger for their sexual needs. They are hungry. You know that anybody who’s married . . . Men, you can just tell when they’re starving. I was watching this little Ted Talk thing, and there was a lady on there. She said only seven percent of all married couples are having sexual relations regularly. She’s a counselor for these sorts of things, and she says there are some people who never have sexual relations with each other. Well, once a year, or once a month, or something like that. She said a good, healthy marriage. . .

You think about it, you eat three times a day. Now with a practical sense of sexual intimacy, that keeps a man satiated, a warm marriage bed. . . Two to three times a week is a very healthy amount. It’s not like you have to. . .

Some people like that sort of thing once a day, or twice a day. But on average, like a really good, healthy relationship, a few times a week would be a pretty good middle ground. It’s healthy. You satiate each other after a day or two, whatever. It’s very wholesome to have some sort of regularity to that.

Nancy: Yes. Yes. I do believe with all my heart, just as you’re saying that I’m thinking of that Scripture in Proverbs. Maybe we could go to it here. It’s a good reminder. It’s talking about marriage here. Proverbs 5:15: “Drink waters out of thine own cistern,” you notice it says, “your own,” and “running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.”

This is talking to the husband. “Let her be,” now it’s talking about his wife. “Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” That’s interesting, isn’t it? That the Bible says that.

The Bible is amazing. It doesn’t say, “Well, once a month, or once a week.”

Erin: Or three times a week, or anything. “At all times.”

Nancy: It says: “At all times.” The Bible does a bit more than we do. “And be thou ravished,” that word “ravished” in the Hebrew is an amazing word. It means the word you were saying, “satiated, intoxicated.” It’s a word that really means to be like you’re intoxicated, as though you’re drunk!

“And be thou ravished,” or intoxicated, “always with her love.” So, we’ve got “at all times” and “always.” Wow!

Erin: That’s so neat!

Nancy: Well, what do you do with the Bible? Goodness me! [laughter]

Erin: I don’t know. Maybe we have to step it up a bit, ladies! [laughter]

Nancy: But “always,” I looked it up one time, and it’s the same word that’s used with the offerings and the sacrifices that were done every morning and evening. Sometimes I think about them, and I say to my husband, “Oh, you know, I always talk about the morning and evening principle of how we are to have the Word together, and read the Word, and pray together as a family morning and evening, because that was the principle of the tabernacle.”

They did the sacrifices morning and evening. They lit the lamps morning and evening. They lit the altar of incense morning and evening. Everything was morning and evening. And then, I look up this word “always,” and it’s also used of the continual offerings, which were morning and evening. So, I’ll tease him sometimes about that. Not that we quite get to morning and evening! [laughter] But that’s what the Bible says! That’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?

Praise the Lord! I think you’ve got, wow! You couldn’t get anything more spiritual than those three things. The warm welcome, the warm meal, and the warm bed. How wonderful! Oh, that is so great.

Well, let me read to you a poem about the table as we close this session. We began with the table, and we’ve been talking about it for three sessions now, and we really haven’t even started. We could come back for more and more sessions. But I think you’ve got the message.

This is “At the Table.” I wrote this poem years ago.

Where can you communicate while you eat?

Where can you enjoy real fellowship sweet?

Where can you laugh with friends who are neat?

       At the table.

Where can you pour out your heart and soul?

Where can you explain what is taking its toll?

Where can you share your vision and goal?

       At the table.

Where can you dialogue and sift through ideas?

Verbalize thoughts and yet still be at ease?

Discover new subjects to debate if you please?

       At the table.

Where can your hearts be knitted as one?

Where can you yarn, and old stories be spun?

And feel accepted so you don’t have to run?

       At the table.

Where can your children learn to sit still?

Acquire eating habits that won’t make them ill?

Be taught good manners of which some have nil?

       At the table.

Where to imbibe values and ethics for life?

Learn to eat correctly with fork and knife?

Observe how “to father” and be a good wife?

       At the table. 

Where can you reveal God’s ways to your kin?

Teach them His Word will keep them from sin?

And to follow God’s laws is the way to win?

       At the table.

Where can you encourage your children each day?

And boost the confidence of these “jars of clay”?

Give counsel that will keep them from going astray?

       At the table.

Where can you make your house feel a “home”?

