LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 300: Is There a Better Word Than “Kids,” Part 4

Why does God call our children "olive plants"? And we begin talking about how God wants us to make "princes in all the earth."

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, and this is podcast number 300! Last week I mentioned that if there are any of you who have managed to listen to the last 100 podcasts, that’s 200 to 300. If you’ve been miraculously able to do that, do email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I’d like to send you a special gift because I think that is pretty amazing if you have done that. Don’t forget to let me know.

And don’t forget to keep passing on the podcasts. Let your friends and everyone on your social media know that we have this podcast that is especially for wives and mothers, to encourage you in your very high and noble calling. They can be encouraged too.

We are now up to our fourth one in the series of Is There a Better Word Than “Kids”? I’m currently giving you 20 different words that God calls our children. Today we are up to number 15.

No. 15. OLIVE PLANTS

God calls them “olive plants.” In Psalm 128:3, it starts off: “Your wife is like a fruitful vine within your home, your children, like olive plants, all around your table.” I wonder why God calls them “olive plants? Well, I have a few ideas.

Number one: olive trees are always a symbol of blessing to the Israelites. When they saw new olive shoots growing up around their olive trees, they knew they were blessed, because the olive tree brought such blessing to them in their daily lives. It was such a blessing. Of course, our children are blessings, aren’t they? That’s one of the reasons they are called olive branches, because they are such a blessing to us.

Number two: olive plants have to be cultivated or they will deteriorate and grow wild. To get the best fruit, they’ve got to be cultivated. Also, our little olive shoots that spring up around our table have to be cultivated and trained if they are going to grow up in wisdom and stature. That’s part of having olive plants—to train them, and to cultivate them, and often to prune them.

That’s not so easy. We don’t like having to do that, but as God prunes us to make us fruitful, we as loving parents need to prune our children from bad habits and from things that could go with them into adulthood and spoil their lives. Sometimes children can get into the habit of lying. Oh my. Children can lie very easily, and we must not ever let them get into that habit.

Some children can get into the habit of having a mood, of pouting, of just getting into a very sour state because things are going wrong. We mustn’t allow that to happen. Some parents may allow it, but we would never allow that, because that’s a habit that children can take into adulthood, which can spoil their marriage.

There are too many marriages breaking up today. But many times it’s because they are children who haven’t really been pruned. Now they’re adults and they have all these bad habits they’re taking into their marriage which will spoil their marriage. Moods will spoil a marriage. The pouting, just getting into a silent treatment, not talking, just putting on that huff because things aren’t going your way. That just spoils a marriage. Oh, and we must not let our children get into these habits. We have to cultivate them, train them, and prune them.

Number three: olive trees are a symbol of beauty. In Hosea 14:6, it’s talking about Israel. It says: “Your beauty shall be like the olive tree.” The Hebrew word for “beauty” there is hod, H-O-D. Although it’s sometimes used for people, it’s mainly associated with God, and means “splendor, majesty, glory, and honor.” This time it’s used about the olive tree.

God wants our children to grow up beautiful like the olive tree, revealing God’s beauty and glory in their lives. They are our children. God has made them so beautiful, hasn’t He? We look at our children and we just can’t believe how beautiful God’s creation is. But we want them to grow up not only beautiful on the outside, but beautiful on the inside. That’s why we’re seeking to cultivate them and train them.

Number four: the olive tree is very fruitful. Large olive trees can actually produce an average of 400 pounds of olives annually. Larger trees can produce even more! We trust also that our little olive shoots will grow up to be very fruitful olive trees. Fruitfulness is one of the hallmarks of the olive tree. Those are reasons, I think some of the reasons why God calls our children “olive trees.”

Number five: olive trees have a purpose. They’re not just ornaments. They’re not just to look beautiful. They have a purpose. We talked about that before when we were talking about how God gave Jeremiah as a gift, not only to his parents, but a gift to the nation and the nations. That was his destiny upon him. God has a purpose for each one of our children.

The olive trees, what purposes do they have?

Well, they are used for building. Even the two cherubims in the Holy of Holies, and the door into the Holy of Holies, were made of olive wood. Today, many people love to buy beautiful ornaments and useful things too, which you can use in your kitchen and bring them back from Israel, all made of olive wood. Recently someone gave me a beautiful carving of Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper. It’s all carved in olive wood.

But olive wood can be used for building. And, of course, our children are part of building our home. Also, they will be used for building, not just to become builders, because not every son is going to become a builder, but every man and woman will be building a home and a family. They will be building projects, building all manner of things into their lives.

Also, the olive tree was used for lighting. The menorah, that beautiful seven-branched menorah in the tabernacle had to be lit every morning and every evening. It was lit with the olive oil from the olive plant. It tells that in Exodus 27:20-21: “And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always.”

They were never, ever to go out. “In the tabernacle of the congregation without the vail, which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning in the presence of the LORD: it shall be a statute forever unto their generations.” It had to come from the pure olive oil.

Of course, we want our little olive shoots to grow up to be lights in this world. Jesus said: “I am the Light of the world,” but He also said: “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14-16). He doesn’t want us to hide our lamps. He wants us to reveal His light. He wants us to be great lights, especially in this dark, deceived world in which we are living. We are preparing our children to be lights.

Every Friday evening, we celebrate the Shabbat meal. Of course, it is the privilege of the mother in the home to light the Shabbat candles at the beginning of the evening. As I light the Shabbat candles, I love to pray again, and thank the Lord, thank God that He is the Light. He is the One who has given us life. And pray again, as I pray every Friday evening, that God will fill us with His light, that we will truly be great lights, shining in this dark world.

Sometimes, especially when we have lots of children around our table (we invite a family with children, or we have the grandchildren over) I will have a light for each person around the table. Maybe a little tea candle and we’ll each light them. We’ll all hold them up and we’ll sing, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.” We remind the children that they are shining lights in this world. They’ve got to keep their light shining.

Now, the next one. The olive oil was also used for the holy anointing oil. God gave a special recipe for that holy anointing oil. That’s in Exodus 30. Let’s go over to that. We see here that it was to be used, the oil was to be used for the holy anointing oil.

With that holy anointing oil, the priests were to anoint everything in the tabernacle; all the furniture, and everything there. Then they were to anoint all the priests and Aaron. Everything, and every person was to be anointed with the holy anointing oil, because the oil speaks of the Holy Spirit. God wants us to be anointed and filled with His Holy Spirit. He wants our children, our little olive shoots, to be anointed and filled with His Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 61is a prophetic word over Christ, saying how He would be anointed “to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound.” Jesus came to do that. But now He dwells in us, and He wants us to do that. He wants us to encourage our children to be these shining lights who are filled with the Holy Spirit to bring His anointing to those who are broken and hurting.

Then the olive oil is also food. Yes, the Israelis couldn’t do without their olive trees because it is their food. They could hardly survive without the olive tree, because that oil is used in all their cooking, and all their salads. The olives themselves, aren’t they so delicious? It is such wonderful food and so nutritious.

Proverbs 10:21 talks about how the righteous will feed many. Our little olive shoots, we want them to grow up to be those who are feeders. As they are growing, we are feeding them with God’s living Word, filling them up with His Word, filling them up with His truth, so that even when they are young, they can begin to feed others.

As they continue to grow into maturity, they will be those who can feed others, feed them with God’s truth because it’s already in them. But they won’t be able to do it unless we fill them up with that wonderful food of the living Word of God.

The last point about our olive trees, number six: olive trees live forever. Well, not quite, but just about! There is a saying in Israel that the olive tree never dies. On many occasions, I’ve been to the Garden of Gethsemane and looked again at those old olive trees there in the garden just at the base of the Mount of Olives. That’s where you look over to Jerusalem, and you see the golden gate. That’s the gate that the Bible says that one day Jesus will walk through into the city.

But those trees in the Garden of Gethsemane are all gnarled and so old. The guides will often say that they have been there for two or three thousand years.

Recently I looked up on the internet, and I found a source that says the oldest olive tree is in Bethlehem, in the village of Al Walaja. Experts determine it to be four thousand to five thousand years old.

Then another source on the internet tells of an olive tree in Greece. This tree is confirmed by ring-tree analysis to be two thousand years old, but many claim it to be three thousand to four thousand years old. Some say five thousand years old. And guess what? It’s still producing fruit! Isn’t that amazing?

Of course, as we were mentioning before, our children are eternal souls who will live forever. We are not destined for this life. We are eternal souls. We, of course, are so concerned that our children will be ready for God’s eternal kingdom, that they will never reject Christ, and never, ever be rejected from that kingdom. So, we pray for them, and we minister God’s Word lovingly into their lives. We woo them into God’s kingdom.

Mothering, dear mothers, is an eternal career, because we do not have only physical children, but they have eternal souls. Our mothering is never a waste of time. It is eternal. It is the only eternal career on this earth because we are preparing eternal souls for the eternal world. How absolutely amazing!

That’s all about our little olive shoots who are going to grow into amazing olive trees who will be a blessing in this world and reveal the beauty of Jesus, who will be fruitful, and who will show forth their purpose in this life, their destiny, and who will be a light to the world, filled with the Holy Spirit. They will become food for the hungry and the needy and the hurting. Amen?

