Archives

Freedom From Anger | MomStrong Internationa Week 2/4 – 778

The Bible has a lot to say about strong emotions and our responses. Let’s dig in and see what’s there about anger and patience—since one seems to be tied to a lack of the other. Thankfully, God has much more than just commands for us to follow; the gospel also gives us resources for endurance and faithfulness while we’re in the trenches of motherhood and the busy grind of everyday life. 

Transcribed version of the podcast is below

Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • Luke 11:13

Scripture Mentioned in Podcast

  • Ephesians 4:26
  • 1 Corinthians 13:4
  • Ephesians 4:1-3
  • Ephesians 4:27
  • Proverbs 15:21

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Hey friends, this is Heidi St John. Thanks for joining me today at my little corner of the Internet. Today is Wednesday, June 12th—this is episode number 778. Today we’re going to be diving into week two of our Bible Study at MomStrong International and we’re going to be talking about how to become free from anger. God has freedom for you.

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

So thanks everybody for tuning in today. This is a busy week for me. I leave today for Denver. I’m going to be speaking for the CHEC conference there with my friend Ken Ham. Really excited to see what God does this weekend. I’ve heard it’s a full house, so if you haven’t gotten tickets yet or you’re interested in coming, you might want to hurry up and check that out. I’m going to be, hopefully getting in sometime this evening, so cannot wait. I’ll be doing the opening keynote and the closing keynote, and we’ve got a great weekend plan for you in Denver for the Christian Educators of Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Convention. So, looking forward to seeing you guys there. Also wanted to let you know that coming up, I’m so excited about what God’s doing here at MomStrong International as we carry on through the summer Bible Studies, and this is a great, great, great time for you to make a habit of getting into the Word of God with your kids of studying His Word.

As the Bible says, to show yourself approved workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing— or rightly handling—God’s Word. And there are so much miss information out there right now—that was a nice word—false teaching is what it is. There’s so much false teaching out there right now and you have the ability to know and discern God’s Word, and you can do that through studying His Word. And so we want to encourage you to join us at MomStrong International. Also to join us for the Scripture Writing Challenge—speaking of which, today’s verse is found in Luke 11:13. This is out of the Scripture Writing Challenge. This is today’s verse. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

I love this because it’s exactly what I was just saying to you. You have the Holy Spirit and God wants to help you understand, and study, and apply His Word to your life. So check it out at MomStrongInternational.com. We are in the second week of our study on the fruits of the Spirit and let’s go ahead and open up this study in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the opportunity that you give us here at the podcast to study Your Word together. I thank you Lord that you are intimately acquainted with our hearts, that you love us. That your Word says that You love us and care for us. We thank You that Your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Lord, as we talk a little bit about anger and Your desire that we be free from it, and that we don’t sin in our anger—Lord, I pray that you’d help us. Lord, if there’s anyone who’s listening to this, who can already feel that touch of Your Spirit that is thinking—Oh man, that’s me. I’m angry. I’m struggling with anger. Lord, would you just be present right now? Holy Spirit, we need your help. Father, there’s so many things that are happening in the culture right now that are discouraging and frustrating and can lead to us feeling defeated and alone. And Lord, I pray that we will be reminded by Your Spirit that we are never alone, and that You have victory for us. And so thank you Lord, as we study your Word, that You will help us. Thank You for Your help. Lord, I thank you for the Holy Spirit and we just invite You into this conversation and we bless Your name. Father, may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight. Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. In Jesus name. Amen.

All right. If you’re in the MomStrong study with me, go ahead and open it up to week two. We’re talking about patience this week as we study the fruits of the Spirit. Maybe you’re like—wait a second, anger is not a fruit of the Spirit. No, but the fruit of the Spirit that we’re talking about this week in particular is patience. And we’re going to look at it through the lens of being free. Really, when we get angry, right? And we, when we lash out in anger at somebody—we’ve lost our patience. Am I right? Uh, yeah. You’re right. That’s what it is, right? And so the Bible teaches us in Ephesians 4:26—that we can be angry and not sin. And in fact, here’s what it says—be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

This is kind of a hard thing, I think, sometimes for us to teach our children because we’re not…I think as a general rule we are a bunch of chickens. Do you guys know what I mean? I mean, I think it’s hard for us to address frustrations that we might have particularly outside of our family. So let’s say there’s a frustrating situation that you’re experiencing in church, or a frustrating friendship that you are engaged in. And rather than address it, we allow a root of bitterness to grow up in our hearts, thus beginning to test our patience, right? Which is a fruit of the Spirit. And before we know it, we’ve let the sun go down on our anger multiple times…so multiple sunsets, and we’ve not resolved this and we end up being angry—and in our anger then we end up sinning.

And that’s what God doesn’t want us to do. And so as we become MomStrong over at MomStrong International, we’re going to take a little look at it because I want us to be able to say—Father, I see this as an issue in my life and I want you to help me. The Bible teaches us in 1 Corinthians 13:4 that love is patient. And so when we exercise that patience, what we’re really saying is—I love you. So think about this with me for just a minute. Our kids are really good at revealing lots of things about us as parents, right? And one of the things that often gets brought to the surface is just how little patience we have. Whenever I go through the checkout stand at the grocery store in the middle of the day, this doesn’t happen to me so much anymore because my kids are older, most of them. But people used to say to me—Oh, why aren’t your kids in school? And inevitably one of my kids would say—oh, we’re homeschooled. And almost always the response would be—oh my goodness, I don’t know how you do that. I don’t have the patience for that.

So everybody listening to this right now, mom in the shower, mom doing the laundry, mom out on a walk, mom doing the dishes—stop for a second. If you have a supernatural amount of patience, raise your hand. Nobody. I’m not even in your shower with you, aren’t you glad? And I know you didn’t raise your hand because none of us has that supernatural patience. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit. It’s evidence that God is at work in our lives and we need it because I think motherhood, and parenting in general, and fatherhood— it’ll test us. It’ll take us right to the brink of what we know that we can do in the natural. So think about this. When our little person needs three full minutes to determine which doughnut is the one for this morning’s treat in the grocery store. But you’re pressed for time, it’s going to raise your blood pressure a little bit, right? When you’re verbally processing. High schooler wants to talk through birthday party plans for an hour while you’re trying to get paperwork done or trying to get something done ahead of a deadline—it might test your ability to enjoy that moment with her and test you to multitask your stuff with grace. Right? When you’re recycling sits forgotten in the garage again, it’s going to find that last nerve inside your head and twang it like little out of tune fiddle. So what do we do? Another spilled drink, another breakdown, another choice that makes me ask them—What were you thinking? Right?

I never thought I had an issue with anger until I had kids. And I know it isn’t just me. So I know that this study is going to really encourage you. I’ve learned that it’s a lot easier to have patience when I’m basically in control of my schedule in my life, but then all of a sudden some things, you know—they don’t work the way we want them to. We get hangry, right? That’s my husband. He’d be like—Yep, that’s me. And maybe we lose sight for just a minute. And the Bible has a lot to say about strong emotions. God understands our emotions. He created us.

So this month we’re going to dig in and see what’s there about anger and patience since one seems to definitely be tied to a lack of the other. I praise the Lord because He has so much more than commands for us to follow. The gospel gives us resources for endurance and faithfulness while we’re in the trenches of parenting, while we’re in the trenches with the grind of everyday life—God says He has help for us. Ephesians 4:1-3—therefore I the prisoner of the Lord. This is the apostle Paul, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of which you’ve been called. Wow. Therefore, I Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling, which you have been called with all humility. Moment of silence. With patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Now as we read this together, we noticed that Paul is explaining why it’s important for us, and exactly how we need to walk in this passage. And he’s actually saying the why also, which is why I love this so much. He’s saying—listen, I’m going to implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you’ve been called. So the calling to which we’ve been called, the calling to which you teenager who’s listening to this right now, the calling to every mom and dad listening to this right now—our calling is to be stewards of the message that is the gospel. It’s the message that is the gospel.

And when we lash out in anger, the first thing it does is it tells people around us—we’re actually not walking in the Spirit. I think this is so interesting because the very first characteristic that the apostle Paul brings to the Ephesians in his letter is humility. Really, when we lash out in anger, what we’re saying is—I’m more important than you are. I have reached my limit. You have pushed me to my limit and I can no longer be full of patient, I can no longer be full of self-control—another fruit of the Spirit. And he’s telling us that the very first fruit of the Spirit, humility, helps us to experience the freedom to live out all the others. Because if we don’t have humility then we’re gonna have a hard time with the other ones.

If we don’t have humility, we can’t be gentle, right? If we don’t have humility, we’re not going to care about patience. If we don’t have humility, we’re going to really struggle to show tolerance for somebody else who might be having a struggle because—hey, we don’t have that struggle. So there you go. Get over it, right? So as we read this, Paul is giving us instructions on not only why it’s important for us not to be angry, but also how we apply the principles of his words. I want you guys to think with me for just a minute.

Let’s step back for just a second and think about this. What’s the danger of letting the sun go down on our anger? In other words, when Paul says—don’t let the sun go down on your anger—does he mean that literally or as a principal? Now, sometimes—I think it’s both, because I think sometimes you’re in a situation where you can’t address it right now, and the sun’s going down. So let’s not get all hung up on whether or not the sun is going up or going down. I think what the Apostle Paul is saying is don’t let very much time go by before you resolve this. Because what happens is you become very, very vulnerable to a root of bitterness. And when bitterness sets in, we are in trouble. When we start harboring our anger—some of you guys just need to let it go, right? I’m not saying every little thing that bothers you—go confront that person. Sometimes, we need to go—Lord, should I be angry about this? And the Lord’s gently going to say—nope, let it go. And we’re going to have to let it go. Right? But sometimes we really do need to address it. And so this principle works in marriage, this works in our friendships—we don’t want to be known as men and women who harbor anger, who are not letting the gospel actually play out in our lives.

There’s an episode, I love in Veggie Tales, and there’s an episode in Larry Boy—which is a spin-off of veggie tales called Larry boy and The Angry Eyebrows. Have you guys ever seen this, oh my goodness—one of my favorite shows ever. In the episode, Larry’s arch nemesis, Awful Alvin….I’m gonna let that sit right there. He sends out a fleet of flying eyebrows that attached to people who are harboring anger, possessing them until they’re consumed by their own rage. I’ve always thought that’d be so funny. Like every once in a while I’ll say to my kids—Ooh, I can see you’re angry eyebrows. Right? And it just kind of makes you laugh. It’s sort of disarming.

And The lesson of the episode is summed up by Bok Choy, the wise teacher of Super Hero 101 at the local community college. He says, “Be warned….If you hold on to your anger, your anger will hold on to you…” This is a great way for kids—and maybe even adults—to grasp this concept. And so, This is what Paul means when he says—“Do not give the devil a foothold”. That’s Ephesians 4:27. Because when we harbor anger, it quickly turns into bitterness, which syncs into our heart like a harpoon—and pulls out gossip, and passive aggression, and manipulation. And we see this all over the culture today and I have seen it in my own everyday life, right? We’re going to get hurt. People are going to let us down. Friends are going to gossip about us. Friends are going to steal things from us, right?

Whether it’s the affection of another friend, or sometimes intellectual property or whatever it is—and we can get angry and hung up. And the Bible says—in your anger, do not sin. Why? Because we are in ambassadors. We’re ambassadors of the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. In Proverbs 15:21, the Bible teaches us that a kind word, a gentle word, turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. And so this doesn’t mean that we should shy away from confrontation—something we’re talking about in this study  this month, and we’re going to give you opportunities to support this with other verses out of God’s Word—but it’s very clear all throughout Scripture that God is saying you are an ambassador of the living God. The Apostle Paul said—it is as if God is making His appeal through you— and God cannot make his appeal through an angry Christian.

Now, I’ve had a lot of opportunities in my life to wrestle with the idea of anger. I grew up in an angry home. And you know, I could sit here, I guess all day long and try to analyze why there was so much anger in my home—and some of the anger was justified. A great deal of it wasn’t. But I can tell you that the end result—it’s very, very damaging. And we don’t want to be known as angry parents. We don’t, we don’t. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my kids to leave my home and think of me as this angry, screaming mom running around my house like a clown with my hair on fire. I don’t want that. And I also think that when we struggle to control our anger, our children begin to seek God as angry. And we’re going to dig deeper into this in the study. So I don’t have time to go into it today, but I want to encourage you—download the study at MomStrongInternational.com. You can see it. It’s right there.

I want to dig into this idea of God’s anger because God, He has something the Bible calls wrath. The Bible says that the Lord is a jealous and avenging God. That the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. And I think sometimes when we don’t understand what that means… I mean God is angry at wickedness, right? God is a God of justice. He’s also a God of mercy. And I think sometimes Christians, and non-Christians alike, we can wrestle with this idea of God’s anger. And as parents, if we don’t show our children what it means to have self-control and to get control of anger in our own lives when our children learn about God’s righteous anger, they misinterpret it and they go—well, my mom was a jerk. She was angry all the time. My Dad, he was, he was awful to me. And if that’s the way God is, I don’t want anything to do with Him. So we want to teach our children what God says about anger. And if you’ve ever struggled with the concept of God’s anger and God’s wrath, this is going to be a study that you will love because we’re gonna unpack it for you a little bit and we’ll see that God’s anger and His love fit together in a beautiful way. But God knows that as human beings created in His image, image bearers of the King of kings and the Lord of lords, as ambassadors for the message of the Gospel—we must be controlled by love.

Our worldview is shaped by the culture that we’re living in right now. And the culture subscribes and—I don’t even think they do it on purpose—to a philosophy that’s called Expressive Individualism. So this is the belief that everybody has within them an identity to be discovered, a true self just waiting to be actualized. Robert Bellah, in his book “Habits of the Heart” wrote that 80% of Americans agree with this statement: “an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent of any church or synagogue.” In another study, 91% of Americans (and 76% of regular church goesr) agreed that “to find yourself, look within yourself.”

Oh my goodness. You see, at the heart of modern societies, is this idea that we get to define right and wrong for ourselves. And in fact, the culture says this is the only authentic way to be a human being. And the net result of that has been the creation of a deep distrust of any authority figure—whether it’s parents, whether it’s a pastor, whether it’s the Bible, or even God Himself. And so because of this, culture has no problem with a God who loves unconditionally, but it can’t fathom the idea of a God who holds us accountable for our wrong beliefs and actions. After all, we’re just following our heart so we can be happy—what’s wrong with that? So Tim Keller was the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City for many years. And after each service, he was known for holding a Q&A time to answer the questions of skeptics. And an objection to God’s wrath was almost a weekly occurrence, right? One answer that he gave to a woman’s objection was, “Why aren’t you offended by the idea of a forgiving God?” And when the woman heard his answer, she was taken aback.

But what he was getting at was this: we live in a certain culture that shapes our objections to the counter-cultural truths of the Bible. And those of us who live in 21st century Western society typically don’t have any problem with what the Bible teaches about forgiveness and turning the other cheek. And you love your neighbor and all that. We’re totally fine with the idea with a loving God, but we struggle to understand the wrath of God. Whereas those who come from a more traditional cultural, they have a revulsion to the idea of a God of unconditional love, but the doctrine of a God of judgment is not a hard pill to swallow for them at all.

And so as hard as it might be to believe, Western society isn’t the final court in which to judge what the Bible says. Instead, the Bible is counter-cultural in all societies—just at different points. And this is why we have to let the Bible stand in judgment of culture, not the other way around. And God’s saying—you can be free. You can be free to follow me, free from your anger, free from a wrong understanding of what it looks like to walk in right relationship with Me.

God set you free. For those of you who have grown up in an angry at home, I’m here to tell you, I understand where you’re coming from. God wants to set you free. You are therefore Christ’s ambassadors as though God were making His appeal through you. It’s as if God was saying to the world, through your life—come back to me. Come back to me. And so if you’re struggling to understand that or you’re struggling to come to grips with an anger issue in your own life, or you’re struggling to understand how God can be both loving and wrathful—join us at MomStrong International. We are digging deep into the Word of God. You’re going to love it. It’s going to encourage you and bless you.