With a lovely warm ambience and happy tone?

From where your children will not want to roam?

       At the table.

Where can you show love to God’s special “flock”?

Feed those who come to your door and knock?

Even those who don’t know God can be their Rock?

       At the table.

Where does God love His presence to fill?

Where does He want His blessings to spill?

Where does He want restless hearts to be still?

       At the table.

Dear father and mother, look again at your table,

Family meals together will make your home stable!

Make it a priority--your God will enable!

       Sit at your table!

And so, lovely ladies, we seek to make our table a beautiful place for our husbands, for our families, a place where we not only eat meals to feed our physical body, but to feed our souls, to feed our spirits. You see, the table is the place where we feed the whole man—body, soul and spirit.

And as you establish this beautiful thing in your home, then you’ll want to invite others to come in and join you. Hospitality, oh, hospitality around the table is such a beautiful, beautiful thing. I think of all our (as Erin was saying before), when we have meals together and we’ll go down to Erin’s place (sometimes they’ll come to us), we always call it “Gloriana.” We just make it glory, don’t we?

Erin: We sure do!

Nancy: Well, let’s pray, shall we?

“Lord God, we thank You so much again for Your Word, and how Your Word keeps us on the straight and narrow. Even though it’s the straight and narrow, it’s a glory road. Lord, the Word that You give us and show us how to live is the glory road.

“And Lord, we don’t want to live just half-measures. We want to live in the full glory that You came to give us! So, Lord, we ask that You will help us, because this is part of the glory road, just making glorious meals and having glorious fellowship with our families. Then having glorious hospitality. Oh, Father, just help us to live in this glory.

“We thank You that You are so, Lord, You’re so concerned about all the little things that go on in our kitchens, and, Lord, all our pots, and pans, and plates, and glasses. Lord, they’re all holy unto You, Lord. They’re sacred, because even as we handle them, and You dwell in us, they are sacred. Lord, even doing dishes is sacred. It’s glory. It’s never a boring task. Everything is glory with You, Lord God.

“I pray that You’ll bring glory into the kitchens, Lord God, of every precious mother listening. Lord, I pray for glory to fill their kitchens. I pray for glory to fill their homes. I pray for glory to fill their bedrooms. 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.

WARM IS LOVELY  BUT . . .

You’ve just listened to Erin and I speak about the warm welcome, the warm meal, and the warm bed. However, I am thinking that we were a little too mild and that we could notch it up a bit more. What do you think?

HOT AND SPICY WELCOME

Don’t just yell Hi from the kitchen when your husband comes home. Get up from what you are doing. Go to the door or walk toward your husband and welcome him with open arms and a loving and lingering kiss. Tell him how happy you are to see him. A warm welcome is nice, but a hot spicy welcome is even nicer!

HOT AND SPICY MEAL

Make a lovely nutritious meal for your husband and family but make it spicy and full of flavor too. Bland food is boring. Spice up your food with herbs and spices and if you are up to it, hot peppers too. Basic, wholesome food changes from satisfying to scrumptious when you make it flavorful. God gave us tastebuds. Tantalize those tastebuds. Try out new things.

And spice up your family mealtimes with good conversation. Mealtimes can be terribly boring if there is no purposeful conversation. As I raised our children, I found that it was just as important to think about what we would talk about as what I would cook for the meal. Things don’t just happen. You have to make them happen. Think of a subject to bring to the table to discuss with your husband and family—political, biblical, historical, or geographical. Ask a question and get each one in the family to share their thoughts. Think of ideas to make your mealtimes exciting.

HOT AND SPICY BED

Always be ready to love your husband passionately. Forget being passive and pour out your hot spicy love on him. He is waiting for it. As you give to him, you will be blessed beyond measure. Proverbs 5:20 tells us that the wife is to “satisfy” and “ravish” her husband. Yes, that’s King James language. Other translations say “captivate, intoxicate, exhilarate, rapture” I can’t let you off the hook, ladies. It’s Bible!

Your husband will love coming home to you!

~ Nancy

And here’s another poem about the table I wrote yeas ago.

 

From Psalm 128

 

“Come to the table, supper’s ready to eat!”

All the children come running to find their seat,

At the head of the table father takes his place

And with all gathered round he says the grace.