No. 16. PRINCES

Number 16: this one is where the Word of God calls our sons “princes.” I love that. Psalm 45:16: “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.” Oh, wow! I just love that! Do you have sons? If you do, take hold of that Scripture. Make it a vision as you are raising your sons “to make them princes in all the earth.”

Wow, that is just so amazing, isn’t it? Princes, princes in all the earth. That takes them into another realm. That takes them into royalty. I have some thoughts about this, because I looked up this word “princes” in the Hebrew. The word is sar, S-A-R. That’s all it is, but it has a huge meaning.

It is, of course, first used about Jesus the Messiah Himself. In Isaiah 9:6, it talks about Christ, who is the Prince of Peace. Sar Shalom, the Prince of Peace. But He is called the “Prince.” Now, why is Christ Jesus, the Messiah, called the Prince? Because the word sar means “to be a head, to be a ruler, to be a master, to be a leader, to be a nobleman, and to be a priest.” It contains all those meanings. But here, it’s talking about our sons being princes.

Let’s have a look at those meanings, shall we? We can get a vision of how we are to raise our sons to be princes in all the earth.

Firstly, sar means TO BE THE HEAD.

What does it say in the Bible in Deuteronomy 28:13? Let’s have a look at this here. “And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail. And thou shalt be ABOVE ONLY, and thou shalt not be beneath.”

Such a wonderful promise, but there is an “if.” It goes on to say, “If thou harken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them.” So, yes, God wants our sons to be the head and not the tail. To be above only and not beneath. But this just doesn’t happen automatically. It happens when they walk in the ways of the Lord, when they obey His commandments and observe to do them.

Secondly, sar means TO BE THE RULER

To be the head means that we will not be defeated by the temptations of the devil and this world, but be an overcomer. That’s how we’re training our sons. If we’re raising them to be princes, they’re not going to be sons who are overcome by evil and all the things of this world that are alluring our sons. They’re not going to be just looking at their iPhones all day, people who don’t have any purpose. No, no. They are learning to overcome the enemy.

We need to encourage and raise our sons to know how to overcome the enemy. We can go to 1 John. I love this Scripture because it’s speaking directly to sons here, to young men.

1 John 2:13: “I write unto you young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one.” Go to verse 14, and he says it again: “I have written unto you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abideth in you, and you have overcome the wicked one.”

What a wonderful testimony for young men! Oh, precious mothers, oh, take that Scripture. Pray over it and seek to raise your young men to be princes and to know how to overcome the enemy.

You see here three things. John is writing, and he says, “Young men, I’m writing to you because, 1) you are strong, strong in the Lord, and the power of His might.”

2) “the Word of God abides in you.” Isn’t that amazing? It doesn’t say, “Well, you know, you hear the Word of God at church on Sunday.” No, the Word of God abides in you! That’s how they become strong. We cannot make our young men to be strong in this difficult, deceived, and evil world unless the Word of God abides in them.

We have to get that Word into them. Hopefully you are having morning and evening devotions in your home where you are reading the Word of God to them and they’re getting it day by day. As your children get to a certain age, you encourage them to have their own quiet time. Well, they used to call it “quiet time.” I don’t know why people use that term “quiet time,” but anyway, you use whatever term you like.

But it’s a time where they get away personally with God. Before they start the day, you encourage your children to make that a habit of their life, that they start the day with God personally, where they open the Word of God, and they read it. You give them a reading plan so  they know where to read. They read the Word, and they pray, and they have that personal time with the Lord.

Then, of course, we’re going to have our family time with our family devotions morning and evening. Little by little, day by day, the Word of God is getting into them.

3) “and you have overcome the wicked one.” Well, how did they overcome? Because the Word of God was abiding in them. That’s how Jesus overcame the wicked one when the devil came to tempt Him. We read in Matthew 4:4: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

We teach our children this is the way you live. Don’t live by your feelings. You live by the Word of God; every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Every time the devil came to tempt Jesus, what did He say? “It is written” and He spoke forth the Word of God. And the devil left Him. Every time we speak that Word.

Here we have the principles to raise our sons to know how to overcome the wicked one, because that’s part of being the head, and not the tail, isn’t it?

Of course, we will teach them not to be subservient to the lusts of this world, but to reign in life with Christ. Romans 5:17 tells us about reigning in life. One day we’re going to reign with Christ, but we have to learn how to reign now.  

In Titus 2, it talks about that. I may give that to you in another point here. OK, because to be a prince means to be the head. It means you’re going to overcome the enemy. You’re not going to be underneath the enemy, and you’re not going to be bound down with bondages. No, you’re overcoming the enemy. You’re the head, and not the tail. It means to be a ruler. A ruler, yes! To rule! Amen!

I think this is one of the greatest Scriptures for our young people. It’s Proverbs 16:32. It’s a Scripture that I believe should be a memory verse if they don’t already know it. If your sons, in fact, all your children, don’t know this Scripture, I think it would be a great one to get out and make a memory verse in your home: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”

That is powerful. That Scripture says that someone who can rule their spirit is more powerful than an army taking a city. So, we teach our children how to rule their spirit. We do this even by the way we treat them.

Often parents, even from an early age, gratify their children with every whim and fancy. When they whine for something, something we know we’re not able to give them, or would not be good for them, we say, “No.” But then they keep whining, and they keep on, and they keep on. Many parents will let them keep on whining until they get so sick of it, they’ll give it to them!

That is the worst training in the whole of the world! You’ve just taught your child that if you keep on whining and whining and whining, they’ll eventually get it. So, they think they’ll get what they want if they go about it that way. That is not someone who knows how to rule their spirit! When our children keep pestering, well, you’d better deal with it. They need to know that your “no” is “no.”

Even with food; I have seen parents who put food their child does not like, “Oh, OK, darling, well, would you like this?” And they’ll give them something else. [whining] “I don’t like that either!” Well, then they’ll find something else. How disgusting! You’re training your child for problems and defeat. They’re never going to rule their spirits. We have to teach our children how they have to overcome their feelings and their little wants.

Of course, we going to always give our children their real needs. We are parents, and we meet their real needs, but not all these little things that are not right and that are not necessary. They have to learn, even children have to learn how to deny themselves. Yes, little by little. They may not be able to learn it like an adult can. But little by little, it will be much easier if they learn it when they are little.

What does Titus 2:11 say? “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying,” do you notice that word? Denying. “Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.”

In Matthew 16:24, Jesus also said, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” There’s that word “deny” again. There are things that children may want, but really, they’re not good for them, or they don’t need them.

They don’t have to have something every time they go to town. In fact, sometimes you’ve got to sit down with your children and say, “We’re going out. We’re going to get the groceries. Today we’re not buying anything extra. We’re just getting our groceries that will be our food for the this week. It will be all wonderful food to nourish you all up, and you’ll have plenty to eat. But don’t ask me for anything else.” Now, if you tell them that, you keep to your word. In fact, if they start asking you for something else, you might just have to go home. Take them home. Or you may have to deal with them later.

Or, you may like to say, “OK, children, today we’re going out to get groceries. I’m going to buy you each one treat, OK?” You can tell them what it is, or they can choose. “But don’t ask me for any other. We’re just going to have one.” But you decide whatever you want to do.

What you decide, that is what you keep to, so they learn, OK, that’s it. They don’t keep whining for other things. They have to be satisfied with what they have. OK? That’s all part of learning to be a prince, someone who knows how to rule their spirit. They can never be a ruler of anything in this world unless they’ve learned to rule their spirit. We first learn to rule our spirit.

The Message Bible is really a paraphrase, but sometimes it can say some pretty good words. I like this paraphrase of Colossians 3:5-6, where it tells us to: “kill off the tendency of doing whatever you feel like, whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings, instead of God.” That’s a pretty good word, isn’t it?

Ladies, I just can’t believe it but our time has gone again, and I’ve still got more to tell you about raising princes. So, we’ll have to do that next time, because, oh my, it’s so important to raise princes.

Oh, and as you’re doing this, you can call your son your prince. “Oh, Danny, do you know that God has given you to me to be a prince? And He’s chosen you to be a prince in all the earth.” That’s what the Bible says, making princes in all the earth.

“Yes, now, Gilbert, do you know that God wants you to be a prince? That means you are royalty. You belong to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and He wants you to grow up to be a prince on this earth, walking in this world like one who belongs to the kingdom of God, who belongs to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”

We’ve got to take our children to a HIGHE PLANE. We don’t want to relegate them to “kids,” do we? No, we’re speaking words into them that will take them to a much higher plane. Amen?

“Oh, dear Father, we thank You for all the wonderful words in Your precious living Word. We thank You. We thank You, Lord, that as we look at them, You are helping us in our mothering, and in the training, and cultivating, and pruning of our children.

“Lord, I pray for every mother today. I pray that You will bless her and fill her with Your wisdom. Show her, Lord, how You want her to train her children, with love, and Lord, with affirmation and encouragement. But also raising them to a higher plane. Oh God, I ask that You will help them, and You will pour Your Holy Spirit into them. I ask this in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THIS PODCAST, “LIFE TO THE FULL” WITH NANCY CAMPBELL.” DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 299: Is There a Better Word Than “Kids,” Part 3

Check out more names that God delights to call our children. Yes, they are better than the word "kids." 