And also, I want to encourage you, we would love to hear from you if you’ve got questions that you’d like to see addressed at the podcast. If you’d like to find out more about MomStrong International, check it out at MomStrongInternational.com. It’s a great time to jump on board with this and to experience the freedom that God has for you as you study His Word and make it the primary go to for your life.

You guys, you are loved. God loves you. He has good things for you.

Thanks for listening to everybody. We so appreciate it. We thank you so much for leaving reviews for the podcast at iTunes and we read them everyday. I’m going to read a few more for you when we come back to the podcast on Friday. Have a great Wednesday everybody, and I’ll see you back here in a couple of days.

Write to Heidi:
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Tell Your Story: How to Find Your Voice with Tricia Goyer | 776

How did you become an author? It’s one of the questions I get all the time and today, my dear friend and author of over 75 books, Tricia Goyer joins me to encourage you that YOU can find your voice! God has good things in store for you as you share His words with others. Be encouraged!!

Transcribed version of the podcast is below

Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • John 15:16-17

Resources Mentioned in Podcast

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday: podcast@thebusymom.com

Tricia Goyer is a prolific author of more than seventy books. She is a homeschooling mom of ten, grandmother of four, and wife to John. She is the founder of Hope Pregnancy Center in Kalispell, Montana and now leads a teen mom support group in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Connect with the AUTHOR: Website | 7-Day Writer Challenge | Write That Book Subscription Group | Instagram | Facebook 

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, June 7th—this is episode number 776. You guys know that I love to have friends on the show with me on Friday’s who are going to encourage you in your walk with God and to find out what it is that God has uniquely created you to do. And today’s episode is right in line with that. My friend Tricia Goyer, who has authored 75 books, roughly, is on this show with me today and we’re going to talk about how you can learn to tell your stories.

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, so I want to thank everybody who’s been coming out to say hello out on the circuit. My son graduates from high school tomorrow, from our homeschool tomorrow. So I’m in kind of graduation mode. Today is rehearsal for us rehearsal. Oh my goodness. All those things, and tomorrow’s graduation. And then next week on Wednesday I’m going to head to Denver for the CHEC conference. I’ll be there with my friend Ken Ham. So come on out—that’s June 13th through the 15th and I cannot wait to see you guys come on out to the CHEC invention in Denver, Colorado. Also want to let you know that we are right at the very beginning of a brand new study at MomStrong International. We’re studying the fruits of the Spirit and next Wednesday I’m going to be diving into week two of that, and we’re going to be talking about how to become free from it anger. And that’s another thing I love about Tricia. She’s written about this topic extensively, so I’m excited to see what God’s gonna do in your life as you study the Word with us—you can find that study at MomStrongInternational.com. We’ve got almost 13,000 over there now doing the Scripture Writing Challenge with us every single day. So we’re excited that you’re there. Speaking of the Scripture Writing Challenge today’s versus found in John 15:16-17, it says You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another.

I love that Jesus is saying, listen, this isn’t up to you. It’s up to me. I chose you. I appointed you. I’ve got something I want you to do. I want you to bear good fruit and that’s what my friend Tricia and I are going to be talking about today. Tricia is a mom of 10, and she’s written at least 75 books. She’s a prolific author and an incredible writer and just a good friend of mine. And we’re going to talk a little bit today about how you can tell your story. I’m really excited about this. It’s a question I get a lot at the podcast. Tricia, my friend, welcome back to the podcast.

[Tricia] Thank you Heidi. I always love chatting with you.

[Heidi] Well, we’re going to have a hoot and holler and a good time today because I was telling you before the show started that I get this question a lot. People will say—how did you raise seven kids and become an author, and a speaker, and a blogger? And the first thing I always tell people is—it’s grace, right? So particular grace over my life to do this particular thing. And so that has to be at the very forefront of our conversation. We want to do what God asks us to do, but there’s so many, men and women who listen to this show and they have a story to tell and they’re trying to figure out how they can tell it. And nobody knows better about that than you. So I thought—let’s start there. I’m sure you could ask this question at least as much as I do and probably more. When someone comes up to you and says—Tricia, I want to write a book. Like this is a massive question, right? This is not your, this isn’t your 30-second answer that you can give on your way to a workshop at a homeschool conference. But when someone comes and talks to you about that and they want to be become a blogger, they want to become an author. What the first—I’m dying to know, cause maybe you’ll help me. What’s the first thing you say?

[Tricia] I think the first thing we need to do is realize that if you are asking that question, that God has a call on your life—because no ordinary people who want to do this, want to put their words out there, want to get criticism, went to get edits, want to get rejection, went to get bad Amazon ratings, or all those sorts of things.

[Heidi]Oh, that’s brutal too—those bad Amazon ratings. It’s a thing.

[Tricia] Exactly! So if you are asking it, then God has called you to spread the gospel. And the cool thing is today, I mean through blogs, you were mentioning, and you know, Facebook, and the Internet—we can reach people all over the world. It’s so amazing when I check on my website to see there’s people from all over that are able to hear the gospel. So, you know, before missionaries had to travel and, you know, get in boats and leave their families, and going to other side of the world—we can do it right from their homes. But the first thing is dedicating yourself to God and saying—God, I know that you’ve called me through this. Help me. And kind of giving it over to Him. And for many years I wanted to get published because I wanted to look good. I’d been a teen mom. I wanted to prove myself. And it wasn’t until I relinquished my kind of pride and said—God, this has to be your thing and not what I want—that God started opening doors. So the first thing would relinquish yourself to God. But then the second thing…

[Heidi] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I must, I must stop you. I’m going to stop you right there because I think you’ve touched on something really important. I don’t want to miss it. What is coveted right now in the culture? So much of what is covered is platform. So we’re looking for how many likes can we get on Facebook? How many followers can we get an Instagram, how many reviews can be get on Amazon, all those things. And basically what you’re saying is—that’s a wrong motivation.

[Tricia] Right.

[Heidi] So if our motivation is—and most of the time, and I don’t know Tricia, how that worked for you—but certainly it was the case for me. I didn’t set out to be an author or a speaker. I saw something that God was doing in my life and it became an active surrender. And so I’ve talked to lots of people at conferences and I know you do too who, you know, for whatever reason want to get into it. And I think what you’re saying is so important because the very beginning is—check your heart.

[Tricia] Yeah.

[Heidi] Why, do you want it? Because really, it’s actually no fun to have people give you bad reviews on Amazon. It’s no fun. You know, hello—social media is not that fun anymore.

[Tricia] Yes!

[Heidi] And so, I love that you’re starting there because if we’re going at this because we want platform, because when accolades, or because we want people to know who we are—it’s probably a bad motivation.

[Tricia] Right. And it really, that’s what it was. Me getting on my knees, like literally on my knees, and lifting my open palms to God and saying—this is your thing and it’s not about the book sales or the publication. If you just want me to write for our church newsletter, or to speak for…

The first time I spoke was when I gave my testimony about God healing me from abortion in front of my church. Like, that was the hardest thing.

[Heidi] That’s hard core.

[Tricia] That’s hard. The hardest thing, like, being vulnerable. But if you’re not willing to start there, like, in your local Bible study, in your local mops group—I mean you need to start just sharing your story. And that’s what the next thing I was going to mention is—care for the people that God has already brought in your life.

And you mentioned the big platform, like we all want to be seen, and known, and be on these bestsellers list. But if you’re not caring for the people that God has given you—that’s your neighbor across the street, you know, this right in front of you. I for years have been led a post abortion Bible study in my church. It was just those women there, you know? And if you’re not reaching those people and ministering to them—why is God going to give you a huge platform if you’re not going to take care of just the people He’s already brought you.

[Heidi] Yeah.  So to be faithful, I mean, I love that the Bible says, you know—he who is faithful, this little, can be trusted with much. And I think it’s that faithfulness in the smaller things, and just recognizing that God is at work within what you’re doing.

A long time ago, when Jay was a pastor in Portland, I started a newsletter for the church worship team and it was called The Worship Team Word. So funny, because as you’re saying that, I’m like—oh my goodness, I still remember doing this. And I loved it. I loved going to people and talking to them and saying—Hey, can I get an article from you? I have always loved words and always loved writing. And I think you’re probably the same way—while other people are, you know, knitting a baby blanket, learning how to crochet—we’re figuring out how to start a blog and how to, you know, because you just, you love it. It’s that natural bent inside of you. So I love that. Like, what has God put in front of you right now? Start there.

[Tricia] Yeah. And then I think the next thing we need to do is to clear the time in our schedule because if it’s a calling, we need to be diligent on doing it. And I think this is the busy moms hardest thing, busy parents—the hardest thing is carving out that time. And so for me, I wake up before my kids get up, you know, have my quiet time with God, which I definitely need that before I start my day. But then I just sit down for the first, you know, 30 minutes or hour of the day and just start writing. And if you write 30 minutes a day, by the end of the year, you will have some good stuff there. Like there’s stuff that will—especially if you’re doing it—like coming straight from reading God’s Word, or having that time with Him—He’s just going to pour through you. But we get so busy about things that don’t matter and I, you know, I talk to people like—turn off your Netflix, don’t watch TV, don’t scroll Facebook for an hour. Like all this stuff that we’re busy doing, but we’re not busy sitting down and doing the calling that God has called us to. So really, it’s clearing this schedule, even if it’s 30 minutes a day. And you know, I started writing, I had three little kids at home. I had like a one year old, a three year old, and a five year old. And I would say—this is Mommy’s writing time. And I would set Barney, this ages me that Barney was on the TV.

[Heidi] Yup, that was me too!

[Tricia] But they learn to respect that time and it actually has been the best thing for my kids because they have seen like—look at how God is using mom. And they’ve got to meet amazing people and travel with me, and see me speak, and see these books come out. And you know, we want to tell our kids like—you can do amazing things and God wants to use you, and He has good plans for you, but we’re saying we can’t do it because we don’t have enough time. Because, you know, we need to make sure that our kids are the priority—which we definitely want to make them the priority. But it also trains them to see that this is important to follow what God has asked us to do.

[Heidi] Yeah. And that they have a gift that God wants to use. You know, and you’re saying—hey, you can actually do this. God wants to use you and you’re setting the example. So like we’re always saying over here at the podcast—if you want your kids to walk in right relationship with you, let him see you walk in right relationship with God, right? If that’s what we want for our kids, it has to start with us. We can’t give them what we don’t have.

And so I love that you’re saying—hey, set the example, let your kids see that it’s important to you. I also think it requires, at least it has for me over the last six or seven books that I’ve written—different seasons require a different commitment level from me.

[Tricia] Right.

[Heidi] So sometimes I’m writing books very late at night or very early in the morning, and I can’t do it at all during the day because I’m taking care of my kids, or I’m running the homeschool resource center, or whatever it is.  Talk to the mom right now who is, she’s, you know, hip-deep in little people and she’s thinking— I’d love to write, I want to be Tricia Goyer. I want to write 75 books. Um, where does she start? She’s hip-deep in little people. She she really wants to focus on her marriage, the most important thing is to set that foundation. How can we encourage her?

[Tricia] Yeah. Well I think definitely we need to say—you know, if you’re not taking care of the people in your life, you don’t need to be writing words. It’s like—be loving your husband, make sure you’re giving that to your kids, make sure you’re making sure their needs are met. But also there is time in the day. Like if we can take time to go shopping or hit the clearance rack or whatever, if we have time to do those things, we can make time to do the writing thing, to do the calling.  And like I said, 30 minutes a day, at the end of the year—you have something. So just know that it’s those small steps, those small obedience that makes a difference. And also don’t feel like as soon as you sit down and write something—it’s no good, and this is horrible. Like, it takes practice. It takes time. Writing takes knowing yourself, trusting yourself, and putting away that fear. And I think fear is another thing that really stops us.

[Heidi] Yes!

[Tricia] We don’t want to be embarrassed. We don’t want to get that rejection. Actually I went to a Christmas party once and this lady, I had just had my first book publishing and she was like—I’ve written three books. I’m like, really? Tell me about them. She says—Oh, there in a desk drawer. I don’t want to get a rejection. So I haven’t done anything with them. Which of course, what is the enemy want to do? He wants to silence us. He wants us to keep those stories inside. And you know, at first it may not be publishable. Like we might need to have a critique partner, or have editing, and hire an editor, or have a friend that we know, you know, they can look over and give us honest critique. But it’s a learning process and you know, I just have my high school diploma. I don’t have any creative writing degree or anything. It was just me going back and forth with my friends. I met some at writer’s conferences, which I highly recommend Christian writers conferences. But it was just us sharing back and forth until finally one of us got published, and then the other. But it is the diligence of getting the words on paper, sharing it with other people, being able to take that routine and keep going.

And I’ve, when I first started writing, there was people that were way better writers than me. They had degrees and they just were perfect with their words. But they weren’t diligent. They gave up too easy. And I was like the little engine that could, that—here I am with my three little kids running around my ankles as I’m jotting down notes as I’m, you know, checking to see if the chicken pot pie is done yet in the oven. And it’s just that diligence of keeping going. And it goes back to—that if God has called you to it, why aren’t we doing it? And just knowing that your story will make a difference. Like, you’re the only one that can tell your story.

I tell my story, of you know, my past abortion and finding healing from that and being a teen mom—I’m the only one that can tell that story and people are impacted by it. And just this last convention season, I was there at a conference and this woman heard me on this podcast talking to you, Heidi, about that. And just, it’s amazing that she’s able to share her story now because I was willing to step out and share my story. And so someone else not only needs to have the encouragement to share their words, they need to share their stories, impact other people.

[Heidi] Yeah. And it is scary, but it’s worth it. And I love, you and I talked about you sharing about your abortion. I know it’s so powerful because this topic of conversation is so hot in the culture right now and I feel like the wind is at the back of the pro-life movement largely because women like you have stepped up and said—this isn’t the answer.

[Tricia] Right.

[Heidi] And—I’ve been there and I’ve done that and let me tell you there’s healing, but there’s also a better way. And it takes courage to do that. You have to be able to step out of your comfort zone and get your words out there. What happens when you are criticized, because I know you have been, I’m sure. And I have also been criticized because as a person who puts my thoughts out on paper a lot or even out on social media—you know, the nature of it is that you’re opening yourself up criticism.

[Tricia] Right.

[Heidi] How do you, how do you handle that critic? Or maybe a better question is—how can you prepare for the criticism that will come?

[Tricia] Exactly. We’ll just know, I mean—there’s people that will disagree with you. You know, when I first talked to you in about my abortion, or being a teen mom, there’s people that say—no that couldn’t have happened. You know, cause they told me it was just a blob of tissue. I mean, this whole story of just being lied at a planned parenthood. I had actually had a director called me on the phone and telling me I was lying, which is unbelievable.

[Heidi] Unbelievable!

[Tricia] But even when I wrote my book for teen moms, I ended up getting a whole bunch of bad reviews on Amazon saying I was just trying to get popular from all these teen moms. I mean, just a crazy stuff that like—why would I,  like, be vulnerable just to get popular? That like, it makes no sense to me. But what I realize is, first of all, the enemy wants to shut us down. So of course he’s gonna, you know, be whispering in people’s ears, he’s gonna have people attack us because he doesn’t want to share in our story. The second of all be like—only God really knows our heart that knows that I’m doing it for the right reason.

Like I’m doing it because I found healing and I want other people to be healed. I found hope and I want other people to have hope. I found truth and I want other people to have truth. So even now when I read a bad review, first of all, I’ll think they probably are someone who doesn’t agree with my message, so that’s why they’re shutting me down. But even if someone loves Christian fiction and they just don’t happen to like one of my novels are one of my books. It’s just—I’m not the author for them. Like there’s other authors out there that they can go and read and that’s okay. Like, I cannot make everyone happy. Like, if I were to cook dinner, I mean, I do it every night. I’m going to have someone, one of my kids is gonna complain about something they don’t like carrots in the pot pie, or whatever.