He’s made an effort to be home from work,

From his place at the table he will not shirk,

He affirms his commitment to his family and wife

And his presence at the table eliminates strife.

Mother has taken time to prepare a nice meal,

Full of nutrition, not a pre-packaged deal,

She delights to cook for her growing brood,

Knowing it’s a sacred task to prepare their food.

The table’s inviting – a clean tablecloth too,

The plates nicely set, perhaps a candle or two.

The children all help and do their part

To make the table look great and very smart.

What joy to be together at the end of the day,

To laugh, communicate, and each have a say,

To share the day’s happenings with one another

And tell what they’ve learned to father and mother.

The plates are now empty, they’re full to the top!

Is it time to leave the table? No! Stop, stop!

We’ve fed only the body and the soul so far,

The best part’s to come, and it’s not out of a jar.

It’s time for devotions; we must feed the spirit,

Of the blessing from this, there is no limit.

Father opens the Bible and to his family he reads

Sowing into their hearts God’s eternal seeds.

Now it’s time to pray, each one takes a turn,

They pray for needs as God’s will they discern,

They give thanks for blessings with a grateful heart

And develop a spirit of gratitude right from the start.

God’s blessing is on this family we know

As around the table their “olive plants” grow,

God’s smile is upon them as they follow His way

And establish this principle for now and always.

Nancy Campbell

www.aboverubies.org

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 187: We Love Our Kitchens – Part 2

Erin Harrison and I continue sharing the wonderful joys of preparing meals for our families and how to turn every meal into a love affair. You'll receive practical tips and a new vision for your kitchen. I know you'll be blessed and encouraged.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Today, Erin and I are here together again to talk about WE LOVE OUR KITCHENS! You want to say amen?

Erin: Amen!

Nancy: Yes! Last week we talked about breakfast-time. Today we’re going to talk about lunch and supper if we can get to that. But what about lunch? What do you do for lunch, Erin?

Erin: Well, we do eat leftovers!

Nancy: That’s what we do, too. I love leftovers! Do you ladies love leftovers? They somehow taste nicer the next day. It’s worth cooking a bit extra, so you’ve got leftovers for the next day, isn’t it?

Erin: Oh, it is. It really is. It’s been something that other cultures have done throughout the ages as well. There’s something in Europe called “Bubble and Squeak.” I made it for your special party. Everybody thought, “That was so savory and wonderful!”

You just take your leftovers and make balls with them. If you’ve got mashed potatoes, just kind of mash it all together in little patties, and then you fry them with a little oil. They’re just delightful, really.

Nancy: I love to have soup for lunch too. I love making soups. Beautiful, nutritious soups! Because, with a soup, you can fill it with so many goodies. I’ll usually use some meat, often just some ground venison, or ground beef that’s organic, of course. The venison is always organic.

I love it when our grandsons will shoot a deer. They shoot lots of deer, but they’ve got to feed their own families. Every now and then, they’ll give one to Nana and Granddad. So, I just love having some venison.

Then I will fill it with so many vegetables. I can hardly count the number of vegetables I put in our soups. Now, when you have a meal, you’ll have some meat and some vegetables, but never as many as you’d put in a soup! My, sometimes I’ll count up to ten vegetables! I always have onions, of course. Onions, and garlic, and peppers. But then, maybe sweet potato and zucchini, and all the things, at the moment, in my fridge. I’m enjoying each lunchtime.

I made a red soup. I made the base, usually I’ll make the base of lentils or split peas or beans. This is a base of adzuki beans which are little red beans. So, I thought, “Oh, I think I’ll make a red soup!” So, I added red onions and also red cabbage. I actually prefer red cabbage to green cabbage. It’s so wonderful. So, it had all these red things in it. And then I added red beets, which really made it red! It’s real red soup, but it’s so delectable. Of course, I added other veggies, too, and put spices in.

Erin: Do you ever use the red palm oil then for your oil to sauté some of your vegetables?

Nancy: Oh, yes!

Erin: I’ve done that, too. I’ve made red soup before.

Nancy: Yes! Oh, red palm oil. I’m out of it at the moment. That last two times we’ve gone into the city, I’ve meant to get red palm oil, but we just didn’t have time. I have to go to an African shop to get that. I love red palm oil. When I’m making okra, I make it with red palm oil.