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! This is podcast 299. That means next week will be 300. Well, I think that is quite special. So, I thought that if there are any of you who maybe listened to the last 300, no, not 300. That would be just about too much. But anyone who’s listened to the last 100, and you haven’t missed one, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and tell me. I will have to send you something special, because I think that would be pretty amazing. So, if you haven’t missed one in the last 100, do write and tell me, won’t you?

All right. Now, I must remind you about our coming retreat. We have one this coming weekend! This is for ladies. It’s in Washington state in Olympia. I have been doing ladies’ retreats here for so many years. Here we are again, this coming weekend in fact, at the Black Lake Bible Camp on March 8-10. That’s this weekend. I know it’s last minute, but you can still get in. We always take ladies at the last minute at our Above Rubies retreats. If you want to find out about it, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. OK?

And we also have coming up very soon our Family Camp. We have ladies’ camps, and we have family ones. Our biggest family one is in April at the Laguna Christian Retreat Center, right on the beach in Panama City, Florida. It’s such a beautiful spot. We have families coming from all over the nation, even from up north in Canada, coming down to get some sun down in Florida.

If you would love to come to this retreat, it’s a week long. We used to have only a weekend retreat, but it just wasn’t enough for the families. So, now we have a week long. It’s such a popular retreat for the whole family. You bring all your children, all your teens, all your older adults in your family. In fact, there are usually more young people than even parents. And of course, loads of children.

It’s such a wonderful time of great fellowship and teaching and encouragement, interaction and fellowship together. Marvelous times for the young people. Wonderful fellowship for them with other godly young people, and great sporting competitions with basketball and volleyball, and so many things going on. This camp just “goes” from beginning to end. It’s so amazing. I know you’ll just love to be part of this.

If you want to register, you can go to https://AboveRubiesGulfCoast.com. For more information, call Allison Hartman, who is the great organizer of this retreat, at 850-995-9090. They still have some housing left, but it’s going so quickly so be in! You can come down. You can be on the beach and have a wonderful time with your family, and be encouraged, and blessed, and fortified in your wonderful walk of raising godly children in this deceived hour. Come if you can. We’d love to have you with us!

Now we are continuing our series called “IS THERE A BETTER WORD THAN KIDS?” I started off telling you how most of us use the word “kids,” or we used to. I’ve kicked the habit. I hope you have too. This is our third part in this series. You’ve had a couple of weeks or so. I wonder if you’ve kicked the habit yet, to stop calling your children “kids,” which is a very humanistic word. Go back and listen to the other podcasts if you didn’t get to hear them.

Now I’m in the middle of telling you some other words that you can use. Of course, these words that I’m giving you are biblical words of what God calls our children. They may not be the everyday words you will call your children. You’ll find your own words, your own endearing and special words that you have for your children. It’s such a wonderful thing to call your children endearing words. Think of wonderful, endearing, and loving words to call your children. But these are biblical ones. They are very good for us to know. You can sometimes call them these names as well.

We are up to number eight. I have 20 different biblical words.

No. 8. GIFTS

They are gifts, gifts from the Lord. Let’s read a few Scriptures, shall we? We’ll go to Genesis 33:4-5. This is when Jacob is coming back to the land to meet his brother Esau again. It says in verse four: “And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who are those with thee? And he said, The children which God hath graciously given thy servant.” Jacob acknowledges that the children that God has given to him are given to him by God. He didn’t get them. No, God gave them to him.

We go over to Genesis 48:8-9. This is when Jacob, called Israel in this particular verse, is blessing his children: “And Israel [also called Jacob] beheld Joseph's sons, and said, who are these? And Joseph said unto his father, They are my sons, whom God hath given me in this place. And he said, Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I will bless them both.” But do you notice once again that Joseph also acknowledges: “These are the children who God has given to me.” You see, it is God Who gives us our children. We don’t get them by ourselves. They are gifts from God.

Let’s go over to Joshua 24:3-4: “And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac. And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau.” So, here God is saying about Abraham, “I gave you Isaac.” Once again, he didn’t get him all on his own. God gave him Isaac. And then God gave to Isaac Jacob and Esau. God is the giver of children.

I love the passage in Ruth 4:13 where it says: “So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son.” Who gave her conception? It wasn’t herself. It’s only God who can give conception.

Then we go over to 1 Chronicles 25. This is a passage that is talking about the temple musicians, the musicians that David chose to worship God and prophesy on their instruments in the temple. There were three very anointed and incredible musicians. They were Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun.

When we go to verse five, it’s talking about Heman (Hey-mahn), I think that’s how you’re meant to pronounce it. It’s spelled “HeMan.” It says: “All these were the sons of Heman, the king's seer in the words of God, to lift up the horn. And God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters. All these were under the hands of their father for song in the house of the LORD.”

But what we see, of course, is that God gave Heman these children. He gave him 17 children! Wow! Fourteen sons and three daughters and He gave them all to help him in his ministry of the song in the temple of the Lord.

OK! Some more Scriptures yet. I love Psalm 127:3 in the Message Bible, where it says: “Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift? The fruit of the womb His generous legacy.” Yes, they are our best gifts, aren’t they, dear mothers? God forbid, but if any of us had a fire in our homes, what would we do? The first thing we want to do is save our children! All the other stuff is only stuff that can burn up, but, oh, our children are our best gifts, given to us from the hand of God.

Let’s read Jeremiah 1:5. And God, speaking to Jeremiah, says: “Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee. Before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” One day I was checking out that word “ordained,” and in the Hebrew, it is the word nathan. It’s a primary word, meaning, “to give.”

In other words, God is saying, and it’s an amazing Scripture, because He says to Jeremiah, “Even before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee.” Even before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you, and I gave you, I gave you to be a prophet unto the nations. What a powerful Scripture! God planned Jeremiah’s future before he was even conceived.

But dear ladies, every child that God has given you, God knew them before He gave them to you. Even before they were conceived, God knew them. He knew them before the foundation of the world. He knew their destiny. He planned their destiny, and He gave them to you as a gift. But not only to you.

He gives your children as a gift to the world, because every one of our children have a purpose. God has made them unique. He has put a destiny upon them. He has a purpose for them and they are a gift, not only for us, but they are a gift to the world. That’s why our great blessing and responsibility is to prepare them for their destiny that God has for them.

Who knows what our children will do in this life? I’m looking back now. I’m not just a grandmother, but a great-grandmother. I’m seeing the things that our children are doing for God in this world, things that I could not even have ever dreamed of, or imagined. But now there are our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. What will they do? How will they serve God? Who is God going to raise them up to be?

Of course, we pray that they will all be great godly mothers and fathers, but many of them will have destiny upon them, to reach many people for the Lord. They are a gift to the nation and to the world. Isn’t that wonderful? So, lovely ladies, remind your children that they are gifts from God.

You can tell them, “You are my gift from the Lord! But do you know what? You’re not only my gift that God has given to me but you are a gift to the world. God has got a special anointing, a special purpose for you that He wants you to fulfill. Yes, you are a special gift that God has brought in to bless this world.” Remind your children that they are gifts from God. Not only to you, but to the world. Amen?

No. 9. OUR GLORY

Our children are not only gifts, but they are our glory! This is number nine, and we’re going in alphabetical order. Glory. Now, we see this in the Scripture in Hosea 9:11. This Scripture is actually in the context of God bringing judgement upon Israel.

But even in this context, we realize that our children are our glory. It says: “As for Ephraim,” often God uses the word “Ephraim” for Israel. “As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird,” because God is bringing judgement on them. What is their glory? It goes on to say: “From the birth and from the womb and from conception.” God was going to take away their glory. Their glory.

God is revealing here that the glory of the nation is our children, from conception, from the womb, from birth. These are very precious to God. They are the most precious things of the nations. Dear ladies, when conception, when the womb, and when birth are taken away, there will no longer be a nation. It will disintegrate to nothing, because everything, everything begins with the womb.

It is from the womb of the woman that children come. It is children that make the nation. Without children coming into the world, we would not even need to build houses. We would not build cities. We would not have a nation, because children come into the world and into the nation to make that nation. They make it go round.

They make it happen, because every child is going to need a home, and then, of course, they need cities, because they need shops and they need hospitals and they need everything that we build for cities to make life happen.

It all starts in the womb. In fact, every great thing that happens, or has happened, in this nation, happens through a person. And that person comes from the womb! They would not happen without the womb. So, conception, the womb, and birthing are the glory of the nation. Our children are our glory. Yes, they’re not only our glory, but they are the nation’s glory.

That is why there was a time when women were put on a pedestal. They were cared for. They were treated with honor which is how God wants us to treat women, how He wants men to treat women, how He wants the nation to treat women.

It talks about this in 1 Peter 3:7, how men are to honor their wives, and to treat them in a way that they are precious because they are the womb of the nation. There was a time when it would be unthinkable for a man not to put a woman first or to always open the door for her. To let her go first, to rescue her first. That is what a man does! It’s all because the woman brings forth the glory of the nation.

We also go to the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20. It’s Paul writing, and he’s talking about the young Thessalonian believers. He says: “You are our glory and joy.” He’s talking about when he will stand before the Lord, and present them before the Lord. But dear mothers, we have our children. Oh, yes! They are also our glory. Our glory, not only for now, but one day, when we bring them before the Lord, and present them before the Lord on that day.