But knowing that when we send our work out there, there’s always going to be people that is just not—that’s just not our audience. That is not who God has given us to share the message with. But just knowing that there’s other people that are the ones that God has given us, this is kind of our territory that He’s given us to share with. And if we’re being silent, if we’re letting fear hold us back, if we are not either speaking the truth or sharing the truth, or writing the truth, then other people are not hearing it and they’re in want of that. And so we need to be the ones to do it for the good of the gospel and the good of the glory of God—and realizing that it’s about that. And so, sometimes those criticisms do hurt. Just going back to like—that’s not my audience, that’s not who God is sending me to—and I’ll just continued to speak, and write, and encourage those who God is sending to me too.

[Heidi] Yeah. And I think once you do that and you realize that you’re worth comes from the Lord, and that He’s the One—it’s the audience of One that you’re trying to please—I think it takes the fear out of it. The other thing that, and a you and I’ve talked about this before too, but I love that the Bible teaches us that God didn’t give us a Spirit of fear.

[Tricia]Right!

[Heidi] Because we learn that fear is a spirit, right? It’s a spirit that’s not from God, that comes in to keep you from doing what God has created you and gifted you to do. So, these are awesome. I kind of want to get to the nitty-gritty cause there’s a mom who sitting there with a pencil and paper and she’s like—what do I do next?

So you know, people always say—how do I get an agent? And I always telling people that is not the first place you start. You want to see—am I going to be able to stick with this thing? Can I carve the time out? Do I have, what it takes? Is this something that really just makes my heart sing? And so, if someone wants to figure that out, they want to figure out how can they tell their story—you are doing something really awesome right now called the 7-Day Writer’s Challenge. And in the next like minute and a half, tell us what that is.

[Tricia] Sure. Well this is what I get all the time— how do I become a writer? And so I did a 7-Day Writer’s Challenge and it just steps people through seven things that they can do to start their message. So first of all, they need to understand what is the theme of their life. Like what story do they have to tell? It’s also making a white space, you know, how to put your words on paper, how to think about your market. So through these seven days, and it’s a free course that I have and we’ll have the link in the show notes—bui I just want to encourage people. And I have to tell them, like, email me, respond to this message. Let me know who you are and let me know your story because I want to be there to encourage people.

I remember being that 22 year old, being at my first writer’s conference. Totally like—am I supposed to be doing this? And there was this women that came along beside me and said—yes, I believe in you. I want to support you. And that’s just what I want to be. It might be probably a short email from me back. But just knowing that someone cares, someone believes in you, and that you can do this.

[Heidi] Yeah. So it’s totally free, right?

[Tricia] Absolutely.

[Heidi] This is a no strings attached thing. And then after they do that, can they continue on or is at the end of it or does it work?

[Tricia] Yes, we’ll actually have an online subscription group, it’s a monthly group. And I do lessons every day from writing book proposals, how to write a blog post, if you want to start a podcast. So I’ll have those lessons and videos there. And then we have experts who are either writers, editors, agents, publicists that come Monday through Friday for an hour and do a teaching.

[Heidi] That’s awesome.

[Tricia] Yea, and so that’s $29 a month. But if you just want to do the seven day course—I am going to love you through that seven day course. If you want to continue on, we do have—it’s called Write That Book Subscription Group and we are just pouring into this community. We have about 120 women in there now that are just like I was, and just like a lot of your listeners that are wondering—am I supposed to be doing this? And I’m there to encourage them and give them the steps. Like, this is what a book proposal looks like. This is how you write one. This is how you talk to someone at a conference, and…

[Heidi] You should do a whole teaching on how to prepare your heart for editing.

[Tricia] You know what? I think I’m going to write that down cause I think that would be really good when you get, you know—and I tell people that I’ve written 75 books, two books ago, I got it back and there was more red than white on the paper, which the book ended up being so much better because my editor’s like—you’re just glossing over the stories. Let’s dig a little deeper into here. I mean it ended up being so good, but yeah, you have to realize that God has also brought people like editors to help you clarify your message and tell it in a better way.

[Heidi] Yeah, I agree. And one of the things I said to my editor…I’ve been privileged to work with several great editors over at Tyndale and one of very first edits they came back from Becoming MomStrong— I mean, I was in tears. I was like—oh my goodness, like, chapter 13 just became chapter seven. And I was like—this is upside down. Wackadoo, and all messed up. And I was praying about it and I came back to my editor and I was like—you know what, I think you’re gonna make me a better writer. And she did. She made me a better writer. And so I think we gotta beat you, you know, kind of peel back the layers and get ready for that. And, yeah, but writing is an exciting thing to be doing. I love it. I know you love it and I thank you so much Tricia, for sharing your gift.

If people want to find you online, they can find you at TriciaGoyer.com. Is that right?

[Tricia] Yep. TriciaGoyer.com

[Heidi] And then for the seven day challenge. Do they email you? What did they do for that?

[Tricia] I will send you a link that you can put in your show notes, and it will take you right to the page where they could click on it. They also get a free little ebook about not to give up on the book of your heart. It’s a little ebook that I put together that they’ll get for free. Yeah. Then they’ll join the challenge and then they could email me and we’ll get going.

[Heidi] I love it. I love it. Tricia Goyer, I love you. Thank you so much for taking the time to come and encourage the listeners here at the podcast today. I think you’re fantastic.

[Tricia] No, I think you’re fantastic too. I love you and I love all your doing. Heidi, thank you so much.

[Heidi] For those of you who want more information about my friend Tricia, you can find them in the show notes today. If you haven’t noticed, we are having the notes now transcribed, so we’ve hired a transcriber and she’s doing a great job so you can get all the notes, all the links, everything HeidiSt.John.com/podcast. Thanks for listening to everybody.

As always, please leave a review for the podcast over at iTunes. We really appreciate your comments there. It helps us to get the podcast out to other listeners, and I hope you’ll join me in Denver.  Have a great weekend everybody. I’ll see you back here on Friday.

Write to Heidi:
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

The Fruit Of The Spirit vs. The Fruit Of Our Actions | MSI Week 1/4 — 775

There is a huge difference between “fruit of the Spirit” that makes us like Christ, and “fruit” that comes as a result of our actions. When we read the Bible, we need to read contextually. What does this mean? Reading the Bible in context means we need to gain a full awareness of the passage or paragraph rather than just pulling out one verse. Let’s jump in to our first week of the MSI study on the fruit of the Spirit!!

Transcribed version of the podcast is below

Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • John 15:9-11

Resources Mentioned in Podcast

Join me at the next Heidi St. John Conference on  August 24  in Lee’s Summit, MO

Scripture Mentioned in Podcast

  • Philippians 4:12-13
  • Galatians 5
  • 1 Corinthians 1:10
  • 1 Corinthians 12:4-12

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody. This is Heidi St John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Wednesday, June 5th this is episode number 775—and we’re right in the middle of the week. My son is graduating on Saturday, so the festivities are ramping up around here, but I’m going to be spending a little bit of time with you today digging into the first week of a brand new series at MomStrong International on the Fruit of the Spirit. I can’t wait.

Stick around.  I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, so for those of you who are brand new to the podcast, I want to welcome you. We have been doing this now for many years. I think we’re going on seven years. Can you guys believe it? I was talking about that with my husband today and we were like—oh my goodness, we’ve been doing this for a long time. I have kind of a funny history. Many of you been listening from the very beginning. I started out doing like an hour long show and then I realized in pretty short order—I can do that. At least not three times a week. And I really wanted to come in and do, you know, three times a week—a little shot in the arm. And so at that point we decided to roll it back a little and we did a five minute little shot in the arm—five minutes. Well, by the time I got done saying hi to everybody and saying goodbye—there was no time to talk about anything I wanted to talk about. So eventually we sort of made it into this, right around 20 to 30 minutes.

Typically the podcast or not less than 20 minutes and they’re not more than 30 minutes—depending on what’s on my heart for that day. But the Lord has been faithful to grow the podcast. We average about anywhere from a 60,000 unique downloads and episode to 160,000—which was about what the yoga podcast got. You guys were all—that was a thing. And actually we’re going to get back to that at another point in time and really go back and talk about it again. But what I wanted to say is thank you.

Thank you for sharing this podcast with your friends. Thank you for listening. Thank you for praying for us. As you can imagine, it takes a lot to get this podcast out to you three days a week. And I want to just encourage you, there’s a couple of ways that you can help support us. First of all, please visit our sponsors. We’ve been blessed to take on some sponsorships this year at the podcast, which is really helping us because we’ve invested in getting some people here helping us who transcribe it, people who mix it down, people who help us get it out on social media. So it takes a team of people to get the podcast to you three days a week. So you could visit our sponsors. We have Evangelical Christian Credit Union and I will link back to them in the show notes today.

They have been a fantastic sponsor for us. Also, we’re running a promotion right now for Father’s Day from my friends at MELT. And if you haven’t checked that out yet, definitely you’re gonna want to do that. We love working with them and they always have a really great promotion for you that’s specific to the audience here at the Heidi St. John podcast. So check it out. But anytime you guys hear us promote something to you, those people are actually paying to have a spot on this podcast. So go check out what they’re doing and give me your feedback. I would love to hear what you think about the sponsors that we’re bringing on. Also, you can support us financially, by clicking on the e-giving link in the show notes and by reaching out to us via mail. And here’s our address. It’s 11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682.

We love hearing from you. I love getting your letters and obviously we love your financial support as well. So keep praying for us. We’re going to keep bringing this podcast to you for as long as the Lord allows us to do it. And we’re very, very pleased just to see it growing the way that it is.

Today’s the first day of the study at MomStrong International. So you guys know that I started MomStrong International about a year and a half ago. And we’re coming up on 13,000 of you who subscribe every month to the Scripture Writing Challenge—that challenges FREE. If you haven’t yet done it with us, you can jump in at any time. But the best time of course is at the beginning of a month because we start a new study. So the idea is that we’re writing studies for you and those studies are relevant. We’re hoping to address what’s happening in the culture in real time.

And so—we’ve studied five traits of false teachers, we’ve studied what it means to walk in right relationship with the Lord when it comes to parenting and marriage. For the next couple of months we’re going to be digging into the fruits of the Spirit. And I’ll be talking a little bit more about that today. But you can become a leader with MomStrong International. And what we’re hoping to see happen is for MomStrong International to be in churches all around the world. And so you can become a leader at MomStrong International. It doesn’t cost you anything extra to do that. The studies themselves are just $8 a month. And if you’ve never downloaded one I want to just encourage you to do it. You’d be amazed. It’s a very meaty study because what we’re trying to do is not water down the Word for you. We think that you guys can actually study God’s Word.

The Bible says that we are to study His Word to be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within us. And so, it’s part of the heart here at the Heidi St. John podcast, and also at MomStrong International—to equip you through listening to the Word through the podcast and also through studying the word with us at MomStrong International, to be able to go out into the culture and be a light and really bring the hope of the gospel to a world that desperately needs it.

One of the ways that I do that also is by speaking. Coming up, I’m going to be at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference June 13th through 15th at the Crowne Plaza at the Denver airport. That’ll be next week. This week I’m focused on my son Spencer’s graduation from our homeschool. Really excited to launch this young man out into the world. He’s looking at going to Bible College in the fall, and we’re just excited to see where God takes him next. These years that we spend with our kids, parenting our children—you know when our kids were little, it can seem like it takes so much time, and it does. But the time is going by so fast and I want to encourage you, if your children are home especially—lean into it.

One of the questions I get frequently here at the podcast is—how did I become a speaker? How did I become a writer? It’s a really long story, but I always tell people the main take away from how the Lord brought me to this place in my life—is that I do it with my family. My husband travels with me. Our kids are often with us on the road—many of you guys have met them. And through the years, about 15 years that I’ve been doing this, our kids have grown up. Most of them now, I guess I’m coming up on the most part, I can’t even believe it. Four of the seven are adults now and a walking with the Lord on their own. And the three that we have a home, two are in high school and I’ve got one coming up in fifth grade. And you guys—oh my goodness—the hardest, best thing you will ever do is invest in your kids. Invest in your kids, invest in your marriage.

A couple of weeks ago I was real tired. Some of you guys saw me post this on Facebook. Sometimes, you know, I’m just like the rest of you. I get too many weeks in a row without a break. Too much time on an airplane, too much travel, not enough time in the Word of God. And I can hit a dry spells in my own life. And definitely, a couple of weeks ago I was just like—DING, dry spell! And my sweet man noticed it. And it was having an effect on our relationship with each other. You guys ever get into a spot with your husband, or with your wife, when you haven’t taken the time for whatever reason? It could be because you’ve got a newborn. It can be because work is pressing. It can be because of an illness in your family, or just a stretch of travel—or whatever it is. And we were, I mean not hitting a horrible spot—but we were hitting a wall, and we hit a rough spot. And he surprised me a couple of weeks ago and took me out for the evening and we ended up spending the night at McMenamins Lodge in Kalama. And I linked to it because, first of all—it’s just a wonderful night for us to get away. And secondly, it reminded us that just hitting the reset button and going–oh yeah, that’s why. That’s why we’re working so hard. That’s why we care about the podcast. That’s why we homeschooled our kids, because the Lord brought us together as a married couple to do something for the Kingdom of God. And that’s how He sees all of you. Every single one of you that’s listening to this, whether you’re married or not, God has something that He wants you to do. And sometimes we need to take a step back and hit the reset, and take a rest, and take a pause.

And it’s amazing to me how God uses that to refresh us and get us back out onto the battlefield. So if that’s where you are right now, I just want to encourage you—it’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to say—you know what, Babe? We need to spend some time together. Spending some time alone with your spouse is one of the reasons why I love taking on the sponsorship partnership that we have with MELT. Which we’ve been doing for several years here after I wrote a post called Hot Monogamy, just talking about the importance of nurturing the romance—that part of our marriages that we so often lose sight of when the kids come and the mortgages come and the pressures of the world seem to weigh in on us. And the marriages that survive, listen up the marriages that survive, but not only survive—thrive—they thrive through intentionality. They thrive because we’ve decided to invest in them. Your children will thrive because you decide to invest in them—because you say no to some things in order to say yes to other things.

And so wherever you are in your marriage, in your parenting right now, if you’re feeling weary—and a lot of us get to June, right–we’re done with school and we’re looking at a little bit of a break. Take a break, take a break. One of the ways that I take a break, is just by getting alone with the Lord. And so that’s part of our heart for continuing the study at MomStrong International through the summertime. You guys don’t have a lot of the normal things on your plate that you do. It’s a great time to develop a habit of being in the Word of God.

If you’re not studying with me and you’ve kind of been on the edge and just sort of thinking about it, you guys—with 13,000 of you following me with the Scripture Writing Challenge, we want to see even more and more and more of that number coming over to the actual study—because really, the Scripture Writing Challenge is just to wet your whistle. It’s just to have you see the power of being in God’s Word. And then hopefully you’ll start doing the study with us and we can dig even deeper, and grow even more in our relationship with the Lord. And so this month, and for the next two months, as we study the fruit of the Spirit—it’s important for you guys to understand that there’s a big difference between the fruit of the Spirit that the Bible teaches that makes us like Christ, and the fruit that comes as a result of our actions.

And oftentimes when I’m out on the road or teaching at my women’s conference, or wherever it is—I see these two conflated. And so I want to differentiate between those at the podcast today and just say—we’re going to dig into the fruit of the Spirit, which is what makes us like Christ. So when we read the Bible, and when we study the Bible—we want to read it contextually. And so what that means is that we read the Bible in context so that we can gain a full awareness and an understanding this complete of the passage or the paragraph, rather than just pulling a verse out of the sky and studying this verse and that verse. When we pull out one verse at a time—oftentimes we miss appropriate that verse and we use it in a way that it wasn’t intended to be used.