Yes, a snack I enjoy too, is cutting raw beets into rectangles and having it with baba ghanoush. Have you ever made that? It’s like hummus. It’s an Israeli dish. But instead of making it with the garbanzos, what’s the other word for them?

Erin: Chickpeas.

Nancy: Chickpeas, yes. You make it with eggplant. I do love eggplant. You just roast the eggplant. When you put it in the bowl, you put it with tahini and lemon juice, and salt and pepper, and cumin. I think I’ve remembered everything. It’s rather lovely.

So, lunchtime! Oh, but while we’re talking about food, I just wanted to share with you ladies that the Bible is so practical. It’s not all about these great spiritual doctrines, which it is, but it has so much practicality in it, too.

THE BIBLE MENTIONS ALL OUR KITCHEN UTENSILS

Did you know that, in the Bible, it mentions all these things that we have in our kitchens? Bottles, bowls, cups, dishes, forks, frying pans, goblets, kettles, kneading troughs, knives, pans, pots, plates, pitchers, spoons, vessels, utensils. The word “utensils” is used 100 times in the Bible! The Bible talks about all these things.

In fact, in 1 Chronicles 9:29-32, it talks about some of the jobs of the Levite priests. Some were in charge of the flour, and the wine, and the olive oil, and the incense, and the spices. Imagine that, ladies! You think, “Oh, the priests! They are just there worshipping God, being so spiritual.”

No! Many of the priests were doing practical things. They had to look after the food. Mattathias was in charge of baking the bread for the offerings. Some of the Kohathites were in charge of preparing the bread for the Sabbath. So, it talks about all these practical things.

The Bible talks even about the way we cook. It talks about baking, boiling, broiling, grinding, kneading, and roasting. It’s all there in the Bible. Isn’t that amazing?

ALL OUR KITCHEN UTENSILS ARE SACRED

Do you know, ladies, I believe that we should begin to see all the things in our kitchen, all our plates and bowls, and our pots and pans and frying pans, to see them all as sacred. Because when Christ dwells in us, everything becomes sacred. When we pick up a pot out of the cupboard to cook something, it’s a sacred task, because Christ dwells in us. Sacred things are not just for church. They’re for practical living. It just depends on who we are. If we have Christ dwelling in us, everything becomes sacred.

I love that Scripture in Zechariah 14:20-21. It says: “On that day the bells of the horses will bear the inscription, ‘Holy to the Lord.’ The cooking pots in the Lord’s temple will be as holy as the bowls in front of the altar. Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah will become holy in the sight of the Lord, who rules overall.”

So, let’s look upon all our cooking utensils, and everything we have in our kitchen, as holy, as sacred. It makes such a difference to your attitude.

All right, lovely ladies, let’s get on, shall we, to suppertime. Because I think this is actually the main meal of the day. It is in our home, although I may have it all back to front, because most probably you’ve heard of the saying that . . .  

“We should eat breakfast like a king,

lunch like a queen,

and supper like a pauper.”

They say that is better for your health, because you shouldn’t eat such a big meal in the evening. Then you go to sleep on it. But, somehow, it doesn’t seem to work out in practicality in our daily lives, because after breakfast, we don’t have the same time that we do in the evening, where everybody’s rushing off, especially as your children grow.

When they’re little, you may be able to do this. But as they get older, the children are going out to their jobs, your husband is going out to his job. Often, we can’t spend so much time at that breakfast meal. Then, of course, the children are getting older. Not everybody is home for the lunch meal. That can be different when your children are all around you. You may be able to work that then.

But, then in the evening-time, Father comes home from work. Your young people who have got jobs, and they’re out working, they’re coming home from work. The whole family is coming back to together. So, they’re coming back to all be together. The greatest way to gather them together is to gather them for the meal.

So, I’ve always made it a precedent in my life, and in over, goodness, I forget how many years we’ve been married. Let’s work it out again. Yes, over 58 years, I’ve always made it of the most important thing in my day to have the family meal ready for when my husband comes home. I want him to come home and sit down to a good, wholesome, nourishing meal, that’s also filled with spices and aroma that draws everyone to the meal. What do you think about that, Erin?

Erin: Well, I think it’s really important to have your. . . In the afternoon, with your family, to make preparations for this, for the dinner meal. Don’t have your husband coming home after a long, hard day at work. Some of them work outside, like my husband does, all day, on a roof, and it’s cold, and it’s windy.