No. 10. GODLY OFFSPRING

We read these words in Malachi 2:15. This is in the context of marriage. God is talking about how He hates divorce. He loves divorced people, but He hates the spirit of divorce, because it touches the godly seed. Every child from a divorce is negatively affected. There’s no one hat escapes the negatives of a divorce. That’s why God hates it because He is looking out for the godly seed.

In this passage, it asks the question, “What does God want from your union?” What does He want? And then the answer comes in verse 15: “I want a godly seed. I want godly offspring.” That’s what God looks for from a marriage. From everything thing else from our marriage, the primary thing that God looks for is offspring to come from our marriage. He looks for it. He longs for it.

When a couple get married, that should be the first thing that is on their hearts; the bringing forth of the godly seed. Isn’t it sad that today there are so many couples who go into marriage and there’s hardly one thought of having a baby? In fact, if they think about having a baby, well, the first thing they think about is “How can we stop this for a few years? Because we’ve got other things we want to do.”

Well, I have to tell you, they’re not ready for marriage. Any couple who is not ready to bring forth offspring is not ready for marriage because that’s what marriage is all about, and that’s what God looks for from the marriage union. But not just offspring. No, it’s godly seed. Godly offspring.

That word “godly” in the Hebrew is the word Elohim. When I realized that, to me it was awe-inspiring. It was actually awe-full to realize that, as I am raising my children, God is looking for godly children, children in His image who will show forth what He is like. Children, who as they grow in the ways of the Lord, and we prepare them, will go out into this world to show what God is like.

That word Elohim is the same word as Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God. In the beginning, Elohim.” Yes, that’s the word He uses. He wants Elohim children. Oh, wow! That is such a challenge to us as parents, isn’t it?

Well, when you’re telling your children that that’s one of their names, “Did you know that God calls you godly offspring? Yes, children, He’s wanting you to show what God is like so that your life will represent Him, that you will show forth His salvation and His love, and His kindness, and His justice, and His truth wherever you go.” That’s what God is looking for. Amen?

No. 11. THE HERITAGE OF THE LORD

Psalm 127:3: “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD.” That word “heritage” means “possession, property, inheritance.” Now, we’ve found that God gives us children. He gives them to us as gifts, but ultimately they belong to God. Ultimately, they are His possessions.

They are His property, and they are on loan to us from God, for He brings them to us on this earth to prepare them for their purpose and for the heavenly realm. That’s what we’re ultimately preparing them for, for the heavenly realm, for eternity, where they will live forever and ever. Isn’t that awe-inspiring?

To think that this is our career,

To raise children for the heavenly sphere!

I’m a poet, but I didn’t know it! I think that’s quite good.

Yes, this is our career, to prepare children for the heavenly sphere! Yes, dear ladies! Oh, imagine! Even in the embracing of children, this gets back to couples who want to stop having children. Imagine, when we stop, or try to stop, having children, when we deliberately try to stop, we are deliberately stopping someone from having the opportunity of one day living in the glory of eternity forever and ever. How can we deny someone that, that God wanted to come into this world? Because God knows who He wants to come into this world.

Sadly, there are thousands missing who God intended to come into this world, because parents have stopped them. They have stopped them. They have stopped eternal souls coming into this world, who were coming in not only for this world, but for the heavenly sphere.

Not one of us can even dream or imagine. Sometimes I try, but I can’t. It’s impossible for me to even imagine the glory of heaven. It's beyond what we will ever dream. We are destined to this. Every child we bring into the world and bring into God’s kingdom will enjoy this. How terrible to stop someone from enjoying this glory! Yes, and so, they are our possessions, but ultimately God’s possessions.

No. 12. OUR HOPE

In this passage in 1 Thessalonians 2:19, where Paul is writing about the unbelievers, he uses quite a number of descriptions. Another one is hope. He says: “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?” Our children are our hope. Yes, our hope we will be presenting before the Lord. So, hope is another wonderful thing. Not disaster, but hope.

No. 13. OUR JOY

In that same Scripture, “For what is our hope, or joy? Are not even you our Joy in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ?” We’re going to present them before the Lord. Oh, we’re going to pray, and we’re going to do everything in our power to woo them into the kingdom of God, and into His ways, that they will be ready on that day when Jesus comes, or when they go to meet the Lord. That they will be ready, so we can present them with great joy. Our children are our joy, of course. Yes. Our joy and our hope.

I’m thinking of another Scripture there. Let me go over to it. It’s just coming to mind now. Here it is, ladies. Luke 1:13: “But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth.”

I love that Scripture, because God is telling them, when this son is given to you, you will have joy and gladness. But I believe that is for every mother. Yes, it was especially for Zacharias and Elizabeth, but it is for you, mother.

Of course, I know you’ve experienced this with every new baby that comes. Oh my, maybe when this beautiful child was conceived, you thought, “Oh, wow, how are we going to manage? How are we going to fit this baby in?” But when this baby arrives, this baby always fits in. There’s never a baby that doesn’t fit in. And, oh, you experience such joy, and such gladness. This is what God gives us children for, to give us joy and gladness.

Don’t forget to remind your children. Yes, you can call them “my joy.” “Yes, Susie, you are my joy! You give me such joy.” I know some of you even call your children joy, or joyful. You can call your children wonderful names like that. But remind them that they are your joy. Yes, these are the names that God speaks over our children, so let us speak them over our children. Amen?

Let me give you just one more for this session. Then we’ll have to do the rest next session.

No. 14. LAMBS

Isaiah 40:11: “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.”

This is the opposite of “kids.” We are kicking that habit of calling our children “kids.” It’s a humanistic word. We don’t want to belong to the goat mother company who leave their children while they go off to the career, or to do their thing. No, sheep mothers never leave their little lambs. Yes, we are His sheep, and the sheep of His pasture. We are sheep mothers and we have little lambs.

You can call your little ones (you won’t be calling your big ones your lambs) but your little ones, you can call your lambs. I know my daughter Serene often calls her little babies, and her little ones, her lambkins. It’s such a beautiful name. When you call your little ones your lambs, it brings that beautiful tenderness in your heart. Oh, it’s such a much better word than “kids,” isn’t it? So, don’t forget that one.

We’ve come to the end of this session so quickly.

“Dear Father, I thank You that You have given us all these beautiful names to call our children. Lord, they lift us up to the truth of what You believe and see about our children. Help us, Lord God, to refrain from using these humanistic words, and instead, to use the words that You give us, and to use loving words and endearing words, because words have such power. Help us, Lord God, to bring such affirmation and encouragement to our children through the words that we use, and even the words that we call them. We ask this in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 298: Is There a Better Word Than “Kids,” Part 2

We begin the descriptions God gives of our children in the Bible—Arrows, Blessings, Crowns, Enemy Silencers, Flourishing Sons, Fruit of the Womb, Beloved Fruit of the Womb—and 13 more to come!

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! We’re continuing today to talk about the words that we call our children. I was challenging you last week about calling your children “kids” which belongs to goat mothering. Well, we’ve had a week since the last session. I wonder if any of you have kicked the habit? I wonder. I wish I could see you all and see your hands being raised! Well, if you didn’t manage to do it, just keep trying.

But now in this session, I want to get onto the positive. What should we call our children? If you can’t call them “kids,” what on earth do you call them? Of course, we can call them “children” which is what God calls them. The word “children” is actually a wonderful name, especially in the Bible. It comes from the word banah which means “to build.”

Actually, I should say that in the Hebrew God has given so many different words for “children.” I have listed here 48 different Hebrew words for the word “children.” God so loves children that He doesn’t just have one word. The most common word is ben. You become familiar with that when you hear Jewish names like Ben Gurion, who was the first prime minister of Israel.

Ben Yehuda was the man whom God put His hand upon to restore the Hebrew language so that when the Israelites, the Jews, began to come back from the four corners of the world speaking all their different languages, there would be a language for them all to speak. Because for 2,000 years, the Hebrew language had been forgotten, except biblically.

But there was not a spoken language. They could not speak everyday language, so this man actually gave his life to put this together. You can look up the internet and look for books about Ben Yehuda. They are worth reading. I’ve read a couple of them. I think the one I loved the best was called The Tongue of the Prophets. It’s the story of how Ben Yehuda restored and created this Hebrew language that is spoken today in Israel. Wow! It’s such an amazing story.

The word ben means “son of so-and-so,” but in the Hebrew it means “the builder of the family name.” When you call your children, not just kids, which is not a good thing to speak into your children because goats and kids have a very different nature from sheep. They’re not submissive. They’re not meek. They are proud. They are dominant. They’ve always got to be the top dog.

We had a pet goat as we were growing up. It was my brother’s little goat. He had this goat for years. He called her Jilly. She was his very special friend. But oh goodness me! We were always in trouble with the neighbors because she would go and eat their flowers, and eat their trees, and eat the clothes off their clothesline. We did have a back paddock at our home. She was supposed to stay in that, but she’d always be getting out. She would always find the highest thing to stand on because goats have to be dominant. They have to be in the highest place. Sheep are the opposite to that.