So for example, an example of this is found in Philippians 4:13—I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So is the apostle Paul giving you the freedom to enter an Olympic marathon with no training and then anticipate a winning that’s based on the belief that God’s going to strengthen you—you know, supernaturally? No. Right? That’s laughable. So if you want to understand where it’s coming from, you got back up a little bit. And instead of focusing on Philippians 4:13, we’re going to go back to Philippians 4:12 and then read verse 13. So it says,  I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

So the actual context of Philippians 4:13 is the provision of God, how God provides for us, whether we are in a time of want or we are in a time of plenty. And this has certainly been the case throughout my life as Jay and I’ve gone through seasons of struggle, and seasons of just absolute rapture and joy. God is in all of it and He wants us to walk in right relationship with Him. And so, this month we’re studying the fruits of the Spirit. We’re going to begin a study on it and I just want to encourage you to jump in, grab some women from your area. Women, you can become a leader. And once you download the Bible Study, you’ll see we do something every week called Kids Strong. It’s an opportunity for you to take what we’re learning and then apply it to your life right now. So, you apply it to your life and then we’re going to teach you how to teach it to other people because really that’s the heartbeat behind the ministry that is MomStrong International—is to teach us as we studied together to rightly divide God’s Word. So we first learn the Word, then we learn how to love other people according to what God’s Word says, and then we learn how to lead other people in right relationship with the Lord. To take a position of leadership in the culture. It’s something that I am so passionate about. In fact, my women’s conference coming up this next year—it’s going to be focused on leadership and leading like Jesus does and what does it look like to shine, to shine the love of Jesus, to shine it in our marriages, to shine it with our parenting, to shine it in the culture. God says that we are going to be known for our love, right?

The Bible says that they’ll know you are Christians by your love—which is guess what? It’s a fruit of the Spirit, right? It’s a fruit of the Spirit. And so we want to be looking as we walk through the fruits of the Spirit, and be careful in the way that we handle God’s Word so that we understand there’s a difference between the fruit of our action, and the fruit of our Spirit—the fruit of God’s Spirit, rather. We want to be careful in how we handle God’s Word, which is the Word of truth. And then, be sure that we understand why it matters. That the fruit of the Spirit is different than the fruit that comes from our actions.

Bruce Hurt defines the difference in these two things as a spiritual attitude fruit, which is what we’re studying in Galatians 5, right?–love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control—and a spiritual action fruit. He said, every believer manifests all the actions of his spiritual attitude fruit to some degree, although often one or several traits will be predominant. The spiritual attitude fruit precedes spiritual action fruit. Did you guys here that? Our spiritual attitude fruit proceeds, or it comes before, spiritual action fruit. If the spiritual attitudes are present, the fruit of good deeds will invariably follow. In 1 Corinthians 1:10 Paul Describes believers filled with, or controlled by, the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding and thereby walking worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him. And here comes—bearing fruit in every good work. So we want to note that spiritual action fruit is preceded by a spiritual attitude fruit that Paul describes in Galatians 5.

And oftentimes in parenting our children, and many times Jay and I have been praying to see us a particular fruit in the life of one of our kids. And there’s one day in particular I remember calling him at work and just…this thing that we’d been praying about with one of our kids. And I was like—honey, oh my goodness, I just saw fruit on our little tree. He was like—no way. Yes, it’s true.

We had been praying for this particular kid, and praying that the fruit of the Spirit, which was in this case the fruit of self-control—would manifest itself in the life of my child by watching this child demonstrate the action that comes from the attitude of self-control. Having an attitude that saying—I’m going to allow myself to be controlled by the Spirit instead of controlled by the flesh. And wouldn’t you know it, as I was talking to my husband on the phone, the same kid that I was just saying—he’s got it! we figured it out!—came careening through the kitchen, did the exact opposite thing that I was just telling my husband that we’d finally got figured out and I was like… nevermind, false alarm, no fruit. Talk to you later. Right?

Because  we pray for these things, It’s not just going to happen. The fruit of the Spirit is a vibrant, singular, rich fruit with heart attitudes, right? That not only support and balance each other, but they enhance each other. Right? And so, we want to see that in our kids. We want to see that in ourselves. And like I’m always saying—we can’t give our kids what we don’t have. So one woman said—I want what you have. I want to be gentle and kind. And in the same conversation said—no, Jesus seems like a good person, but I wouldn’t want to follow Him. This is a major disconnect and we’re going to be studying it at MomStrong International this month because this is such a major disconnect that it’s heartbreaking.

Because without the Spirit of God that changes us to become like Christ, we’re not going to be able to pour His heart out to the world around us.

And so instead, I want to encourage you to practice the work of daily surrender, and become malleable in the hands of the Father, right? So let’s not confuse the fruit of the Spirit with the gifts of the Spirit. That’s another thing, right? Paul’s instructs believers in Corinth, in 1 Corinthians 12:4-12 that there is one Spirit and Lord—but varieties of the gifts that He gives to certain people in certain times for certain reasons. And so, we’re going to be studying that a little bit at MomStrong International and discover why it’s important that we make a distinction between these things. So in this next season of our lives, I’m going to encourage you—let’s purpose to dig really deep and discover what the fruit attitudes of our hearts are, and where we need to fertilize them with the Word of God to bring nutrients to our walk with Him.

So where are we need to apply protection so that worms of bitterness and anger don’t infect our fruit and bring rottenness, right? And we want to ask the Lord to help us have a mature fruit that grows in a tranquil heart, so that it can be the desire that fuels a willingness to grow in right relationship with God.

Are you guys ready to do this with me? Study with me this summer. Take this season that God has given us that’s not quite as busy—certainly not as busy as the fall. We’re not surrounded by Christmas decorations and having to do all those things, right? This is a great time to grow stronger and your relationship with God. I want to encourage you to do it.

Join me at MomStrongInternational.com. We want to hear from you. I want to hear how it’s impacting your life. What’s the study doing in your life that’s helping you grow in right relationship with God?

I want to remind you guys, I will be at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference from June 13th through 15th, coming right up, at the Crowne Plaza Denver airport. When you see me, I might be a little teary eyed having just graduated our fourth son from our homeschool. You guys, it’s amazing how fast it goes by. Your children have been given to you like arrows in the hands of a warrior. Let’s study so that we can give our kids an absolute launch that we know has been done in the power, and the strength, of the Holy Spirit. I love you guys. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you back here on Friday.

Write to Heidi:
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

 

Faith: Personal but Not Private – 773

Culture is so strong that churches are bending to its will. Are you struggling to shine in the midst of it all? The culture is awash with opinions and issues these days—so what does a Christian do? We are called to be full of grace and truth. We must never sacrifice truth on the altar of misguided mercy. Jesus was grieved at the Pharisees’ unwillingness to understand or even seeks God’s heart with issues such as healing on the Sabbath. Today, we’ll look at the similarities between the story in Mark chapter 3 and the church culture today.

Today’s Scripture Writing:

  • Proverbs 15: 2, 7, 23

Mentioned in Podcast

Scripture Mentioned

  • Mark 3:1-6
  • Matthew 5:14-16
  • Proverbs 15:25

Join us at MomStrong International for our Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:
Hey everybody, this is Heidi St John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, May 31st episode number 773. Normally I have a guest on for Friday, but there were so many things on my heart today that I decided I was going to take a day and talk about what it means to shine—really shine—for the Lord in the culture today. And it may not be what you’re thinking.

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

So, wow—31st of May! I can’t even believe it. My husband and I are in Columbus, Ohio right now for the Teach Them Diligently Conference. We are so excited to be partnering with, Teach Them Diligently for this season of my speaking, and I just want to encourage you, wherever you are—if you have a chance to come out and say hello at any of the conferences I’m at, particularly at Teach Them Diligently Conference, I would love to see you. The next event that I’ll be at is my son’s graduation from our homeschool. That’s right. I’m feeling a little melancholy this week. It’s probably going to drag on for a little while. But you know what—that’s our job as parents, right? To raise our children like arrows in the hands of a warrior. And it’s launching time for my son, Spencer. So we’re excited about that.

I’d appreciate your prayers as you think about our family and the many, many, many families who are launching children out into the world this season. It is a fearful thing to release an arrow. And that’s what we’ve been doing, right? We spend our whole lives preparing our children to, hopefully, stand for righteousness in the culture. And that’s part of what I want to encourage you to do today. I’m going to be talking a little bit about what it means to embrace what God embraces. And so I thought I would take a couple of moments today to read some headlines, talk about a little bit what’s going on in the culture, and then turn your attention back to the Word of God. Because as I’m always saying here, God isn’t silent. He’s not silent on the issues that we’re facing.

He’s not unaware, He’s not ambivalent—and He does not want us to be silent, unaware, or ambivalent either. So, that’s going to be my focus today. I want to encourage you, if you haven’t done it already, now is a great time to start Scripture Writing with me over at MomStrong International. I’ve been trying to remember to read the verses that I have on the on whatever day it is that we’re doing. And so today’s the 31st of May. This is the last day of the Scripture Writing challenge for the month of May, a brand new one starts tomorrow. And these come with a copywork for your children. They’re also available in Spanish now and you can register for free. Just go over to MomStrongInternational.com. I’m telling you—I’ve been saying this for many years. I’m going to keep saying it as long as the Lord gives me breath.

God’s Word says that His Word, the Bible, is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. And we have never needed a lamp and a light like we do right now. So head on over, you can download the copywork challenge. If you’ve got little kids, it’s a great opportunity for them to practice their handwriting all through the summer. Just a verse a day. It’s a very easy thing to do and you’re going to kind of kill two birds with one stone.

All right, so today’s verse—it’s kind of a smattering of verses actually from Proverbs chapter 15. It’s verse two, then we skip to verse seven and then we did verse 23. So let me read them to you. Proverbs 15 verse 2—The tongue of the wise adorns knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly. Proverbs 15:2

The tongue of the wise adorns knowledge. I love this because he’s saying—listen, wisdom should be the foundation. And we adorn that with knowledge, not the other way around. And unfortunately in the culture right now—and this is even true in homeschool circles, and it’s absolutely true in the social justice circles that I see growing in the church today—we are adorning knowledge and then we’re backing it up. I mean we are making knowledge our foundation, and then we’re adorning it, we hope, with wisdom—but it doesn’t work that way. God says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom is the foundation. It starts with the fear of the Lord. And so then the Bible goes on to teach us in Proverbs that the tongue of the wise adorns knowledge—so we don’t want to have a be the other way around.

Then obviously the mouth of the fool gushes folly. All you gotta do is go onto a college campus right now and you will see that play out for you in real life. All right, so the next verse is found in the same chapter of Proverbs 15:7a The lips of the wise spread knowledge. Again, this is Solomon saying wisdom is what we’re after, not knowledge, okay? The lips of the wise spread knowledge, but the hearts of fools are not upright. [Proverbs 15:7] Again, once we attain wisdom as believers, then we start learning, then we start backing that up with knowledge. All right? We don’t want it to be the other way around. In fact, the Bible says that knowledge puffs up—so knowledge without that wisdom isn’t what we want. Knowledge is what we learn. Wisdom is the ability to apply it. And so if we don’t have wisdom, the knowledge is kind of for nothing. All right, so let’s skip down to verse 23 there are three verses in the Scripture Writing Challenge today. Verse 23 says, A person finds joy in giving an apt reply—and how good is a timely word! Proverbs 15:23

Now, I love this because really this is sort of the heartbeat of the ministry at MomStrong International, and absolutely the heartbeat behind the podcast. We bring this podcast to you three days a week because we want our words to be timely. That’s why I talk about the culture. That’s why I’m not afraid to dive into politics. That’s why I like to talk about things that are happening in real time. And then we write about them in real time as we study the Bible over at MomStrong International. And a for the month of June, I can’t even—June you guys, for goodness sake! For the month of June, we’re going to begin a  study and we’ll do it all summer.

We’re going to study the Fruit of the Spirit. And when we talk about the fruit of the Spirit, obviously we’re talking about patience, and joy, and goodness, and peace, and gentleness, and self-control. But it’s a fruit. It’s evidence that we are walking in right relationship with the Lord. And so often what we see right now in the culture, and this has been certainly the case throughout history, and even when the Bible was written—it is replete with stories of men and women who claimed to be Christians. The Pharisees among them, right? Claim-to-be-followers of God. I guess they couldn’t have been since Christ hadn’t come yet. But you understand what I’m saying—right? They claim to be religious, but they had no wisdom and they were in it for the wrong reasons. And I see so many Christians today, people who claim the name of Jesus—and don’t know His Word—getting out there on platforms and espousing things that God actually says He hates. He says He hates it. In fact, if you go down to verse 25 in Proverbs 15, it says, The Lord tears down the house of the proud, but He sets the widow’s boundary stones in place. Proverbs 15:25

You see, the Lord is keenly aware of the conditions of our hearts. And so we want to focus on the conditions of our hearts today. There’s so much going on in the culture right now. Franklin Graham has declared June 2nd as a day of prayer for President Trump. I want to encourage you to join me. We pray for our president every day, but I love that we’ve declared a day to pray for him. I have never seen a president so maligned, so attacked, so viciously hated—as I see President Trump hated. I’ve also never seen a president stand for Israel the way that President Trump is doing.

I’ve never seen a president so pro-life, as President Trump. And I realized that he started out pro-choice, but I pray for him every day and we are seeing him make incredible strides for the pro-life movement and to really support what the people behind the pro-life movement are saying, which is— you shall not kill. Hands that shed innocent blood is something that the Lord detests. And we are certainly guilty of that in the culture today. So I want to just encourage you, I thought I’d read the statement from Franklin Graham. June 2nd, 2019 is a special day of prayer for the president. And Franklin Graham issued a statement on Facebook and he was asking his—you know, he has tens of thousands of listeners—to commit to prayer. And so we’re going to do that here at the podcast also and say—hey, let’s pray for our president. Let’s pray for him. Let’s commit to doing it together.

The Bible teaches us that we are supposed to be praying for those in leadership. We don’t just pray for people that we agree with, right? We pray for people that we disagree with and so Franklin Graham said, along with 250 plus other Christian leaders—I’m asking followers of Christ across the nation to set aside Sunday, June 2nd, as a special day of prayer for President Donald Trump. President Trump’s enemies continue to try everything to destroy him, his family and the presidency. In the history of our country, no president has been attacked as he has. I believe the only hope for him and this nation is God. This is a critical time for America. We are on the edge of a precipice. Time is short. We need to pray for God to intervene. We need to ask God to protect, strengthen, and encourage and guide the president.

I agree 100% with Franklin Graham. He’s saying that on June 2nd we asked that pastors would lead their congregations in praying for the president. That Sunday schools and their groups would join together and pray and that individuals and families across the country would have a special focus on praying for the president that day. And so June 2nd coming and write up, you guys, it’s right around the corner—this Sunday, a special day of prayer for President Trump and his family. I hope you will join me in praying for him as well.

It’s interesting because there’s so much happening in the culture right now. It’s never been a better time for Christians to be committed to prayer. And I’m watching some pretty amazing things happening where Christians are struggling to figure out—what is my role in all of this? And a couple of days ago, somebody sent me an article on One News Now. A guy who said that—Evangelical Trump supporters wink at sin. And this is the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention. And you guys, I was like—um, no. And so I said—this is hogwash. There’s not a Christian that I know that supports the president who has condoned his past sin. We don’t wink at it. We don’t take lightly. But I said several years ago when this whole thing started and I realized—okay, it’s either going to be a Mr. Trump or Ms. Clinton—that Trump would be a better option for a commander in chief, and he’s still a better option than any other person that’s currently eyeing the job. He was 1000% better than Hillary Clinton who would kill a baby up to the moment of birth and be proud to support such a wicked stance. And frankly, I’m sick of self-righteous Christians who are just too good to support the president. It’s not okay. We are called to pray for him, to support the policies that he’s making, to pray for the people around him—and we have a responsibility and an obligation to do so.

And so it’s not saying that we’ve said—oh good, he had an affair, I’m so happy he’s married three times. No, nobody said that. But oh my goodness you guys—were losing sight of the forest for the trees. I had someone say to me—Tim Keller said that he’s troubled by growing nationalism. And so the Gospel Coalition interviewed him and he was explaining why he thinks nationalism is a problem. He said he’s a Christian first and an American second. And I totally agreed with them on that. But then he sort of lost me at a bunch of other stuff he was saying, and I liked Tim Keller. But he’s talking about growing nationalism. And I’m talking about growing social justice, and I’m troubled by church leaders who embrace social justice above common sense and our nation’s sovereignty and then call it a biblical position.