He comes home, and I don’t want him coming home to zero aroma of cooking food. Just a cold home that’s littered with toys everywhere and junk. Then I’m overwhelmed, and I’m sitting around complaining about the children being crabby all day, and I need help. It’s not the type of welcoming, the warm welcome that a husband wants to come to. It makes it terrible.

Instead, to contrast that, you like him to be gone all day, and he looks forward to coming home to his family. He walks in the door, there’s candles burning, maybe. He smells the aroma of beautiful, savory food, and he sees the warm, welcoming wife that’s running toward him, saying, “Welcome home! So happy to see you!” And she’s got a smile on her face. All the children come up, and they’re hugging their father after he’s been gone all day.

What a way to come home to that! He works all day. He sacrifices. And women do, too, of course, in their own way. But without our husbands working and toiling in the elements of the weather, or at their job places, we wouldn’t be able to have food on the table. They’re doing that sacrifice to provide the income in order to have, to bring the bacon home, so to speak.

So, we show our appreciation by these little things that make it more enjoyable for him to come home. He actually looks forward to coming home instead of dreading coming back to a mess, and a crabby family, and nothing to eat. Then you wonder why some marriages are failing, because it’s just so simple and beautiful to have those few little boxes checked off every day.

I always thought, I would get my children after we’re done with school and everything. We’d always say, “Oh, we’re going to make a meal for Daddy. He’s coming home.” One of them would be helping to peel the potatoes, and one would be helping chop the vegetables. We would make something.

We’d come up with creative ideas together. It was always so fun. Maybe one of the little girls would be like, “Oh, I want to make a cake for Daddy,” or make a little special treat. One of the boys chopping up a salad. We were making it so fun. We made an activity that we could engage in.

Then it was always like right before Daddy would come home, “Let’s make sure the house is swept clean.” We’d run around the house, just kind of pick up the last little bits of junk that were laying around. When you come home, it’s like, “Oh, this beautiful music. There are some candles. Smiling faces, and a beautiful meal to grace the table.” There’s no man in this world that wouldn’t be completely head-over-heels for his wife if she did that for him. And it’s not even that hard.

Nancy: Yes, I know! And there was a time when that was just normal protocol. Every wife knew that was what she was meant to do. We live in a society now where so many wives don’t have that understanding. No wonder their husbands get a bit sick of everything. In fact, I think there are a few important things that we should remember for our husband coming home. What do you think, Erin?

Erin: Oh, yeah. The first thing is, what did we talk about? Our one, two, three?

Nancy: Oh, yes! Welcome!

Erin: Oh, welcome! Yes! Welcome. Welcoming home, a warm welcome is number one, first and foremost, because even if you’re not a very attractive woman, which I’m sure all of you are, but it’s been proven by science that men are attracted to women that smile. Like even an ugly, ugly lady with a beautiful smile on her face, a man is generally attracted to somebody who’s warm and welcoming.

So, it doesn’t matter. You might have a lot of reasons why you think you’re not attractive. Some women have a low self-image. But just think of it this way. A beautiful smile goes a long way. Your husband comes home to a warm welcome like that, he’s going to be so happy to see you. You’re going to have such an amazing marriage.

Number two, a warm meal. Three warm things: warm welcome, warm meal, number two. So, he comes home to a warm meal on the table, ready to go, so he can wash his hands, take his cap off, and sit at the table. He can fill his belly.

Nancy: Yes. We’ll, talk about the warm meal for a little while before we get onto the next thing. I think that is so important. There is something about having the meal ready. In fact, ladies, you’ll find that if your husband comes home, and you’re busy doing other things, and there’s no beautiful meal, the aroma wafting through the home, what’s he going to do?

They’re just going to go and plonk themselves down in front of TV. Or he’s going to go off to the car shed and just tinkle around and do something. Then, when you eventually get something ready, how are you going to get him to the table again? If he’s plonked in front of that TV, he’s plonked.

Erin: Then you have to bring the meal to him.

Nancy: That is not right, no. So, you see, this secret is, ladies, that you get him, before he does anything else! When he comes in, you say, “Darling, the meal is ready. We’re just putting it on the table. Wash your hands, get ready.” And he comes, and he sits at the head of the table, because that’s where the husband is meant to sit, at the head of the table. Not just anywhere, but the head of the table.