So we don’t want to be calling our children “kids.” And we don’t want to belong to the goat mothering company. So why not call them “children”? You can tell your children what that word means. “Children, do you know that you are helping to build this family? That’s what the word “children” means! The builder of the family name! You’re helping to build this family name. We want to have a name that’s true and righteous.” As they know that, they’re not going to grow up wanting to do anything to destroy or bring dishonor to the family name! It’s important for them to know what the word “children” means.

Of course, you’ll call them what you chose to call them. You’ll most probably have nicknames for your children. And you have all your most endearing names. Everybody has their different names. They call them their darlings, precious, my treasure, and sweetie-pie, and honey-pops. Wow! I love to hear all the different names that you love to call your lovely special children. They’re all wonderful names.

But I did find 20 names that God calls our children and how He describes our children. So I’m going to give you these words because I think it’s great to know them. You’re not going to call your children these words all the time, but you can from time to time, so they know who God sees them to be.

I’ve got them, I think, mostly in alphabetical order. Forgive me. I have 20 points. I am always finding so many points. I’m sorry. I’m never, “OK, we’re having our session today, and there will be points one, two, and three.” I can never keep to one, two, three because the Word of God is so full! There is always so much!

IT’S A MORE AND MORE LIFE

As I begin to look up and to study, I find more and more and more! It’s the more and more! The Bible is more and more. That’s why I love that Scripture in Proverbs 4:18 where it says: “The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” The Word of God is more and more. You can read it on the surface, yes, and you will be blessed. But if you take time to meditate, if you take time to study and search, you will find more and more!

Our Christian life is more and more. If you are not gaining more and more every day, if you’re not walking more and more in God’s ways, something is wrong. Because the Christian life is not a stagnant life. It does not stay the same. We’re never meant to stay the same! We are meant to be growing in the Lord. Of course, I shared with you 40 different positive words for us to be speaking in our homes. Now I’m going to share with you 20 different descriptions God gives of our children.

No. 1 ARROWS

All right! Number one: He calls them “arrows.”

Psalm 127:4: “As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of your youth.” You’re not going to be calling your six-foot teenager “sweetie-pie or honey-pops.” They’re not going to like that very much. But you can call them your “arrow.” Yes, that’s a good name.

Just remind them that they are arrows in God’s army and God has given them to you to polish and sharpen and prepare so that they will be ready to hit the mark as you send them forth as they get older. We are arrow-polishers. Our children are arrows being sharpened and made ready for that time. We don’t send them forth immediately. No, we’ve got to get them sharpened and honed and ready to go forth, to hit the mark, and to do damage to the enemy. Amen?

In fact, the Bible has quite a lot of descriptions about arrows.

He calls them READY ARROWS - Psalm 21:12

We’ve got to make them ready. I’ll give you the Scriptures for each one in my transcript. I know you won’t have time to write them down. You’re most probably on a walk, doing dishes, doing something.

He calls them POLISHED ARROWS - Isaiah 49:2

That’s what we’ve got to do, isn’t it? Polish them up.

He calls them PIERCING ARROWS - Numbers 24:8

He wants us to get them ready so they can pierce right through the enemy lines!

He calls them SCATTERING ARROWS – 2 Samuel 22:15

So that they will grow up and know how to scatter the enemy. He calls them “sticking-fast arrows.”

He calls them SHARP ARROWS – Psalm 45:5

Are we sharpening ours? We don’t want to send forth our children into this world blunt. No, we’ve got to have them ready and sharpened.

He calls them BRIGHT ARROWS – Jeremiah 51:11

He calls them LIGHT GIVING ARROWS - Habakkuk 3:11

He calls them GOING ABROAD ARROWS – Psalm 77:17

He calls them DESTROYING ARROWS – Psalm 144:6

He calls them HITTING THE MARK ARROWS – Jeremiah 50:9

Yes. Jeremiah 50:9: “Their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man. None shall return in vain.”

He calls them SHOOTING ARROWS – Psalm 64:7 and 144:6

He calls them ON FIRE ARROWS – Psalm 120:4

And the last one is DELIVERING ARROWS – 2 Kings 13:14-19

That’s an interesting passage, 2 Kings 13:14. This was at the end of Elisha’s life. He was getting ready to go into the eternal realm. He was sick but he called for Joash, the king of Israel.

“And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands. And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the LORD'S deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou hath consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote the arrows three times, and stopped.”

And then it goes on to say: “And the man of God was angry with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice. And Elisha died, and they buried him.”

Wow! That’s a rather sad story. The great prophet died an angry, sad man because the king did not have the vision for smiting the enemy. He only smote the arrows three times. God said they would have deliverance from Syria three times. But he could have smote  more. He didn’t have the vision.

We’ve got to give a vision to our children. They are arrows. When we’re getting them ready so that they will be ready to smite the enemy and smite the enemy until they win the victory. Not just stopping halfway through. Amen? You can call your children arrows, your little ones, and your older ones. They won’t mind that word.

1. 2.     BLESSINGS

In Deuteronomy 33:24, it says: “Let Asher be blessed with children.” We know that children are the blessing of the Lord.

Deuteronomy 28:4: “Blessed shall be the fruit of thy womb.” Then, it goes on to say: “And the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle,” and it goes on.

That’s a wonderful Scripture because it gives us such an amazing principle here. God says, “Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb. I’m putting my blessing upon the children who come forth from your womb. I will bless them, and I will bless you.” But then, it goes on to say, “But I’m also going to bless your cattle, and bless your ground, and bless your store,” and it goes on and on—all the blessings which you can read in Deuteronomy 28, the blessing chapter, but the very first blessing is the fruit of the womb.

Now sadly, some mothers will stop receiving and embracing the fruit of the womb because they think, “Oh, how will I provide for them if we keep having more children?” But what they don’t understand is the principle of this Scripture, that when God blesses you with children, then He blesses everything else in you home. The provision, the provision of your food, and the provision of your store, and everything you need.

Go back and read these Scriptures in Deuteronomy 28 again. You will see that’s where the provision comes. If you don’t have the fruit of the womb, why is God going to bless you with cattle, and increase of sheep, and this and that? No, you don’t need it, because His blessing, His provision is for the fruit of the womb, which is the first blessing.

So every time He blesses you again with the fruit of the womb, you don’t know how it’s going to happen. You can’t see it, but God will do it. Oh yes, He always does it. He will provide for this baby. He will provide for this child in a miraculous way. All you have to do is trust Him. He will do it. You obey and trust. Yes, “Trust and obey for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” That’s all you have to do, and God will show forth His mighty right hand.

You can call them your blessings. As I was raising our children back in the early years of our children, back in New Zealand, I had a dear friend. I had a Bible study of ladies who would come every week. It was a wonderful time of encouraging one another. Usually there were more babies and children than mothers.

One of these mothers had three little children who were really quite difficult. I do have to admit, they were not easy. She was sort of always tearing her hair out, really. In the end she was calling them brats. They were brats! I had to secretly agree with her. They were brats! Oh goodness me! But God spoke to her and He said to this mother, “You are calling your children the wrong names. I call them “blessings.” I call them “rewards.” I want you to change your vocab and call them what I call them.”

This precious mother loved the Lord and wanted to walk in obedience to the Lord. She began to call her children “my blessings.” She would come to Bible study, and that’s how she would address her children. It was time to go. “Come on, blessings! We’re going now. Come with Mommy. Come, come, blessings!”

She began to continually call her children “ blessings.” It was amazing. It just shows you the power of words because those little brats actually, little by little, became blessings! They actually changed their behavior. Their behavior changed as she called them “my rewards,” and “my blessings,” and “my treasures.” As she called them the words that God calls our children, her children changed. It was so amazing to see.

No. 3. CROWN OF REJOICING

1 Thessalonians 2:19-20; Paul is writing about the new believers in Thessalonica. He says of them: “For what is our hope? Or joy? Or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For you are our glory and joy.”

He was confessing that when he stands before the Lord on that great day, when we will all stand before the Lord, that he will be able to present these new believers, whom he had poured his life into, and they would be his crown of rejoicing before the Lord. That’s who he would present to the Lord.

Dear mothers, how much more our own children that God has given us? He wants us to pour our lives into them, to pour His truth into them, to prepare these children to be ready to meet the Lord one day. To prepare them for the destiny God has for them here. But they will be our crown of rejoicing when we stand before Him on that day. Oh, may that be true of our children.

Now, the word “crown,” that’s a word that can also be used for grandchildren.

Proverbs 17:6: “Children’s children are the crown of old men.” Grandfathers can call their grandsons, “You are my crown!” Grandmothers can do that. If grandmothers are listening today, even any grandfathers, your grandchildren are your crown. Amen?

No. 4. ENEMY SILENCERS

Psalm 8:2 (BSB): “From the mouths of children and infants, You have ordained praise on account of your adversary, to silence the enemy and the avenger.” What a powerful Scripture! God is saying that little babies and children have the power to still the voice of the enemy, and silence his voice.

The Passion Translation says: “You have built a stronghold by the songs of children. Strength rises up with the chorus of infants. This kind of praise has power to shut satan’s mouth.” Every time you bring a new baby into the world, and you begin to nurture this little one, and begin to pour God’s Word into this little child, you are raising another arrow, another weapon against the enemy. Every child that grows in the ways of the Lord, and is being prepared to stand for truth and righteousness, is a weapon against the enemy.