You guys, we should read the book of Nehemiah. I mean, if we can’t be committed to our nation’s sovereignty and committed to serving the Lord Jesus at the same time—then we should all just go home, right? And Israel should stop defending itself. And so a woman, she messaged me and said you know—she doesn’t find any reference to common sense in the beatitudes. She said—Heidi, read Matthew 5. I don’t hear national saying the first shall be last or love your enemy, which she’s completely wrong about that. The words “common sense” don’t look anything like what Jesus taught in the Beatitudes. And so I said—I don’t understand why, as Christians, we’re having a conversation about divorcing common sense and the beatitudes. So love your enemy does not mean sacrifice your safety or behave foolishly. If that’s the case, then we should throw out Israel sense of self protectionism because evil is still evil—and we have a responsibility to protect our, our people in our country.

Have you ever heard of the phrase—they are so heavenly minded that they were of no earthly good. That’s how I feel about a lot of these discussions that are happening in the church right now—because the answer, of course, lies in the middle. You can be a good ambassador of your country and still be an ambassador of the Lord Jesus. And indeed that’s what we need to be. And so this self-righteousness, this idea that we are so morally superior that we can’t vote for President Trump, or pray for him, or support him. And if we do, somehow we’re condoning sin in his life is a ridiculous argument. And so the social justice stuff that has just leaked into, and is frankly hurting our churches, is ridiculous to me.

Absolutely we should be committed to caring for the people around. Absolutely be committed to the Gospel—but it’s grace and truth. We don’t divorce one and embrace the other. And so in response to this woman who said—Heidi, did you find the word common sense in the beatitudes? She said—Jesus called the citizens of His kingdom to be and to do that which looks foolish and weak.  Well, this is the same argument. See this to me is devoid of human reasoning, and even godly reasoning because that’s the same argument that I heard for years and years of people who said—Oh, you know, that woman is in an abusive relationship, but she is called to be submissive to her husband. Well, not submissive to the point of her husband beating her to death. I mean, that’s ridiculous. I heard someone say—well, she’s called to turn the other cheek. No, that was not what Jesus meant! That’s not what He meant. And I also find no reference to gravity and the beatitudes, but that doesn’t mean the gravity doesn’t exist or that we should ignore it.

And so the argument is flawed because it asserts that we can’t believe the beatitudes and still use common sense. We need both grace and truth. There’s so much happening in the culture today, and Christians need to know the Word, and rightly defend it, and rightly apply it. We need to rightly apply God’s Word so that we can be leaders in the culture. We want to be leaders. We want to be aware of the suffering of other human beings around us, but we don’t sacrifice. This is the same argument that I just heard a Christian make last week for saying we should never remove the right to an abortion from women. I’m like—can you hear yourself? So you would say that we would sacrifice…so let’s say there’s a baby that’s been conceived in rape, right? This is one of the big arguments against the pro-life movement.

Well, what would you do about the baby who was conceived in rape? And so I would hold up the ultrasound of one baby who was conceived in love and another baby who was conceived with violence and ask you—which of those babies deserves to die? So our arguments that we’re making for social justice fly in the face so often of what God says in His Word, we can be both filled with grace and embrace the truth. When it comes to abortion we should be loving the mother and her baby, not sacrificing one for the other. Whenever we can, we would take a stand for both. And we need to find our voice in the culture. We need to be able to stand for righteousness in the culture.

A week and a half ago, I was in church at our church in Canvas, Washington and Jeremy Carmichael was teaching out of Mark 3. And I want to read a little bit of it to you today because I was so encouraged. I mean, I was taking notes like a crazy woman. I was so encouraged by what he was saying. It was a different slant on this passage than I have ever heard. And this is the passage where Jesus is healing on the Sabbath, right? It really is a lesson in grace and truth. So let me read it to you. A Mark 3:1-6 — Another time Jesus went into the synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. So they watched Him closely to see if He would heal on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand stand up in front of everyone. Then Jesus asked them—which is lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to kill? But they remain silent and this grieved the Savior.

It grieved Him. The Bible says He looked around at them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts. He said to the man—stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was completely restored. Now Jesus knew that this would seal His death warrant. And in fact, it did. In verse six of chapter three it says—then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians on how they might kill Jesus. You see, Jesus knew that the Pharisees were watching so that they could accuse Him. In their minds, they thought that they were doing good. They didn’t care about the plight of the man with the shriveled hand because they were so interested in claiming the moral high ground while heralding injustice—and no place is this better seen than the arguments surrounding abortion right now.

We claim the moral high ground. It’s choice, give it to the women! And we herald injustice as we claim the moral high ground and so we need to understand why this is happening so that we can address it. And Jesus knows immediate why it’s happening. Verse five—He looked around at them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts. He was deeply distressed at their hard-heartedness and Jesus knows that our hearts need rescuing, right? Jesus was both love and truth, both grace and truth, and He was shining a light. He was exposing their sin with both grief and a righteous indignation. You see, sin matters and God deals with sin in His Word. Interesting to me to note that Jesus so grieved at what was happening. He was even giving the Pharisees a chance to open their eyes and they were so bent on making sure that He didn’t do any kind of work on the Sabbath. They didn’t even care if it was good work, right? Completely losing sight of the heart of the Father.

And so I look at what’s happening politically around me. I look at what’s happening with the abortion industry. I just read an article the other day—Missouri’s last abortion clinic was set to lose it’s a license on Friday—and at the time of this recording, I don’t know if it if it did or not. But they had a video recording of a woman who was about seven months pregnant with her fourth baby talking about how she took the life of her third baby because her third baby might’ve been born with an abnormality—and with tears in her eyes. She defended this saying it was absolutely unthinkable to her that a woman would not have the right to take the life of her own child.

It’s amazing to me. It’s amazing that we’re even having these conversations, but fortunately, we can look at them through the eyes of the Lord Jesus and know exactly what God’s heart would be. If you want to know if God cares about the sovereignty of nations, look and see how He feels about Israel. Read Book of Nehemiah. We can be both loving and truthful. We can be both loving and truthful. And another thing that’s interesting to me about Mark chapter three is looking at the man who had the withered hand. Because here was a man who was suffering and Jesus gave him a very clear instruction. He said—stand up in front of everyone. Now when Jesus asked this man to stand up in front of everybody, he had a choice to make. Was he going to trust Jesus or the Pharisees? You see, you guys—faith is a personal thing, but it is not a private thing.

God calls us to trust Him in the midst of a cultural decline. And so if you have faith, people should know it. As I observe what’s happening in the culture around me and I’m reminded and encouraged by what my pastor said last Sunday, he said—culture is one of the most powerful things on the planet. It is so strong that churches are bending to it’s will. Theology is bending to it. But Jesus said—you are the light of the world—so let your light shine. Men and women—how do you know that your light’s going to be shining? How do you know that you’re doing what Jesus asked this man todo? He said—do you want to be healed? Stand up in front of everyone. Choose. You get to choose. Choose me and your hand will be healed, but it’s gonna take courage and it’s going to take a willingness to say—you know what, I know the Pharisees can make my life miserable, but I choose Jesus. And the man chose Jesus.

So how do you know if you’re shining? Two things are going to happen. You’re going to get appreciation from the people that you’ve blessed by taking a stand for righteousness in the culture and you’re going to get persecution from the people that you offend—both appreciation and persecution. Those are coming your way if you decide to take a stand for righteousness in the culture right now. And I just want to encourage you like I do every week here at the podcast—get off the bench, get onto the battlefield. Your voice is needed. Pray for the president of the United States. It’s interesting to me to note, and my husband and I marvel at this as we travel around the country—the leftists in our nation and indeed around the world and I know a lot of you are listening around the world right now—they want to silence discussion. They want to silence your voice because they don’t have a decent argument and there is wickedness so often behind it—behind the stripping of parental rights, behind so many of these arguments, absolutely being able to be seen in the argument for abortion right now in the culture. And I want to encourage you to be both salt and light. Matthew 5:14-16—you are the light of the world. Let your light shine. You are the salt of the earth.

It’s interesting to think about how salt is poured out of a salt shaker. And those little tiny granules of salt they can get into the areas that we may not even see, and that’s the Holy Spirit saying—be salty, be the light of the world, and you can expect persecution and appreciation. My Pastor said if you get too much of one or too much of the other—you’re probably doing it wrong. Which was encouraging to me because I get a fair amount of persecution and a whole bunch of appreciation here at the podcast. But expect that persecution. Just expect it and take a stand for righteousness in the culture today, both truth and grace. When we pray for somebody, whether it’s our president—which I hope you’ll join with me on June 2nd and really commit him to prayer. I agree with Franklin Graham. We are at a crossroad in our nation. We’re at the jumping off place. We’re going to determine right now who we are and what kind of a world we’re going to pass on to our grandchildren. And I hope you guys will join me in saying—Lord, help me to be both salt and light. Help me to be full of grace and truth. Help me to expose sin with the light of your word just like Jesus did. Because justice, according to the Lord, is good. And justice says—this is right and this is wrong. And we know what’s right and what’s wrong by studying to know God’s Word and to rightly apply it to our lives.

I want to invite you guys to join me at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference on June 13th through 15th. I will be there in Denver, Colorado at the Crown Plaza near the Denver airport. They’re going to have a fantastic turnout. My friend Ken Ham is going to be there with me. I’m excited to see him and to hear what he has to say. He is definitely a voice for truth in the culture right now. So coming out June 13th through 15th, I will be at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference at the Crown Plaza near the Denver airport this weekend.

This weekend I’ll be in Ohio, Columbus for the Teach Them Diligently Conference. It’s not too late to come out and join me there. I’ll be there all day today and all day tomorrow. And if you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, you can save $12 by using the code Heidi12 at the checkout. I went a little bit long today. Thank you guys for hanging in there with me and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Write to Heidi:
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Deep Waters: Shine | MSI Week 4/4- 772

Leave a reply

Do you struggle to be kind? If so, you’re not alone. Jesus knew that our words would carry great authority with them, and He devoted much of His earthly ministry to teaching us how to season our words with grace while learning how to speak the truth. Listen in today and I teach from a section of the last week on our study of the power of words from MomStrong International.

Today’s Scripture Writing:

  • Matthew 7:3-5

Mentioned in Podcast

Scripture Mentioned

  • 2 Timothy 2:24-26
  • Colossians 4:5-6
  • Proverbs 15:23
  • Proverbs 31:26
  • Proverbs 27:9
  • Ephesians 4
  • Psalm 37
  • Ephesians 4:29
  • Philippians 4:8
  • Ephesians 4:14-16
  • 2 Timothy 2:24-25

Join us at MomStrong International for our Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St John. Thanks for tuning in today. Today is Wednesday, May 29th—this is episode number 772. It is also the last week of our study on the power of our words over at MomStrong International. Today we’re going to be talking a little bit about one of the fruits of the Spirit when we learn to speak the words that God wants us to speak—and that fruit is joy.

Stick around. I know you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, so couple of things. First of all, you got to know tomorrow I’m going to be in Columbus at Teach Them Diligently. I cannot wait to see you come on out and say hello. I will be there for through the 1st of June and I can’t wait to see you and just hear what God’s doing in your life. So come on out! Also, I want to encourage you—if you haven’t yet registered for the CHEC convention, I will be in Colorado from June 13 through 15. And I can’t wait to see you. I’m going to be recording with Dr. Dobson while I’m there. So, really looking forward to that. And then after that I going to take a little bit of time and I’m working on a brand new book which I cannot wait for you guys to see. I’ve been working on writing a new devotional—365 day devotional—for moms and I would really, really appreciate your prayers.

All right, today is Wednesday, May 29th and I’ve been trying to remember to share this Scripture from the Scripture Writing Challenge with you. And today’s Scripture Writing Challenge comes from Matthew 7:3-5. It says, Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Right—that ever happened to you? It’s happened to me. He’s going to go on to say, Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? Verse 5, You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Father, we come before you today and we just want to say thank you. Thank you for your Word, which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Father, I thank you for the power of your Word in our lives. I thank you for the opportunity that you have given me to speak life here at the podcast. And Lord, as we talk a little bit about the power of our words today as we wrap up our study on the tongue—Lord, I pray that you just speak through me. I pray that you would remind even me as I’m teaching and talking about this, that my words carry great power. Lord, I pray that you’d help us to speak life to our children and life to our spouses and life to those around us recognizing, yeah, that we are your ambassadors, so we love you. Lord. We invite you in here for the next several minutes. I pray that the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts would be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. In Jesus name. Amen.

All right, we’re on the last week of our study at MomStrong International and next week we’re going to start brand new for the month of June. We’re going to start talking about the fruits of the Spirit. So if you haven’t joined us yet at MomStrong International, it’s not too late to do that. The Bible study is just $8 a month, and I’m telling you what, we are pouring our heart and soul into that over there and I know that you’re going to be encouraged. So check it out. You can check out the forums over there. Were over there. There are several moderators now, women, just like yourselves who have come on staff with us at MomStrong International and they are helping us moderate those forums. We want to hear from you. We want to hear how you’re growing in the Lord. We want to hear what God’s doing in your life.

Our key verse for this week is found in 2 Timothy 2:24-26. The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. In Colossians 4:5-6 we read, Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

This is tricky, isn’t it? It can be really tricky, especially in age of social media, especially in the Internet age. And I think sometimes we forget that we are ambassadors for the Lord Jesus’ and he’s saying—listen, the Lord’s bond-servant, the Lord’s ambassador, mustn’t be quarrelsome. And the study says, be kind, be able to teach, be patient when you’re wronged, and correct people around you with gentleness. Boy, I’m feeling that conviction in my own heart right now. Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders. And so we want to learn about how God would have us season our speech because the truth is—the words that come out of our mouths can be a beautiful gift to the listener. They can be full of richness and blessing, but they could also be words that are harsh—like the five month construction project that’s happening on your neighbor’s house banging at 7:00 AM every single morning, right?

The Bible says in Proverbs 15:23, A man has joy in an apt answer, and how delightful is a timely word! You see, each day is another series of moments where God has prepared good works for us to walk in—and we need to be walking in those everyday for our good and for His glory. So we examine what we say, and when, why, how, to whom we are going to speak—because this is a healthy growth point for us in our journey of becoming more like Christ. So when I wrote the book Becoming MomStrong, it’s because I wanted women to see that this process that we are engaged in as believers—is a process, it’s a journey of becoming, and we want to become more like Christ. There’s a reason why James refers to the tongue as restless, evil. He said it’s full of deadly poison. Have you guys experienced that? I have. I’ve noticed that my own tongue can be full of deadly poison, right? But knowing that Christ gave us the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts and our mouths, should give us strength to move from the daunting task of always saying the right thing to instead choosing to train our hearts, and our minds, and our mouths in godly speech.

How many of you have ever had to just bite your tongue? You know, just like—not going to say that. That’s not going to go over very well, right? We bite our tongues, we like—Lord help me not to say the thing I want to say instead help me to say that thing that you want me to say. And that’s really my heart for you at MomStrong International, right? So at the podcast, through MSI, everything that we’re doing—we believe so much that God is revolutionizing conversation in homes around the world through the study of His Word that we’re going to continue to encourage you to press in, to don’t grow weary in doing good, and to learn to bring a change to the timber of your home by speaking words that are filled with life. So that’s life. It’s kindness, it’s blessing.

And then that change can ripple into the world. So as your children go out with joy and they bring forth piece with their speech, you are going to be reaping the reward that comes from training your children in righteousness. And as we enter the final week of the study at MomStrong International on this, we’re going to look at a couple of ways that we can shine in our words and richly bless those who are hearing. This is, I only do this once a week. It’s, I’m going to touch on the study at MomStrong International. If you want the whole study, I want to encourage you, join us. You can download it. We usually take these these studies down about a week after they’re over. So if you want to get access to the study, today is a great time to do that. And sit down with your kids and study God’s Word at them.