You don’t have to say that to your children, saying, “Now, children, I want you to know that your father is the head of this home.” You don’t even have to tell them, because when he takes his place at the head of the table at each meal, they see it. Truth is imbibed far more by seeing, than by being told. They see Daddy there.

The other thing that happens, is that the father sits, oh, he’s so happy to sit down to a good, hearty meal. He's enjoying the meal. Of course, when we eat together, not isolated, but when we eat together, and there is conversation and sharing, oxytocin is released.

We know that oxytocin is the calming hormone, the bliss hormone. It’s a glorious hormone that takes away stress. Your husband can come home, stressed out. But just eating that meal together calms him down. It’s a beautiful thing to do that.

Now, we could, perhaps, talk for a little moment about what we do eat for an evening meal. What do you do? What are some ideas?

Erin: Well, my husband likes meat and potatoes. He likes the old-fashioned meal that’s proven for centuries. I don’t do a lot of gourmet cooking at my home. It’s very simple ideas. I have some sort of meat, and I sometimes make a casserole, or I make a boiled dinner. Or a roast with potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions, and celery, and carrots, and some things like that.

Or a meatloaf and baked potatoes. I do, sometimes I do pastas. Chicken dinners, and gravies, and mashed potatoes. I don’t cook . . . Some people have dietary restrictions and things, and I understand that. You have to watch calories and all this sort of stuff for health concerns. But we want the tried-and-true way of old. Just kind of make the food our grandparents made, and it’s been working well for us, for very sick people, and in good health. We eat a really well-rounded diet.

Nancy: Yes, sometimes I’ll make a big pot of soup, and that will be available for lunches for a few days. But usually, I’ll make a meal with meat, as you said. And then vegetables. I love to have lots of vegetables.

Erin: Oh, and salads. We do a lot of salads with our meals. Or some kind of vegetable. I love steamed broccoli and cauliflower, that sort of thing. Yeah, different food groups. We have our meats, and our starches. Not as heavy on the starches, but lots of vegetables.

Nancy: Lots of vegetables. Oh, God has created the most glorious vegetables for us. And I love to cook them nutritiously, not boil them up in a pot and lose all their goodness. But to just short-cook them or do it in different ways. A lot of people only know, OK, potatoes, peas, and carrots, or something like that.

In fact, when I go to the supermarket, and I’m buying different kinds of vegetables, it’s so amazing, so many of the young people at the check-out counter will say, “Well, what’s this?” And you have to tell them what it is. They’ve got to look it up, and find out, because they’re not familiar with it. Often, I’ll say to them, “Have you ever eaten this?” No, they’ve never eaten it in their life!

I love to introduce the people at my meal table to some of the different vegetables. Of course, we love potatoes, sweet potatoes, we love peas, and carrots, and cabbage. We love all those. But I also love to cook rutabaga. In New Zealand, we call those “Swedes,” because they did originally come from Sweden.

I love rutabaga! Oh, it’s so beautiful! Many of the young girls who live in our home, our Above Rubies helpers, many of them have never ever tried it. But what I do is, I grate it, and then I short-cook it in a little bit of butter or coconut oil. It’s so delicious, and full of vitamin C.

I love eggplant, and I love to do that in all different kinds of ways. Was it last night, I did eggplant pizzas?  I just cut the eggplant in slices, the round slices. Then I put some salsa on them, and some grated cheese, and baked them in the oven. They are so delicious!

I love parsnips. Oh, do you love parsnips? Oh, I love them. I love to roast them, but I also use them raw. I’ll grate them into the salad. I think many times, nobody knows that they’ve got parsnips grated into the salad! But they are so beautiful.

I love to use red cabbage instead of green. Sometimes I’ll use the red onions instead of the brown onions. I love to try the different things. But I also love a meal to look beautiful, don’t you, Erin?

Erin: Oh, I sure do! And I was going to say that it sounded probably like I’m more into starchy foods, but really, I do love to use the vegetables, too. And a lot of salads. But I will say that there is something to man-food, like there’s man-food, and then there’s woman-food. Women tend to love to make exotic, weird creations, and things like that.