Yes, little babies can silence the enemy, silence the avenger. Babies have power. In fact, there’s a great, famous quote from Frank Boreham. In it he says that “When God wants to do something mighty, what does He do? He brings a baby into the world, and that baby is prepared for God to use that baby to do the things that God wants done in the world.” (my quote from memory). Oh, never underestimate the power of bringing another baby into the world.”

I’m thinking also of a Scripture in Psalm 107:41: “Yet setteth He the poor on high from affliction, and maketh Him families like a flock.” This is what God loves to do. He loves to make families! That’s His heart. That’s His plan from the very beginning. And how does He make His families? He makes His families like a flock. Now, a flock is more than one or two. You can’t really have a flock of sheep . . .  just one or two is not a flock. You’ve got to have a few more than that!

When you go over to Israel, you can see the Bedouin shepherds sometimes walking out over the desert places. You see them with their little flocks. They don’t have a huge flock. The shepherds in Israel are far different from our sheep farming in New Zealand where I grew up. The sheep farmers in New Zealand have thousands of sheep. They have to go out on their horses, and with their dogs, to round up the sheep for shearing and dipping and so on. It is so different.

In Israel, and this is where God shows us His heart for shepherds and sheep, they just have a small flock. Maybe ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty or so sheep, Usually they have goats with them. When you’re looking from far away, you can’t tell the difference between the goats and the sheep because their goats look very much like their sheep.

That’s why, when we read that Scripture in Matthew 25, God says, “I’m waiting until the end times to separate the goats from the sheep.” They’re going to be together. We do see in the church they’re growing up together, the goats and the sheep. Even in the church, there are sheep who are the real true, genuine believers and disciples of Jesus.

And then there are those who are, what you would say, Christians in name only! They are the goats. One day, God is going to separate them. The sheep on the right, the goats on the left.

They shepherds do have a little flock, but it’s more than one or two. God wants to make your family a flock. Yes, a flock. Just remember, that’s all right.

Let’s continue reading on here. Psalm 107:42-43: “The righteous shall see it and rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth.” Get that! “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.” What is it saying here? God wants to make families like a flock. The righteous will see that and they will rejoice. When the righteous see God giving another baby to a family, they rejoice!

Isn’t it amazing, that that doesn’t always happen in real life, even in the church of God today. I receive calls and messages from many women who, when they’re having another baby, they’re quite distraught. “What am I going to do? How am I going to tell my mother? How am I going to tell my mother-in-law? They don’t want us to have any more children!”

And sometimes they won’t even speak to their daughter or daughter-in-law because they’re having another baby! That is unbelievable! They are totally on a wrong track. They do not understand the Bible or the heart of God.

But this word says: “the righteous will see it and rejoice, and all iniquity will stop its mouth.” Because the Word says that babies and children come into the world, that they will still the voice of the enemy and the avenger. “And whoso is wise will observe these things, and they understand that this is the lovingkindness of the Lord.” Amen? Did you get that beautiful message from Psalm 107?

No. 5. FLOURISHING SONS

Yes, you can tell your sons that they are flourishing. “You are my flourishing son!”

Let’s go to Psalm 144. David is praying here, in this psalm. In verse 11, he says: “Rid me and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is the right hand of falsehood.”

David is praying, “We’ve got to get rid of all this evil and falsehood and lies and deception in our land.” Why did he want to do that? For one reason: “that our sons may be as plants, grown up their youth.” Yes, he didn’t want them to be contaminated and pulled away by the deceptions around.

Even in this day in which we are raising children, it is a challenge, because we are living in a deceived world, and we are seeking to raise children who will be young men and women of truth and righteousness and integrity, and who will not be lured in by the deceptions of this world. David was praying his prayer. This is what he longed for: “that our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth.”

Let’s look at some other translations.

The New Living Translation: “May our sons flourish in their youth like well-nurtured plants.”

The Amplified says: “That our sons will be grown large in their youth,”

I like the Youngs Translation. Many of you will be familiar with the Strong’s Concordance. There is also a Youngs Concordance. This is the Youngs that gives this translation of the Bible, which is very accurate to the Hebrew: “That our sons are as plants, becoming great in their youth.” Don’t you love that? We’re not raising sons to hope that one day they’ll be great, mature adults when they are older. No! We are raising sons who will be becoming great even in their youth!

A few weeks back, I did two podcasts with Allison Hartman about raising children to be adults. If you didn’t get those, go back and listen to them. They are great, because that is our whole purpose as parents. We’re not raising children to keep them as children, and growing up into silly little giggling teenagers. No, we are growing children to be mature.

And our sons, this is the picture God gives of our sons; becoming great in their youth! Yes, the word there is gadal, and it means, “to make large.” That’s what the Amplified brings out. “Growing large in their youth, growing large in body, mind, and honor. To exceed, to be excellent, to be magnificent.” That is the picture there of our sons. So, dear ladies, this is how God describes them. Flourishing sons becoming great in their youth.

No. 6. FRUIT OF THE WOMB

Psalm 127:3: “Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward.” Yes, our children are the fruit of our wombs. Beautiful.

No. 7. BELOVED FRUIT OF THE WOMB

The Bible doesn’t only say that our children are the fruit of the womb, but beloved fruit of the womb! How do you like that? Hosea 9:16 calls them “the beloved fruit of the womb.” The context of this passage is that God was going to destroy their beloved fruit of the womb because of their continual disobedience.

But we see, as God says these words, how He sees their children, and how the Israelites themselves

“Their cherished offspring.”

“Their precious ones of their wombs.”

“Their dearest offspring.”

“Their darlings.”

“Their much-loved little ones.”

You can call your children that. “You are the beloved fruit of my womb.” “Yes, you’re my precious offspring.” “You’re my darling.” “You’re the precious one of my womb.” These are biblical phrases you can call your children, rather that the word “kids.”

All right! Well, I’m ready for the next one, but I think this one will take me too long. I think we’re coming to the end, so we’re going to have to have another session because we’re only up now to number eight. Wow! There’s so much more in the Word of how God describes our children.

I trust, dear mothers, that you are working on kicking the habit of calling your children “kids.” You don’t want to belong to this goat-mothering company! You’re beginning to think of other wonderful words to call your children.

“Dear Father, I pray that You will pour out Your blessing on every family listening today. Lord God, I pray that You will fill their homes with Your joy, and with laughter, and, Lord God, with Your unity, and with Your beautiful longsuffering and kindness and happiness. Lord, make their homes places where You dwell. I ask this in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 297: Is There a Better Word Than “Kids”? Part 1

If you’re in the groove, you most probably call them kids, without even thinking. It’s the norm and we all gravitate to the norm. But is it the best word? Check out this podcast.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies, and teens, and children. Maybe husbands! Here we are together again, and we’re continuing to talk about our words. You will remember the last two podcasts I talked about all the positive words that we should be speaking in our homes. That was such a good thing to talk about. Great to talk about the positive, isn’t it? If we could fill our homes with all these positive words, wow! They would be homes that would be filled with the blessing of the Lord. If you didn’t get to hear them, go back and listen to those two podcasts.

Today I want to get on to something very interesting about some words we speak in our homes, but before I do, I want to speak about some negative words. I don’t really like speaking about negative words, but God put warnings in His Word about negative words, so we can’t just let them go by. We’ve got to read them as well because they keep us from going down that road of speaking these negative words.

Now here are a few warnings that God has given us regarding our words.

Psalm 34:12-14: “What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.” Those same words there in the Old Testament are repeated again in the New Testament in 1 Peter 3:10-11. We get it in the Old and we get it in the New. A double banger.

Proverbs 10:19: “In the multitude of words, there wanteth not sin. But he that refraineth his lips is wise.” My, that Scripture has always been such a challenge to me. I find that the more you hang out and talk, and talk about sometimes hardly anything worthwhile, the more you talk, the more likelihood there is of saying the wrong thing, and of sinning. I think we do have to be careful about watching our words. Oh, how the psalmist prayed, “Put a watch, O Lord, on the door of my lips!” (Psalm 14:3). Oh, isn’t it scary what comes out of our lips? Sometimes we cannot even believe it ourselves, can we?

That’s King James language. Let me give you that Scripture in some other translations. The Berean Study Bible: “When words are many, sin is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise.”

The Living Bible: oh, this is pretty good: “Don’t talk so much. You keep putting your foot in your mouth. Be sensible, and turn off the flow.” I think that’s a pretty good warning, isn’t it?

We have to watch, especially if we’re just hanging out, chatting, talking about anything and everything, that we don’t go down the wrong path. Sometimes we can start talking about people, talking about their negatives. One person says a negative, then another person says a negative.

By the way, I have found this out, and it truly works. When you say something negative about something or someone, you’ll find that other people who you’re talking to will begin to add another negative. And then someone will also add another negative, and it just gets worse and worse.

I noticed this. I thought, “Wow, I’m going to try a little experiment.” So, I also thought, If you say something positive about someone, say a good point about them, it’s amazing. You’ll find that those you’re talking to will think of a good point too. Then someone else will think of a good point. So, the good points get added. We have to be careful we don’t go down the destructive path. Instead we go on an upward path. Amen?