Proverbs 31:26 says, She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. This is one verse out of the study of the Proverbs 31 woman, that annoying woman who seems to do everything right and she has access to servants, which is another annoying thing about her. But the Bible tells us that she also is a woman of incredible character and we need to be copying her character. And so, not only is our desire to encourage and bless those that we hold the closest, but Colossians—which we just read a few minutes ago—exhorts us to conduct ourselves with wisdom toward even the people who don’t know the amazing depth of Christ’s love for them. Why? So that we make the most of every interaction.

So none of us wants to be a hindrance to someone who’s coming to our faith. And so the question is—how do we bring the reality of what God teaches us in His Word about our speech into our everyday lives? Well, we’ve got to start by realizing that every word, every action on social media, and in the long line at the grocery store, and at Walmart, or at the homeschool co-op—can either be a help or a hindrance to somebody’s faith journey.

So, and I’m not trying to guilt trip you, but I do want you to recognize and be sobered by the fact that if we don’t exercise wisdom and we don’t season our speech with grace as if it were salt—that we are having a negative impact rather than a positive one. And the same is true of our children, right? You see, grace is to words what salt is to a meal. And salt enhances the flavor and it brings out all the best goodness of a portion of meat or a wonderful salad, right? But grace is the same with our words. So the mind of Christ in us reacts with our words and brings the fullness, which is the best flavor, the best strength to our words come to the surface. Just like salt brings the flavor to the surface, grace brings the best of our words to the surface so that we can respond to everyone who’s listening the way that they most need, right?

Proverbs 27:9 Oil and perfume make the heart glad, so a man’s counsel is sweet to his friend. And so when we talk a lot about speaking the truth in love—does that mean that we are super, incredibly honest about everything? Remember a week ago we studied, or rather three weeks ago we started Ephesians 4—and we learned that that’s not actually the truth, right? So we don’t want a mistake honesty for rudeness. We want to learn to be kind and season our speech with grace and love. Remember Psalm 37 taught us that when we walk according to the Word of God, these are the things that that develop in us: trust, goodness, faithfulness, delight in the Lord, righteousness.

And as we delight ourselves in, Lord, the Bible teaches us that He gives us the desires of our heart. He wants to do that. Why? Because those desires are focused on God’s desires, God’s ideals, and God’s priorities. So we know that out of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so a heart that’s filled with God’s desires are going to do what? It’s going to speak: discernment, clarity, love, kindness, grace, truth. All of these things come from a heart that is surrendered to the Lord.

So the Bible teaches us that the things that come from a righteous mouth are wisdom—not knowledge, did you notice that? Knowledge is not what we want. Wisdom is the ability to apply the knowledge that we’re learning. And the Bible says a righteous mouth brings forth wisdom and justice. And here justice is the Hebrew word Mishpat, which means a verdict. So favorable or unfavorable, right?

But we want to recognize that we are able, as Christ’s children, as children of the living God, to speak with wisdom and justice. And the Bible says that when we have the law of God in our heart, the result is that our steps do not slip. And so as you’re listening to this today, wherever you are in your walk with the Lord, wherever you are in your age—maybe you’re old enough to be a mom, maybe you’re a teenager, maybe your dad on his way to work. I want you to consider if we are living according to Psalm 37, then speaking the truth and love becomes much simpler because we practice Ephesians 4:29 with our speech. We season our speech with grace and then we apply Philippians 4 whatever is true, whatever is right, whatever is a good repute—to whatever enters our mind. I call it with my kids the Philippians 4 filter. It’s a filter that God wants us to put on our speech.

So I’m going to encourage you today to read Ephesians 4:14-16 because we studied verses 14 to 16 in week one. And we learned that biblical maturity involves a growing steadiness in our minds. That means we don’t freak out when we see things on the Internet. We don’t freak out. And you know, sometimes it just means we have to realize what’s going on around us and what God is doing in and through us as we take sort of the abuse of the world, who doesn’t understand where we’re coming from. Nowhere can this be better seen in the fight for life right now. Nowhere can we see this. Because I believe that the fight for life, our willingness as Christians to stand up and say—we are going to defend the unborn in this world, we are no longer going to stand by and allow the slaughter of innocent babies to happen on our watch. We will speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. And you see an outright viciousness and an anger that is coming from the world right now. Why? Because what we’re seeing as a response to evil. And just because someone speaks unkindly to us, doesn’t mean that we respond unkind.

The Bible says instead we are to lay aside our own flesh, and to speak the truth to our neighbors in love, in the hope that they will also become Christians. So we gotta ask ourselves then—what is the goal of Godly speech? Why should it matter to us? Why should it matter to us that we understand God’s heart and we put His heart into practice—and the answers found in the Bible. The Bible teaches us that if we are a servant of Christ, we’re going to grow to want to be more like Him. And Paul taught the Church of Ephesus that they were to grow mature in their doctrine. He was saying—understand what the Bible means. He talked to Timothy about the same thing in 2 Timothy 2:24-25. He said, if we are a servant of Christ, we must not be quarrelsome, but rather be kind to all so that we become able to teach.

Part of becoming able to teach—and this is really the heartbeat here at MomStrong International—It’s too to help you to learn God’s Word, to love people the way that God loves them, and then to get out in front and become leaders. And this means that you are able to pass on what you’re learning, you’re able to teach. And part of that is to become biblically literate.

I said it before—we have a pretty serious problem in the church right now. And that is that we are living in a generation of biblically illiterate Christian. So men and women who claim the name of Jesus but who don’t know His Word and can’t defend it. And we want to become biblically literate. We want to know what God’s Word says so that we can learn to pass on the truth of what He says to anyone who’s watching. The Bible teaches us that we are to correct those who are in opposition to what we teach about Jesus. But He says that there is a way to do it. It’s not the same as we would chase in a child, but rather that we would learn to be a gentle in the way that we speak to those around us because the world is watching. This is so important, men and women, this is so important. In verses 24 to 26 of 2 Timothy 2,  and I’m going to close with this today, we look and how God wants us to be again. So it’s the same. It’s the same verse that I started with but I want you to see this as God’s heart for you. This is the Lord of Heaven’s Army speaking to you through the Apostle Paul saying, this is how important your speech is to me. So let’s close with this verse today, 2 Timothy 2:24-26

The Lord’s bond-servant [that’s you guys] must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach [that means we know God’s Word] patient when wronged, and with gentleness correcting those who oppose us, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of truth, and they might come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil having been held captive by him to do as well.

You see, ultimately there’s a whole lot hanging on this. And the big thing hanging on this is the salvation of men and women that are in our lives, and within the sound of our voice, and within earshot of our words. And we want our words to be seasoned with grace as you would season our food with salt. So think about how your words are affecting your children. Think about how they’re affecting your spouse. Ask The Lord to give you an opportunity to speak life, to be both gracious and truthful at the same time. Because God says that you can do it.

If you guys want more information on this study, it’s a wonderful study for you to do with your teens. You can find it at MomStrong International. The name of the study this week is Deep Waters. I am on week four, so I just finished this month with you and we’re gonna move on to next month.

For the month of June we’re going to be studying the fruit of the Spirit. I cannot wait! Something we don’t often talk about in the church, and God has so much for us. He has so much life for us as we get to know Him and get to know His Word. So I want you guys to join us. We have been so blessed by the many of you who have come alongside us at MomStrong International. You can join the Bible study. You can do the Scripture Writing, of course in that part is free, and I’ve been doing that for many years here at the podcast and at my blog. And that will give you the opportunity to read God’s Word with us every day and just write down a little verse. And we also have copywork for your children. So you can not only be writing God’s word yourself, but your kids can be writing it with you, yhey can be practicing their handwriting.

If you join the Bible study, which is just $8 a month, so basically it’s $2 a week—you get this fantastic study and we’re going to take you deeper into the Word. You’ll have access to Kids Strong—so Kids Strong International, which is the part of the Bible study where we help you take what you’re learning and teach it to your kids.

God says that he wants us to grow in our relationship with Him, to grow in every aspect of our relationship, to grow in our knowledge of His Word, to grow in we represent Him to the world around us, and to grow in grace. And we do that through applying God’s word to our everyday lives. I hope you guys have been encouraged today. I have been encouraged just to hear what God’s doing in your life.

If you’d like to reach out to us, please do that. You can reach out to us via the mail, via snail mail, which we love. We love to hear from you. Please send that to Heidi St. John c/o Firmly Planted Family 11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682. We appreciate your prayers for us and please be sure to check out our sponsor, Evangelical Christian Credit Union, ECCU.org/Heidi.

Have a great day everybody, and I’ll see you back here on Friday.

Write to Heidi:
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Marriage After God with Aaron and Jennifer Smith – 770

Today, you are in for a treat as my friends, Aaron and Jennifer Smith, join me to talk about why marriage is more than a relationship—it’s a covenant between the couple and God. God never does anything apart from a Kingdom purpose, including bringing two people together in marriage. Listen in and be encouraged as we are reminded of God’s heart for our marriages and families.

Transcribed version of the podcast is below

Today’s Scripture Writing:

  • Psalm 37:3-6

Resources Mentioned

Join us at MomStrong International for our Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

 

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday: podcast@thebusymom.com

Aaron & Jennifer Smith have been married for over 12 years and currently, have 4 young children. Ever since they married they have purposed to serve God and build His kingdom together. In 2011, they started blogging to encourage husbands and wives to center their marriage relationship on God. The newest addition to their ever-growing online ministry is their Marriage After God site, podcast, and book. The Marriage After God podcast is published every week. Aaron and Jennifer share candidly and honestly about personal stories of failure and victory in Christ in hopes of encouraging other couples to be used by God for His extraordinary purposes. You can find them on social media @MarriageAfterGod @HusbandRevolution and @Unveiledwife.

Marriage After God

Since the very beginning, God’s design for marriage is for husbands and wives to be ambassadors of holy love to a hurting world. Still, so many couples stop short at happy and wonder why they feel unsatisfied. Rather than “you and me against the world,” God calls each couple to the rich and meaningful mission of “you and me for the world.”

Aaron and Jennifer Smith, popular marriage bloggers at HusbandRevolution.com and UnveiledWife.com, transparently share their journey from a marriage in crisis to a marriage built on Christ’s redemptive love. Through fresh biblical insight and intimate stories of their own struggles and victories, this book will guide you toward a God-centered, ministry-minded, and thriving marriage. You will discover the signature marks of a marriage after God, find principles for building an unshakable marriage foundation, learn how to let God’s story take the lead in your love story, and recognize the tools God has already equipped you with for a missional life together. Filled with helpful illustrations, this thorough and practical book will empower you and your spouse to dream, decide, and do as you step hand-in-hand into God’s ultimate purpose for your marriage.

Your oneness is also meant for witness. God has purposed your remarkable, romantic, and redemptive relationship to be a powerful light to a dark and hurting world. This is your invitation to marriage as God intended – a life-saving, hope-inspiring, and transforming force of God’s love.

Connect with the Smith’s: Unveiled Wife Blog | Unveiled Wife Instagram |  Husband Revolution | Husband Revolution Instagram |  Marriage After God | Marriage After God Instagram

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:
Hey everybody, this is Heidi St John. Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for joining me today at my little corner of the Internet. Today is Friday, May 24th—it’s episode number 770. This is Meet-My-Friend Friday and you guys know by now I love having guests on the show who are following hard after God and today is no exception. My friends Aaron and Jennifer Smith are on the show with me today, we’re going to be talking about all things marriage. If you want to be encouraged in your marriage day and really get a reboot as to why God calls us to marriage in the first place, stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, so you guys know that we are mostly through, I cannot even believe it, mostly through the month of May. For those of you who’ve been following me at MomStrong International and are doing the Scripture Writing Challenge. Today’s Scripture is found in Psalm 37:3-6. I’m going to read it for you:

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

This is the Scripture Writing Challenge for today. You can download the months challenged free at MomStrongInternational.com and we have recently added a Spanish version to this Scripture Writing Challenge. So I want to just encourage you—you can have your kids join, there’s copywork for you, there’s cursive copy work for those of you who are doing the premium a Bible Study with us—but check it out at MomStrongInternational.com. One of the things I love about the Scripture Writing Challenge, particularly as it relates to what God does with people that are on the show and when that verse is—you know, that we are writing it out—is it almost always corresponds to what we’re going to be talking about on the show that day. And today’s no different.

One of the things I loved about this versus, I was looking at it earlier today, is it starts out saying—trust the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. That’s something we don’t hear a lot about in the culture today. And we’re going to talk a little bit about that today because my friends Aaron and Jennifer Smith are on the show with me today. I’ve been following Jennifer for quite a while at Unveiled Wife—she began blogging a long time ago and I’ll let her tell you about that.

But her husband’s also a blogger at Husband Revolution and they speak and write about marriage in a way that’s very powerful and relevant. I know you guys are gonna be encouraged. Arron and Jennifer, welcome to the podcast.

[Jennifer] Thank you for having us.

[Aaron] Yeah, we are honored and humbled.

[Heidi] Well, I am the one who’s honored and humbled. I love your passion for helping parents, and husbands and wives in particular, see themselves through the lens of Scripture. And that’s really what you do. And you guys have a brand new book out. But before I get to it, I would like to introduce our listeners to you. Is this the first time you guys have been on my show?

[Jennifer] I think so.

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Heidi] Yeah, I was thinking it’s 770 episodes. That’s bad. My bad. Cause you guys are doing amazing work through your blog and through your ministry to marriages. And you guys have been married what, 12—little over 12 years now?

[Jennifer] Yup. 11 and a half years.

[Aaron] January will be another year.

[Jennifer] Yup.

[Heidi] Another trip around the sun. Yeah. And those, uh, 12 and a half years around the sun have been fruitful for you because you’ve had four young children, right?

[Jennifer] Yeah, we do. Elliot is our oldest, he’s six and a half. Olive is—she just turned four. Wyatt is two, and Truett is nine months.

[Heidi] Oh my goodness. I love it. So you guys are in something I like to call—the wonder years. So everyone listening to me, they’re like—oh, Aaron and Jennifer and the wonder years—Heidi had to say it! This is when your kids are like, in awe and hope of everything around them. And you can really teach them about the creation of God and the wonder around them. And it’s also before they start to wonder if you know what you’re talking about. So it’s like—it’s like a twofer. These are some of my favorite years, ever. So you guys having fun? Do you feel overwhelmed yet?

[Aaron] It depends on what day it is.

[Jennifer] I was going to say yes and yes. They are in that season where they just love to explore and I feel like we’re learning a lot from them.

[Heidi] Yeah, it’s the wonder years, I’m telling you. Yeah, it’s so good. And you guys have an online ministry. You’ve got a podcast, and a book. I want to circle back to it, but by way of introduction, tell everybody what it is that you guys are up to you. What’s your passion right now?

[Aaron] So right now we’re putting a lot of attention and focus into our podcast, Marriage After God, you know, you’ve been doing it way longer than us, but we’ve been enjoying it. We do it together. It’s a weekly podcast where we talk about things that the Lord is teaching us in our marriage. And then our book, A Marriage After God, which comes out June 4th— is the culmination of just all of the things that the Lord’s been teaching us. And it’s a movement where we are trying to start to get marriages to recognize that God’s got them, He’s given them gifts to use for His kingdom.

[Heidi] I think it’s important too —one of the things I love about you and your stand together for the Lord is that what you’re really doing is reminding people that God’s Word is relevant. And it was relevant when it was written. It’s relevant now. And the most important thing that we can do is couples, if we want to follow God, is to have that strong biblical foundation. And you guys cover that in your book. So when you talk to people and they come up to you, say at a conference, and they’re talking about marriage and you want to encourage them to build their marriage on a strong foundation—where’s the first place that you have them start?

[Jennifer] The Word of God. We encourage them to dig in and—you know, we don’t want them to look at and take our word for it. We want them to understand and know who God is. We want them to apply His Word to their life.

[Aaron] As I was writing this book, I did a lot of the heavy writing on the front end of the book and then Jennifer did a lot on the backend. And I kept telling Jennifer—I was like, I just want to stop because the Bible’s already said this better than me. I’m like, no, this is just, you just need to read Galatians. So we start the whole book off with the Word of God is our culture. We don’t apply ourselves to the current culture. What we do is we apply to the foundation—that never moving, never shifting, Word of God. It is our foundation.