I used to do that sort of thing. But then my husband brought me full circle back. We might have differing views out there, but he likes a good, hearty, man-meal. So, to please my husband, I’ve learned to cook what men like.

Sometimes it wouldn’t be as gourmet, it’s still healthy, all beautiful ingredients that the Lord created. But it’s not, maybe, a specialty thing. It’s going to be more like your bare-bones type meal. I learned that, to keep a man happy, you’ve got to feed him the kind of food he likes. Not unhealthy, but man-food. I don’t know, what’s your take on it?

Nancy: I think, well, Colin always said he doesn’t really mind what I cook for him, although he loves to have his meat every night. Men love their meat, don’t they? As long as it tastes nice. If it tastes nice. . .

We, in our home, we do not like bland food. It is very boring. So, I love to really spice our food up, and make it tasty, because if food tastes nice, well, it makes such a difference. You’re not just eating, “OK, here’s some food.” But you’re eating for the taste. God gave us taste, didn’t he?

Erin: And men, they should feel like they’re eating like a king!

Nancy: Yes. I guess some of you young mums, you’re still learning. Do you know that everything, everything we do in our homes, is an art? Breastfeeding is an art. You don’t, when you first have a little baby, we’ve got these young mums at the moment. They’re learning, and it takes a while to learn.

With your first baby, you’re still learning all these things. By the time you get to two or three, you’ve learned the art. You’re such a pro. Even birthing is an art. Goodness, you don’t know what techniques to use with your first baby. But you learn.

And cooking is an art. You learn. Of course, you learn by trial and error. Keep honing your art. You may not feel as though you’re a very good cook at this moment, but you will be. Because you hone your art. You never stay where you are.

You can come into your marriage, and you’re not very well-domesticated, which is sad. Girls should be taught how to run a home, and how to cook. It is a very sad thing, that mothers will allow their daughters to get married, and they are not already good cooks, and good home managers.

Erin: Well, that’s a really interesting point, because when I was growing up, I didn’t take a lot of interest in the fine arts of cooking and baking. I took interest in fine arts. I was painting pictures all the time. My mother is one of the best cooks there is. She made the most beautiful meals. Every day we always came home to a meal after school, because I was public schooled. But she said I never took much of an interest.

So, after I got married, I only knew how to make macaroni and cheese out of a box. Breakfast cereal, frozen pizzas, and spaghetti-o’s out of a can. Or ravioli. Terrible! [laughter] And I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to be a good wife, so I aspired. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

If you want to make your calling and election sure, you want it to be your calling. Your calling, by the will of God, God called you, as a woman, to be a keeper of the home. You want to be that. You can seek people out.

I used to go door-to-door to try to find a grandmother who would take me under her wing when my grandmother passed away. But I was going, when I had a little bitty baby, I was going to my grandmother’s house, to learn how to knead bread, how to make roast dinners, and different things. She taught me everything she knew.

I was like, I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to learn how to sew. I wanted to learn how to make all these other meals and things. So, I introduced myself to the Amish eventually. I was up there, learning all their tricks and tips and techniques, and how to make all of our clothes. If you want to learn, you can learn. I had zero skills. I believe that anybody who wants to do something, they will make a way to do it.

Nancy: We’ve got to close off now. Could you believe, Erin actually, she actually became part of the Amish? Your husband drove the buggy, and you were all dressed in your Amish clothes, with your little children.

Erin: Oh, yeah. And I learned how to cut chicken’s heads off! Some of the stories you will not even be able to believe them. But they’re true stories. It’s in my memoir. You’ll have to check it out.

Nancy: Yes. But she went into it because she wanted to really learn the best way to homestead and do everything, didn’t you? But she’s not there now, of course.

Let’s close, and we didn’t quite finish, so would you like us to share one more session? I think we will. OK, let’s pray.

“Lord God, thank You so much, that You are so interested in every part of our lives. Lord, You love food. You love cooking. You love being part of our family tables. Oh, we thank You, Father, and I pray for each precious mother listening, that You will draw them more and more into this beautiful realm, Lord God, and that they will see how important it is. I ask it in Jesus’ Name. 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.

You may have read and been blessed by 100 DAYS OF BLESSING, Volumes 1 and 2. At last, Volumes 3 and 4 are now printed. You will love them for yourself and as gifts for other mothers.