Proverbs 21:23: “Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from trouble.”

James 1:19: “Wherefore my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” We’re so often so quick to speak, aren’t we? Oh, my. It takes a lot to learn to be slow to speak and wait to say the right thing.

James 1:26: “If any man among you seem to be religious and bridles not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.” That whole passage in James 1 is all about the tongue. We need to read it often to keep our tongues in order.

Here are some specific warnings.

DON’T SPEAK IDLE WORDS

Don’t speak idle words. Jesus said in Matthew 12:36: “But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”

What are idle words? The word is argos in the Greek. It means “useless, lazy, worthless, careless.” Some other translations: The Amplified says, “Inoperative non-working words.” When it’s talking about someone, it’s talking about a lazy person who doesn’t do anything worthwhile. When it’s talking about our speech, it’s about, OK, we’re saying junk. It’s nothing that’s worthwhile. It’s really just a lot of waste of time.

Oh, and how many times do we speak those kinds of words? And yet, the Bible here says, in fact, Jesus Himself said that we’re going to give an account for every idle word. Oh, I’m constantly having to come before the Lord and confess words that I have spoken, and plead the blood of Jesus.

How wonderful that when we do sin, even with our lips, that we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ His Son. And we can come to Him and confess our sins. What does it say? 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And He will forgive. How wonderful that we have the blood of Jesus!

DON’T TELL LIES

I’m only giving you just a few Scriptures of the many on these subjects.

Leviticus 19:11, in the chapter on the laws of holiness it says: “You shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.”

Proverbs 12:19 & 22: “The lips of truth shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truly are His delight.”

Not only do we have to watch our own lips that no lying words come out of our lips, but we have to watch this with our children too, don’t we? Children are very prone to lying. They often lie to get out of discipline. When you ask them, “Now, who did this? Did you take that cookie out of the pantry?” “Well, no, Mommy, I didn’t!” They don’t want to have any discipline and they will lie so easily.

But, my, we have to watch out for those lies, because lying can become a habit. There are many people who lie. I know people who lie, and I don’t even believe half what they say because lying is part of their life. It’s become a habit of their lives. We’ve got to break that habit while they are young.

I think I’ve shared with you before, in training our children, I had to decide what would I do? Because children being children, they’re doing stupid things most of the day. I could be a yelling mother all day long. I had to choose. I decided that I was going to let go little childish things—when they knocked over stools, and knocked over this, they didn’t mean to. You’ve got to watch. You don’t get worked up or angry about little stuff like that but to be aware of the important things. When they disobey, when they rebel, when they lie, we’ve got to deal with those things very diligently so that they realize they are against the Lord, and they are an abomination, the Bible says. We must deal and discipline for lying so our children will get out of that habit. Never let lies go. Amen?

Here are a few Scriptures.

Proverbs 19:5: “He that seeketh lies shall not escape.”

Colossians 3:9: “Lie not one to another. Seeing that ye have put off the old man, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge.” That is talking about the old and the new man When we lie, we are giving into the old man, our old nature, the unredeemed nature.

But we have to yield to the new man, to that new creation which is in us. When we receive Christ, He comes into our lives and He is in us. This is the new man, and He is holiness. He is truth. He is love. He is kindness. He is righteousness, and when we are tempted to lie, we must yield to the new man which does not lie.

DON’T SPEEK FOOLISH WORDS

Proverbs 10: 8 & 10 repeat it: “The wise person accepts instruction, but the one who speaks foolishness will come to rue it.”

Let’s go to the New Testament. Ephesians 5:3-5: “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.”

So, what it’s saying here, not only should such things as fornication never ever once be named amongst the saints. Sadly, it does happen, even in churches today but it should not, according the Word of God, be even named amongst the saints. It goes on to say it is the same with foolish talking and jesting. It should not even be named amongst the saints.

I’m not thinking this up, ladies. This is the Word of God. I’m sure, like me, you want to live by the Word.

What does Matthew 4:4 say? “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

This is the way I want to live, by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and which has been given to us in this eternal word, this Bible which we have. It is a treasure! It is our life! Every word is life to us. Every word keeps us on the right path.

I want to take hold of every word, especially in this deceived day in which we live when people do not know the Word, so they’re not living by the Word. They’re really just living by the way of the world. But we need this Word, don’t we, to get to us to keep us on the right track.

DON’T GOSSIP

Proverbs 11:13: “A talebearer reveals secrets, but he that is of the faithful spirit concealeth the matter.” It’s repeated again in verse 19. It wasn’t enough to put it in once. God put it in twice.

Proverbs 20:20: “When no wood is, the fire goes out. Where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth.”

DON’T BE A FALSE WITNESS

That’s right back in the Ten Commandments, isn’t it? One of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:16: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” That’s actually a little bit like talebearing, isn’t it?

Just know that when you hear something, half the time you don’t even know whether it’s really true. But then you pass it on to someone else, and then it gets passed on to someone else. Then that gets passed on to someone else, and you know what happens? The story changes every time.

Have you been in a room? Sometimes we play this game at parties. You whisper a sentence to the person next to you. Then they whisper it to the next person. Then they whisper to the next person until you get around to the very end. Then the last person shares what the sentence is.

Well, it’s unbelievable, because the last person sharing is never anything like the sentence started. It just gradually changed around as people got a different word wrong. It was completely different. It’s quite hilarious. It’s worth playing that game just to see how easily truth or lies can be changed in speaking from one to the other.

So, more Scriptures. Exodus 23:1: “Thou shalt not raise a false report. Put not thine hand with the wicked, to be an unrighteous witness.”

Leviticus 19:16: “Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people.”

Proverbs 19:5, repeated again in verse 9: “A false witness shall not be unpunished.”

DON’T SPEAK RASH WORDS

Proverbs 12:18: “Speaking rashly is like a piercing sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

The New English Translation says: “Speaking recklessly (and then the commentary of that translation says (rashly or thoughtlessly) is like the thrust of the sword, but the words of the wise bring healing.”

DON’T SPEAK CORRUPT WORDS

Ephesians 4:29: “You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth.”

DON’T CURSE

Leviticus 20:9: “For everyone that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death. He that curses his father or his mother, his blood shall be upon him.”

Proverbs 20:20: “Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.”

Wow, that seems a terrible retribution for that sin, but do you know what?

Ladies, it’s not just in the Old Testament. It’s in the New as well, in Matthew 15:4: “Honor thy father and mother. He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” Wow! That’s not the Old Testament, ladies. That’s the New Testament.

Sometimes you hear mothers even cursing their children. You have heard some mothers yelling and screaming at their children in the supermarket. Isn’t it horrific? Some do it to their husbands. Help! But here in the Word of God it says that if someone does it to their father or mother, help! Look out!

Those were just a few. There are many more. Just a few warnings that God gives us in the Scriptures about our tongues that we need to be, I don’t say encouraged, but help to keep ourselves on the right track, even in our homes, in what we say to our children and what we say to our husbands.

WHAT DO YOU CALL YOUR CHILDREN?

But now, I want to talk about another word. This is a word that I think most of us say every day. It’s what we call our children. What do you call your children? I hear most people calling their children their “kids.” Just about everybody calls their children their “kids.” It’s the most common word in our society today.

But did you know, ladies, that wasn’t always the case? You don’t find the word “kids” regarding children in the Bible. In fact, if you go back to the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary, you will not find the word “kids” there to mean a word for “children.” It has been added in later years, but it was not there originally. I don’t believe that it is the word that we are meant to call our children.

Why do I think that? I have to say, of course, that when I first started having our children that I began to call them “kids” like everybody else, because that’s what everybody else called them. It just shows you how we’re all like sheep who follow the other sheep. We just do what everybody else is doing. In society we say what everybody else is saying.

That’s why we have to watch that. Is what we are saying, what we are doing, according to the Word of God? We have to constantly measure ourselves up with the plumbline of God’s Word.

Well, what set me off on a different track was that many, many years ago I read an article about a sheep farmer in New Zealand. Now, I am originally a New Zealander. I come from New Zealand. We are now US citizens here in the USA. We are so blessed to be here.

But when we left the shores of New Zealand we didn’t come straight to the USA. We went to Australia, and we were there for ten years, pastoring a church there before we came to the States. But I was in Australia when I read this article. It was about a farmer who had diversified from raising sheep, because in New Zealand, sheep farming is so prevalent. We have more sheep than people. There are thousands of sheep feeding on the hillsides of New Zealand.

But this sheep farmer diversified into raising goats as well. He wrote in this article that he noticed a very interesting thing. The ewes, that’s the mother sheep, remain close to their little lambs, but he noticed that the goats would herd their little kids together, maybe on a little knoll of a hill, and they’d leave them for quite a few hours, and go off and forage for food. They didn’t provide that same attention that the sheep gave to their offspring.

When I read that, something began to tick over in my mind. I thought, “Wow! This is interesting. But before I get too carried away, I’d better check it out a bit more.” So, I thought I’d talk to my father. My father has now passed away, but he was the fastest shearer in the world in his time. He was the world champion sheep-shearer. He shore over a million sheep in his lifetime. He certainly knew a lot about sheep.