[Heidi] That’s right. And it’s amazing to me, and I’ve said this many,many times on the podcast—the church, in an effort to be seen as relevant, is really moving away from the only thing that makes us relevant, which is the unchanging, living, breathing Word of God. And you have done a very good job of having that be the foundation for everything else that you say after that, right?

[Aaron] Yeah. And we often tell people—they’re like, well, what about the stuff that you do? You don’t understand, or that is controversial. I say—well, if it’s something I don’t understand or it doesn’t make sense, it’s because I don’t understand it yet. Not because it’s wrong.

[Heidi] That’s right.

[Aaron] We get to change ourselves to what the Bible says, not the other way around.

[Heidi] That’s exactly right. And when we talk about having that strong biblical foundation, can you for just a minute, you guys, give listeners kind of a glimpse into what that looks like for you? Because I think one of the things we’re struggling with in the culture right now, and definitely we’re struggling with this privately and corporately as a church is—how do we grow? I think we’ve become very dependent on pastors and youth pastors—like we think this is the way we grow, we go to church. But actually it’s so much more than that. So in the day to day, if someone’s listening to this and they’re like—man, I want a strong biblical foundation, I believe the Bible, I want that to be the underpinning for my marriage, but I just don’t know how to do it. Can you give some encouragement as to how that might look?

[Aaron] Yeah. When I think about the Word of God, I immediately think of when Jesus was in the wilderness and He’s being tempted by the Devil, and He gets tempted with Scripture. You know, Satan presents Scripture to Him but takes out of context of course. And Jesus says—it’s not by bread alone that we live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And the Word of God, all of it, every bit of it. Not just picking and choosing, not just reading the stuff that is the easiest to follow. But you know, we tell people that email in—hey, how do you do Bible time with your kids? Or what do you know, where do I start? I said, well, the beginning. Go to Genesis and just read through the Bible. There’s a lot of crazy stuff in there, but it’s all important. The Old Testament makes the new testament what it is. The New Testament solidifies the shadows that we have in the Old Testament. So you need all of it, every single bit of it, all the bread.

[Heidi] So let me get this straight. You actually would take issue with the teachers out there right now that are saying—hey, it’s okay to unhitch from the old testament that that’s so BC. What do you say?

[Aaron] Well, Jesus didn’t. Jesus references the Old Testament more than anything. Before the New Testament existed, there was only the Torah and the Old Testament. So we can’t unhinge any of it of it, it’s all relevant. Without the Old Testament, without the stories in the books, and without the historical evidence that we have in there—nothing we have in the New Testament matters. Nothing we have in the New Testament is true. So Jesus didn’t come and just start this new thing. He took from the old, the original stuff, the stuff that was unchanging—and just expanded upon it in the New Testament. And so you can’t have one without the other. You need the whole thing.

[Heidi] We can totally, obviously we could do a whole other podcast just on this. And that’s not what this is about. But can I just say—thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Because I am increasingly frustrated listening to teachers who are saying—, —well, that’s so, you know, we can understand the book of Leviticus and some of this stuff’s really weird. And did a snake really talk to a woman in the garden? And I’m standing in the back there going—yes, yes, yes, yes. And it matters. So thanks for going off the script today and touching on that with me.

All right, you guys, I’m going to get back to why you’re here. So you guys have written that every marriage is unique and God has brought us together to serve the Lord. And I’m always telling audiences—God never does anything apart from a kingdom purpose. So everything that God does has something to do with the kingdom. It has something to do with something that we can’t see yet, but God can see it. And you outline that really well in Marriage After God. And Jennifer, when someone says to you—does it matter? This day to day mundane, seemingly mundane job of wiping little noses, and trying to carve out time for yourself, and hoping you can get to the bathroom by yourself, and then trying to nurture your marriage on top of all of that—Does it really matter?  Well, it goes back to this eternal significance. And when a weary mom comes up to you and she’s got tears in her eyes, cause we can all relate, right? She comes up to you and she’s exhausted, and she’s wondering, she’s saying—I don’t have time to invest in my husband right now because I can barely invest in my kids. Every ounce of energy I have, it feels like anyway, emotional and otherwise, is being poured into my kids. And she loses sight of that eternal thing that God is doing. How can you encourage that mom right now?

[Jennifer] Well, first of all, I just want to say I understand, I relate. I know what it feels like. God has given us and designed our bodies to experience so many different types of emotions and we do feel weary, you know, at times. But the point is that we do it with Him and we do it because of Him. And I have, I mean, I’ve been brought down low in just going from day to day to day to being able to be with my kids. And like you said, do all the mundane things. But the purpose is the ministry of reminding them, directing their hearts, whether it’s my husband’s hearts or my children’s hearts—that God is with us and He has a purpose for us. And that is the ministry that we’re supposed to be living out day to day.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s right. And it’s your marriage, right? I mean you guys know Ann Dunagan —and uh, years ago her son Mark made me a sculpture because you know, homeschoolers. So instead of writing me a thank you note, he came back the next year and said—hey, I was so touched because I taught on Psalm 127 that tells us our children have been given to us, like arrows in the hands of a warrior. And really I was talking about that warrior that God sees a husband and wife together on the battlefield, the husband in front of his wife. That God says that the man is the leader of his home—shield up taking those darts. Ad I’m not standing behind him knitting a baby blanket. Right? I’ve got a quiver full of arrows on my back and I’m shooting those arrows out, my husband and I together. And that marriage relationship is very, very powerful. I think sometimes we lose sight of that. Have you guys seen —even Christian couples lose sight of the eternal power and the eternal significance of marriage in the culture today?

[Aaron] Absolutely. What happens is because we’re so internally focused and we’re—well, this isn’t making me happy. Or this isn’t turning out the way I want. And, you know—I’m not comfortable. This doesn’t feel good. And what happens is—we, both of us, have gotten a plethora of emails over the years of people saying—well, God wants me to be happy. Therefore, since I’m not happy, God doesn’t want me in this marriage. And so they start from the false premise in the first place that God’s interested in just their happiness. If that’s your premise, then you think that God’s here for just you anyway. And the moment that we become Christians, we get grafted into a bigger picture. We get grafted into His, the vocation of salvation, of souls—the vocation of, as we’re told in the Bible—of reconciling the world to the Father.

And so, when we are looking, when we look internally, then the only thing we see is what we want or what we’re not getting—rather than what God wants and what God wants to get from us, and for us. And it becomes a distraction. As it tells us in Galatians—if you seek after the flesh, you’re going to reap the fruits of the flesh. But if you see me after the spirit, you will reap the fruits of the spirit, which is joy, peace, patience, kindness. When you have those things in marriage—I mean, first of all, happiness marriages is just a fruit of that. You know—you’re like, well, when you’re joyful and peaceful and kind to each other, that’s just a happy place to be. But when you guys are chasing after God, when your hearts are with Him, when you want what He wants, and you’re walking in the spirit—the overflow of that—because the Bible often calls us the vessels. We’re wineskins, were jars, where you know—cups.

These are things that describes who we are and what that is is something that gets filled up and then poured out, filled up and poured out.

[Heidi] Oh, you just described parenting in a nutshell.

[Aaron] That’s exactly what it is. But when you recognize what it is we’re doing—so my wife, everyday she gets, the thing that gets to sustain her is not that she did everything well or that she did it right or that she got enough done. Because when you think of that way, those are the days you feel that most week the most as a failure. But when you recognize like man, like—I’m, I’m teaching my children about God, I’m, I’m exemplifying for them who god is in our life and how we follow him. I’m teaching them the way they should go as the Old Testament says, and we, we are actually discipling our children. And we’re raising up Christians. We’re building the Kingdom of God from within, from the people that God gave us, from the image bearers that we have in our own home.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s right.

[Aaron] That’s the perspective that we have and it changes how we operate in our marriage because we recognize that this thing that we have is not just for us—but it’s because God has a mission for us to do in this world, He has a ministry for us to do in this world.

[Heidi] Yeah. It’s a kingdom purpose and God’s about the kingdom. I think sometimes we think that He’s about our glory, but God is resolutely committed to His own glory and He’s using marriage to bring Him glory. Right? I mean, that’s part of it.

I want to take this a little bit of a different direction for just a minute and here and hear a perspective from each of you. I wrote a book several years ago, for women, about marriage after I had seen up close and personal in my own family the devastation of divorce and what happens to children who are caught up in that situation. I am a product of divorce. Most of my siblings have been divorced. It’s very ingrained in my family. Jay and I are coming up on 30 years of marriage. We’ll celebrate our 30th anniversary in September. And that is the grace of God. It really is.

And part of it was learning and we’re continuing to learn, right?—how God wants us to treat each other. And I get emails all the time, I’m sure like you do, from husbands who say—I’m just so frustrated with my wife because a, b, or c. You know, pick anything. Right? Or a wife who says—I don’t know how to encourage my husband. Aaron, from not just a human standpoint—but obviously that plays in to it  because we’re human beings. But from a biblical worldview and reflecting the heart of Christ—what are some ways that you have found—because I often hear, you know we talk about all kinds of things in marriage, submission becomes as big issue and we dig into roles and we missed the heart of God. And when you have an opportunity to really bless your wife—after a long day, she’s exhausted, you’re exhausted. Hello. Can we just be honest? And you know that God wants you to love your wife, like Christ loved the church and you just think—I don’t care about the church right now I just don’t go to bed. I’m tired. Right? Talk to the guy who’s going—dude, I come home from work, I’m dead on my feet, my wife’s talking about the pipes that broke downstairs the kids are crying. How, what does it look like practically in that moment to minister to really be Jesus to your wife?

[Aaron] Yeah. Well, I mean, Ephesians 5:25 is clear. This is love your wife as Christ loves the church, giving himself up for her. And then that specifically talking about death on a cross, which every believer is supposed to take up their own cross.

[Heidi] Yup.

[Aaron] So if you think about it, just being a Christian to my wife, let alone being a husband her, I have to die to myself. I have to lay myself down. I have to  put myself beneath. You know—the greatest in the kingdom that will be the one that becomes at least in the kingdom. And so having that perspective of—I will lay myself down—which it is very difficult to kill my flesh in the moment if I’m tired, and I’m irritated, or the house is crazy. And so, you know, dying to myself is this the first thing. And then it says—washing her by the water with the Word.

So a part of it is constantly reminding my wife of what Scripture says about her. And it’s not beating her with Scripture. It’s reminding her and in a gentle way and saying—hey, like I know this was a hard day. Remember what you did was important. What we’re doing is important. Hey, look at the things you did do. Look how we’re pointing them to Christ. And also at times exhorting like—hey, we need to change how we’re being because our kids are seeing a bad example right now. So it’s not always that, and I don’t want to make it sound like I do this well. Dying to self is not easy.

[Heidi] No, actually I know, I think given the instructions that God gives to wives and the instructions that he gives to husbands, I actually kinda think that husbands have the harder role. I mean, He’s saying—love your wife like Christ loved the church. He died for her. And that you’re right, that dying to self is difficult. My husband has said something over the years to me, which has been so encouraging and I just heard him say this in Nashville a few weeks ago. He was talking to the men and he was just saying—listen, I’m going to stand before the Lord someday and I’m going to answer for how my family did or did not flourish because I’m the one who’s responsible. And I bear that responsibility. And so I love my children, and I love my wife, and I’m obedient to the Lord because I want to see them flourish. That’s my role.

And I thought that boy, such a beautiful way to see marriage and to see your role in it. Jennifer, I’m going to ask you the same question, right? So, a woman says to you—I’m just so tired. I’m just so done. I’ve nursed the baby for the 400th time this week. If one more person asks me for one more thing, I’m going to lose it. Not that I would ever happen to me, but if it did, hypothetically, and I came to you and I know my husband needs my time and my attention and I’m just so weary. What’s the advice you could give to that mom right now?

[Jennifer] I think what’s been evident in our marriage is communication and being able to tell him when I’m at my end and what’s going on in my life. But also, taking time to listen to him and saying—what’s on your heart? What are you going through? What are your needs right now? And just being able to meet each other with understanding and comfort for one another. And you know, I’m not going to say that submission is easy because I’ve wrestled with that over our time being married. But,  it is easier to submit to a man who submitted to the Lord. And so when I see that exemplified in my husband, when he leads me the way the Bible calls him to, it is a lot easier for me to submit to him and to fulfill my role and what God’s called me to do.

But you know what? I’ve also learned that I’m called to do that regardless of what he’s doing. And so there’s this walk that we’re doing, right?, toward toward righteousness and towards everything that God’s called us to in His Word to do. And practically speaking, that looks like a lot of messiness. That looks like, you know, going throughout our day and reminding each other that we’re on the same team, that we are present for each other. Sometimes it’s just a matter of saying—Hey, can you put your phone down so I could just talk.

[Heidi] Yea, right?

[Jennifer] But when he loves me, and like you guys were talking earlier, you know—loving me, like Christ loves the church that motivates my heart to want to meet his needs and to be there for him.

[Heidi] Well, you touched on something really important because I think that God created women to be born-responders, right? We were born to respond to the leadership of our husbands. Those of us who are married. My  grandfather said something really profound to Jay and I when we hit, I think we were maybe five or six years into our marriage and we were doing a study at our church on submission, and because I did not see it modeled well as a child or as a teenager, in fact, I saw it modeled very badly. And it damaged me in lots of different ways. My grandfather, my grandparents were married almost 75 years, so they knew a few things about marriage. And my grandfather was a pastor and he looked at me and he said—Heidi, you know what?  in a healthy marriage the issue of submission will never come up. If this is what you’re talking about all the time, something’s wrong. Something’s already wrong. Because my heart is to love your grandma, and to serve her, and to encourage, and bless her. And her heart is to serve, and to encourage, and to bless me. And because our hearts are for each other, and we want our marriage to honor God, we don’t spend our time arguing about roles in marriage where we want to obey the Lord. And the Lord says that the husband is leader of the home.

It was just amazing. I mean, it just, it was like a game changer for Jay and I, you know, to realize—oh—you know, and honestly, in the 30 years that we’ve been married, I can think of, maybe I can count on one hand the times when Jay has made an executive decision that I didn’t agree with. But the Bible teaches me that he has that role and that authority. But the point is he’s not just going to go—hey, Heidi, I bought a new car today. Sorry I didn’t ask you. He’s not going to do it because he loves me. Right?

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Heidi] We want to see each other the way that, that God sees us, which is why I so love your ministry. I think you guys are doing an incredible, incredible thing for young married couples in particular.  Your brand new book is coming out in just a couple of days. It’s called Marriage After God and we can find it MarriageAfterGod.com. But you guys—at the time this podcast airs, we’re still in the preorder, right? So people can get like bonuses—bonus time. So you know, like, it’s not hammer time—it’s bonus time. And people can actually, if they order your book right now, there’s a bunch of pre-order bonuses that they can get. Do they find that MarriageAfterGod.com?

[Aaron] MarriageAfterGod.com on the homepage, they can scroll down a little bit and there’s a form to fill out and wherever they printed it from, they can get access to the preorder bonuses so they can either order it from our store shop that MarriageAfterGod.com, or Amazon, or Barnes and Noble, or anywhere. When the book releases, just as a little note—I’m you’re sure your audience will love thisit’ll also be an all the Hobby Lobby’s—which is amazing!

[Heidi] Fantastic! Love us some Hobby Lobby! I love those guys! What they’re doing too. That’s fantastic. So for those of you who want more information about Aaron and Jennifer Smith’s new book, Marriage After God, you can find all the information MarriageAfterGod.com. You can also find links to order and more information about the Smith’s at the show notes, as usual, HeidiStJohn.com/podcast.

Aaron and Jennifer, you guys are amazing. I’m going to continue just to pray for you. I’d love to encourage you in any way that I can. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it.

[Jennifer] Thank you for having us and thank you Heidi for all the work that you’re doing for God and just being a voice in today’s culture. It’s just, it’s so necessary and needed.

[Heidi] Thank you. I really appreciate it. For more information you guys about Aaron and Jennifer and their amazing ministry— you can find all things Aaron and Jennifer Smith at the show notes today, HeidiStJohn.com/podcast.

Also, don’t forget we’re coming up at the end of the monthly Bible study at MomStrong International. We’ve got almost 13,000 of you joining us every month for the Scripture Writing and the study there. It’s not too late to join. You can create an account at MomStrongInternational.com. Get your kids writing God’s Word. You guys, there is power in knowing and applying the Word of God to your life. Thanks for listening everybody, and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Write to Heidi:
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Deep Waters: Edify | MSI Week 2/4- 766

We can be so unkind with the people we love the most, can’t we? Have you ever struggled to have self-control with the words you say? God has given us influence in the lives of many people—and our words matter. The Holy Spirit wants to help us tame our tongues! Join me today for week two of our study at MomStrong International!

Today’s Scripture Writing:

  • Romans 8:1-4

Mentioned in Podcast

Scripture Mentioned

  • James 3
  • Genesis 3:1
  • Ephesians 4:29
  • James 3:8
  • Proverbs 16:23
  • Proverbs 19:11

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest  Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody. This is Heidi St John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Wednesday, May 15th this is episode number 766, this is also week two of our study on taming the tongue. We’re talking about deep water. The Bible says that our words have that have the effect of being deep water in the lives of the people around us. I’m going to be talking a little bit about the study this week, and also a few other things that are on my mind. We’ve got a lot to cover. Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged

So thanks to everybody who’s been following us here at the podcast. I want to give a huge shout out to everyone who’s leaving reviews for the podcast over at iTunes. I read this one the other day, andI wanted to read it to you. It says, Thank you, Heidi, for being a bold speaker of truth in today’s confusing culture. So often your podcasts clarifies and confirms a Bible passage I’ve been studying or a situation I’m handing over to the Lord. He’s truly using you to encourage and enlighten your listeners. May continue to bless your ministry. Thank you for that. Every review that you leave at iTunes blesses our staff. We read them, they encourage us. We’re praying for you, so keep doing that. If you haven’t left reviews for the podcast yet, I want to encourage you to do that. Also, we have a sponsor here at the podcast, which is Evangelical Christian Credit Union.

You guys have heard me talk about them before. If you haven’t checked them out yet, I want to encourage you to do that. You can find them at ECCU.org and you can join a financial family that actually values your values—moment of silence. Think about that for a second. You can be have confidence in putting your money at ECCU.org knowing that this money is actually going to help further the message of the Gospel. And also, they have a wonderful program for homeschool families. So if you just go to ECCU.org/homeschool. You’ll find that they have an awesome program there for you, which includes their Start Young program. But I want to encourage you guys to check it out because if you’re like me, and I know that you are, we’re trying to help our kids grow in a way that is going to make them into wonderful adults. And part of that is discovering how to manage money. And God’s word has a lot to say about it and this is a great opportunity for you to help your kid open an account that keeps them accountable. And so they’ve got age appropriate spending and saving and even online budgeting options that kids will love to use. So check it out at ECCU.org. I know you guys are going to be blessed.

All right. I want to encourage you, really quickly, to a join me over at MomStrong International. If you haven’t gone to MomStrongInternational.com yet, this is a great time to get involved in this study. This study this month is called Deep Water. We’re studying the power of our words. And last week we studied a little bit about the importance of making deposits, right, into the lives of our children. And today we’re going to take that a little bit farther and I want you to think with me for just a minute because every day we have opportunities to either bless people or not bless them, right?

And so we all have situations where we’re on our last nerve and we were tempted to say things that we shouldn’t say. And really what it comes down to is—it’s self control, right? Because our kids can totally push us to the end of our, end of our self control, right? Actually we do that. Can I just be honest? I’m sure that I do that to my husband. I’m sure that there are things that I say to him or he just wants to like, you know, a fly off the rails at me—and it comes down to self control. And so when we’re in those situations, we have a choice—so we can either zip our mouth and walk away, right? Because it’s to a man’s glory to overlook an offense, right? Says Proverbs 19:11—or we can help our kids or our husband see the error of their ways. And so then the question comes up—what would Jesus do?

Well, if you’re like me, I can talk myself into saying—well, he was a truth teller and he didn’t let unjustice continue. And then something I don’t necessarily want to say, but I’ve justified it in my mind, can roll right around the Holy Spirit filter and right out of my mouth, right? Soft control. Who needs it? We do. I do. You do. And, I think we want to put ourselves in the position of recognizing that our words have power. Our words carry with them great authority. You guys, we live in a world full of people, but God has put a select group of those people right inside our sphere of influence. And these are the people that we rubbed shoulders with at the gym or the deli. These are our kids, people that we talked to in zoom calls, or at family reunions. And it’s so important for you to understand that this sphere of influence that you have narrows down first to your children and to that precious a person that you have married.

And we want to bless them with our words. And God uses His words to create, and to heal, and to discipline, and to love us incredibly well. God uses His words to exhort us. He uses His words to save us and we are His image bearers. And He has given us this precious gift of speech. And so we want to use our words in the same life-giving manner that God does. And so last week, we started the connection between our hearts in our mouths. We talked about making deposits into the lives of our children and into the lives of the men and women that we touch everyday at work, or wherever that is. Your words are speaking for you. The Bible says in Proverbs 16:23 that the heart of the wise instructs his mouth and adds persuasiveness to his lips. Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

And so, how many of you guys have had that moment in your life, that moment in your day, when this was what you wanted but your sin nature got the best of you, that lack of self control over your tongue gets to you? And now we realize that James 3:8 is right, right? No one can tame the tongue. The Bible says it is full of deadly poison. But the Bible teaches us that whoever guards his mouth preserves his life, like the one who opens wide, his lips comes to ruin. And so this week we’re going to study a little bit about what we say to our children and what we say to her husband’s especially, or what we say to our spouse. I know there are a lot of dads listening to this today and guys, you know what?—your words carry with them incredible authority.

Did you know that? Your words carry with them incredible authority. I had a friend that a long time ago when Jay and I were pastoring up in northwest Washington. He used to say, Heidi, it’s all about tact. And timing. Sometimes we, we mistake honesty for rudeness. I heard a woman say to me one time when I listened to her correct her child in a very unkind and unseemly way, and she said, I’m sorry, I was just being honest. And I said, no, you just mistook honesty for rudeness. And I have kind of a theory about this. I think that we say the most unkind things to the people that we love the most—and I wrote about this and Becoming MomStrong—because we’re comfortable in the relationship. What are your kids going to do? Right? I mean, they’re stuck with us.

My kids are stuck with me, and so I could be the most horrible woman in the world. I could say to them, you know, I could make terrible deposits into their, into their banks of their hearts every day by the things that I say. But the bottom line is—I am responsible before the Lord for the inner voice that I am giving to my children by the things that I say. For the things that I’m saying to my husband—I can either build him up with my words or I can tear them down—and we all know how to do this, right? And so it is about tact and timing. It is about not mistaking honesty for rudeness. It is about saying, Lord, what would you have me say in this particular situation? So let’s talk about four very life-giving practical ways to bring blessing into the conversations that we’re having with the people that we love, with the people that are in our lives.

And this is so important for you to get. This is why we’re devoting the month of May to speech and to talking about what it means to bring life to people around us. And I just want to encourage you, like I said before, if you’re not joining me over at MomStrong International, this is a great time to do it. So the first thing we want to talk about is content. So when we think about what we’re saying to people around us, the first thing we want to ask ourselves is, is what I’m saying wholesome? Is what I’m saying necessary? I’m just gooing to let that sit. I’ve said to my kids many times over the years of the regrets that I have in my life, 99% of them are things that I said that I can’t take back. Words that came out of my mouth, that once they were out, they were just out.

And you know the old saying—sticks and stones can hurt my, it can break my bones, but words can never hurt me—we all know that’s a lie, right? Because words carry with them incredible power. And mom, before you fly off the handle at your eight year old who’s driving you nuts, think to yourself, how is this going to be interpreted later on? Is this necessary? Is it good? Is it truthful? Is it edifying? Sometimes we have to say hard things, but we can say hard things in love. We can say hard things and let them sit softly because of the tone that we use them in. And we have to ask ourselves—is what I’m saying necessary? Is that what I’m saying wholesome according to Ephesians 4:29? That’s what we want. That’s what we want to be asking ourselves. James 3 teaches us that the tongue is small, but it’s got the same straight as to spark a lightning, a forest fire, right? Or a rudder on a ship, on a ship.

And so the great news is that when we allow the Holy Spirit to be the captain of that ship, He directs the rudder. And so he’s going to help us discover and decide what it is that He would have us say. So the first thing is, is content. The next thing is tone, and tone is how we say something, right? This is a huge, big deal, right? So does my tones on testy, am I impatient? Are, are those who are listening going to hear my heart? Or are they going to hear my frustration? This is the same thing on social media. There have been many times that I’ve said things on social media and my heart didn’t come through, but my frustration did. That’s not what we want. So ask yourself—would I use the same tone that I’m using with my children or my spouse, with a friend from church?

Remember I told you that I think that we’re the most free in our speech with  the people we love the most because that relationship is so secure. I have often marveled at the fact that most of us would be, would be kinder to the checkout person at Walmart when we’ve had a bad day, then we would to our own children or we would to our spouse. And we need to be very, very careful about what’s the tone of voice that we’re using. Does my tone sound kind? Does it sound encouraging? Does it sound reasonable or am I condescending? We all know what that’s like. And also mom and dad, you have an opportunity to correct the tone in your children. I’m amazed at how I see children talking to their parents here, even at the homeschool resource center—and sometimes even at my own house.

Years ago, a child who will remain unnamed, I had asked this child to mow the grass. And I remember—we have a, you know, a pretty big yard—so it’s not a small job, but it’s a job that this child could do. And so I asked my child hate mow the grass. They were fine. They replied in the affirmative. I went about my business. About half an hour later I came in and I noticed that said child was sitting on the couch and, my phone was being used by this child. And so I said—hey, I thought I asked you to mow the grass. And with some, I’m not sure what happened in that moment with my kid, but the words that were spoken to me have echoed in history in the St. John Home. And these are the words I heard you guys ready for this? I like to see you mow the grass.

I mean, as soon as this kid said it to me, you could just tell. It was like, oop, that was a bad idea. Back it up, back it up, back it up. But it was too late. The words were already out there. So I saw the phone and I took it out of the hands of this child and I said, ah, here’s what we’re going to do—follow me. And I went into the garage and I threw that phone as far as I could across the garage, flew over my husband’s head. It hit the wall in the back. I mean shattered the phone into a thousand pieces. And my husband was like, okay, good lesson. I’m glad we’ve had this little talk. Wow. That was, yes, I affirm you expensive. Why did you do that? And I am at this point, I am just like—you get out there and mow the grass—and I’m yelling at my kid. And I think that we could argue that it was actually appropriate in that situation to react the way I did—because I’m trying to correct something in my child that was wrong. And parents, your kid should not be condescending to you, or rude to you, or disrespectful to you. And when they are, we have opportunities to correct it. Maybe not by throwing a phone across the room. That is a little expensive. Fortunately, it wasn’t a phone than anyone was using. We have our, our phones here and we, we pass them down as a lot of you do so it was an older phone. But I have noticed that it’s easier for me to let something go until I’m angry, than deal with it in the moment. That takes consistency. That’s hard to do. Your tone matters and it matters how your kids are speaking to you.

Also, the next thing is delivery. So what we mean by that is what is accompanying the nonverbal? Does your body language say something about you? Does it say I’m standing defensively or does it say that my arms are open? Can I say it with a smile on my face? Maybe not. Maybe we can’t do that. But you know what you can do?—you can say it in a way that your body language says—I’m going to listen to you, we’re going to, I’m going to work this out. Right? We’ve all had moments where we just felt like we wanted to drop this, this word bomb and then walk away, but it doesn’t please the Lord. And the next thing is this timing. So whatever you say, note when you’re saying it. So when you say whatever it is that needs saying, say it with tact and timing—and good communication really does come down to those two things.

It’s all about tact and timing. So not only is it truthful to say the car’s making a funny noise, it’s also important. However, it’s poor timing to tell your husband about it with stress in your face as he’s coming up the stairs from fixing the furnace, right? Tact and timing. So think about it this way—not only is it truthful, but it’s also necessary to let your teenager know that he forgot to take the trash out for the third week in the row, but probably not right in front of his friends at the kitchen table. Instead, you want to have a private conversation with your teen, and it may include, it may include a disciplinary action. You want to explain the car noise to your husband when he’s had time to clean up from his repair work. And when we do that, the message will not only be better received, but the timing will be appreciated.

So we want to be careful. And the reason that we’re doing this is because we want our lives to bring glory and honor to the Lord. And part of the way we do that is by gaining command of the things in our speech and training our children in them. And you guys, if we can do this, it literally will revolutionize the way that we talk in our home, right? We can memorize all the Bible verses that we like, but if we don’t employ good practices in our communication, the fruit of those Scriptures are not going to grow. So in the study this month, we’ve, we have given you a ton of scripture to look up. You can look these things up with your kids. Can I just encourage you—if your kids are, say, 13 years of age or older or 12 years of age or older, they can do these studies with you. And is important for you to bring your kids into the conversation because your kids are also learning how their speech affects other people, right?

And it, the truth is original sin—we don’t often talk about this—but original sin started with words, right? We read in Genesis 3:1—this is the serpent—indeed has, God said, you may not eat from any tree of the garden? Wow! And this set off a chain of events that we are still reeling from today. And so when we take you to James 3, we’re going to have you underlining things. We’re gonna point out some themes and some metaphors for you. We want you to really engage with your children in this topic because it’s so important. It’s important that we learn at first in our homes, but then also equally as important because we’re going to be talking with people on social media. And we need to understand that, wow, not only can we have self control in our lives, but it’s actually a requirement for the children of God.

So this is an important study. I hope you guys are going to be digging deeper with us. And remember, as you’re doing this, it’s okay if you’re struggling in this area. I struggle in it. I think a lot of us do. It’s not okay to stay in it. And so that’s what we want to do. We want to grow and come out of a place of feeling like we don’t have control over either the things that we say, or the things that we eat, or the places we go, or the things that we watch on television,or the things we allow ourselves to listen to. This comes down to that fruit of the Spirit that we call self-control. So if you want more information on the study, Deep Waters, you can find it at MomStrongInternational.com. We also have Spanish now for you, for the Scripture Writing.

So if you haven’t downloaded it yet, check it out at MomStrongInternational.com. You can create a free account there. You can get the Scripture Writing Challenge and the copy work for free. It is also available in a Spanish edition right now. So if those of you who have friends who are Spanish speaking, we’re going to start reaching out to the Spanish speaking community, starting with the Scripture Writing Challenge. So check it out at MomStrongInternational.com.

I will be speaking this weekend if you guys think about it. I’m going to be speaking for the Lincoln Day Dinner coming up this weekend, here in my ed city of Vancouver, Washington. I’ve chosen to speak there partly because I really want to speak about the fight for faith and family and the fight for freedom. This is an opportunity for us to get off the bench and onto the battlefield.

So many of you asked me questions about whether or not Christian should be in the public square, should we be speaking about political things, and what I have noticed in recent years is, things that are really moral issues, we’ve made them into political issues because then if it’s a political issue, the culture has learned that they can shut the church up. And I want to stand against that in the name of Jesus and say—no, you have a voice. Not only do you have a voice, but you have been given an opportunity to use that voice in a way that brings other people to the Truth. And whenever we remove Truth from the conversation, evil always fills the vacuum. And we’re seeing that more and more and more. You heard me talk about comprehensive sex education the other day—what’s happening in California. This is happening all over the United States. If you haven’t yet watched the war on children, Google it. This is the, I think one of the most important documentaries. It’s only about 20 minutes long. Might be one of the most important documentaries ever made for parents in this day and age. So check it out. The war on children.

And you guys, I’m going to encourage you as I always do, get off the bench and onto the battlefield. You can join us as we study to show ourselves approved as workman unto God, who do not need to be ashamed, and who rightly divide the Word of truth. So come and join the study at MomStrongInternational.com and I will see you back here on Friday.

Write to Heidi:

c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682