So, I said to my father, “Is this true?” And he said, “Of course, Nancy. A sheep will never go any further than earshot from its little lamb, but it’s true, goats will leave their little kids, even for hours.” I began to see. Yes! This is why we now call our children “kids”! Because mothers have become goat mothers. What are kids? They are baby goats.

Today, most mothers get up in the morning and they take their little kids and they put them in daycare, or maybe even with grandparents, or with a friend, or somewhere while they go off and do their career or go out to their job. What they are doing is being goat mothers. A sheep mother, an ewe, will never go any further than earshot from her little lambs.

I remember one time, being back in New Zealand, flying back from the USA. Often, I loved to take a few photos of sheep to bring back here to show people, because the US is not a sheep country. We are a beef country here.

One of the reasons, of course, back in New Zealand that we can be a sheep country is that we have no predators. Did you know that in New Zealand there are no predators at all? Our sheep can be safe out there on the grass and the hillsides. There are no wolves. There is no animal coming to tear them to pieces, so they live in safety and security. Here, if people have sheep, they have to have certain dogs or something to protect them very much.

I was back in New Zealand, and I was walking over the fields, the “paddocks” we call them there, with my father. I saw this beautiful little lamb that had just been born. I wanted to get up close to take a picture. As I did, of course the mother ewe was very scared of me, and she began to run away. But she stopped, because her little lamb! Although she was still scared of me, she went back to her little lamb, to be there to protect her little lamb.

This is opposite to the goats. I actually had a letter from a woman. Yes, this was another farmer’s wife in New Zealand. She wrote to me, and she said (it wasn’t the same one who I first read about, but this was another lady):

“Over many years, we have raised lambs on our land. Indeed, the sheep are wonderful mothers. This year, for the first time, we had goats and baby kids. One Sunday, as we drove in the front gate, we heard a loud bleating, and stopped to check. On top of the hill were young twins, brown and white, but no mother anywhere at all! My eight-year-old was so worried and he kept going back to check. After about two hours, they were cold and getting weaker, so we heated bricks and wrapped them in newspaper. We went to warm them and feed these little orphans. We thought the mother had completely disappeared. When we arrived, there, to our amazement, was the mother! She was not dead after all but had simply gone off to feed and left her little kids. She must have continued this neglect, because not long after, the little white kid was taken by a fox.”

This is goat mothering. Goat mothers tend to leave their little kids, but if we’re sheep mothers, we won’t want to leave our little children. I actually heard from another mother too. She was from Australia. She also wrote to me. This lady shared that they were out in Australia, and they used to hunt wild goats for living in the outback of New South Wales. She said that she observed many times that in the face of danger, the nanny goat would leave her little kids unprotected, and run from danger to save herself! She didn’t stay by her little kids.

She also noticed that the goats were cowards and would give up easily. When they caught the goats live, these wild goats, they would turn them over onto their backs. She said the goats didn’t struggle. Their eight-year-old daughter was able to put a foot on the goat’s neck and wait until they came to tie it up.

So, we see the difference between the goats and the sheep. But this, this is where I really got convicted, was when I went to the Word of God. Of course, we know that of all the animals in the whole of the world, what does God call us? He calls us His sheep. He calls us His lambs. We are the sheep of His pasture.

Psalm 79:13: “We Thy people, and the sheep of Thy pasture, will give Thee thanks forever.”

Psalm 100:3: “We are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.”

Isaiah 53:6: “We all like sheep have gone astray and have turned every one to his own way.”

John 10 is the chapter about Jesus being the Shepherd. He says: “He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice.”

But, OK, we’re getting to the Scripture where I really got convicted. Matthew 25. You can read the whole passage from verses 31 to 46. But I’ll just read you a little bit. “When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory, and before Him shall be gathered all nations. He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divided his sheep from the goats. He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.”

I’ve actually written that Scripture out to give you, but I want to go to it in my Bible because it’s very powerful. Matthew 25: “Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand,” remember that’s the sheep on His right hand, “Come, be blessed of my father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” But then we go to the last Scripture, and it talks about oats, it says: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.”

We see here how God likens His people to be sheep. He separates them. They go to the right and they are the ones who will enter into His everlasting kingdom. The goats are those who don’t know Him and they go to the left, into as the Bible says, “everlasting punishment.”

As I read that Scripture, I thought, “Wow! I don’t want to be aligned with the goat company because that’s goat mothering.” I decided I was going to kick the habit of calling my children “kids.” I didn’t want to belong to that company at all. Actually, I did . . .  I cold-turkey kicked the habit.

I was listening the other day to my daughters’ podcast, Serene and Pearl, who do the Trim Healthy Mama podcast. They were doing one about the power of how you can learn things far more by play than you can just by rigid routine. It was rather interesting. They quoted this quote which says, “Now, what we know,” this was given by a Dr. Purvis. “Now what we know from research is that it takes 400 repetitions of an act or a learning skill, 400 times, to get one new synapse. Or would you like to know an option? There is an option. Twelve repetitions with joy and laughter, and you get a synapse, because there’s a release of a chemical, dopamine.”

That’s interesting. When you’re trying to learn something new and get it to be part of your life so you don’t have to think about it, so it just becomes part of your life, they say it can take up to 400 repetitions.

But if you do it with joy and laughter and song, it only takes 12 repetitions. That’s amazing. I think that is why children learn so much in their early years because they play, and they’re happy, and they’re laughing.

So, dear lovely ladies, I’m giving you the challenge. Would you like to also kick the habit of saying “kids”? Because you’re aligning with the goat mothers and you’re putting your children in that category of goats as well. We’ll look into a little bit later more of the character of the goats and the sheep.

I’m amazed. I’ve shared this with many people, and I find they still keep saying “kids.” Maybe they haven’t tried 400 times yet. But I was thinking, after listening to the girls, maybe you have to think of a joyful way of doing it. Maybe you’ll have to think up a song, perhaps.

When you call your children “kids,” you remember. Have a little song, a little ditty that you’ve made up about how you’re calling your children “children,” You’re no longer a goat mother, or something. Make it into a little tune. Laugh and sing. Maybe you’ll only have to do it 12 times! And you will have kicked the habit!

I remember one time I had been to Singapore, and I had shared this truth with the folks there in Singapore. Then Colin and I were returning for return meetings another year. The folks were there at the airport to meet us. As we walked off the plane, they all greeted us. You know what they said? Well, they didn’t really even say anything. They all went, “Maaaaa-aaa!” They had remembered what I had told them.

Another time, I was speaking to some ladies in Australia, in Brisbane, Australia. I shared again this truth of changing their vocabs from calling their children “kids” to something that is far better. We’ll talk about that in the next session. I shared it with them and went back home.

Sometime later I was asked to go and speak with them again. And as I arrived, these mothers came down the path to greet me. They said, “Nancy! Thank you for what you shared with us last time. It’s totally changed our lives, and our mothering!” Actually, I’d forgotten what I had shared. I said, “What was it?” “You know,” they said. “You know how you told us to call our little children our little lambs instead of our kids?” One of these mothers shared with me. She said, “It has revolutionized my mothering.”

Because these women had come from a very, very hard life. They’d been dragged up. They were in a community. This pastor and his wife were reaching out to these people in a very, very, how do I describe it? They’d been dragged up. They’d been through incredible, terrible things. These mothers were pretty tough and hard. But when they took on . . .  they listened to me, they actually received it.

Instead of just calling their children kids, and most probably many other very negative names, they started to call their little ones their lambs. It brought a softness to them. It took away the hardness. Do you notice, even an old shepherd, and he’s carrying a little lamb on his shoulders, he becomes so gentle. There’s something about little lambs, even saying the word. You see, that’s what mothers used to do, before the word “kids” came in, they used to call them their little lambies, or their lambkins. Now it’s “kids.”

Time has gone. I’m giving you the challenge. Hope you can do it!

“Lord God, we thank You so much again for Your wonderful Word. I pray that the mothers here, who are listening today, will take up this challenge, because it’s no light thing. Lord, every word we speak has power. So, I pray that You will give them this wonderful urge to change their wording, Lord, and to kick this habit. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

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

 

Tell other wives and mothers about these podcasts and transcripts!

The following are two poems which I have written for children about speaking the truth. You may like to get your children to memorize these poems.

ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH

Here’s a secret for the girl and boy,

Who wants to live a life of joy -

ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH!

When you tell a lie you please the devil,

He’s the father of lies and wants you a rebel -

ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH!

Do not try to cover the mess you’re in,

By telling a lie God says is sin -

ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH!

Every lie you tell makes matters worse,

It leads to another and becomes a curse -

ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH!

Confess the truth although hard to do,

It’s the way to go and God will bless you -
ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH!

There are no liars in heaven, did you know?

Stop telling them now - it’s the way to go!

ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH.

Break the habit of lies while in your youth,

To follow God you must speak the truth -

ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH!

And here’s another one:

WHO IS WISE?

Who is brave and very wise,

And deserves to get a prize?

The one who tells the truth!

Who can lift their head up high,

And does not need to hide and cry?

The one who tells the truth!

Who can smile with open face,

And never bring himself disgrace?

The one who tells the truth!

Who will grow up straight and true,

And be successful in all they do?

The one who tells the truth!