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

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

This podcast is brought to you by our friends at MELT: Massage For Couples

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St John. Thanks for joining me today at my little corner of the Internet. Today is Monday, June 3rd episode number 774 this is Mailbox Monday. We got a lot of ground to cover. Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

So how are you guys doing? I hope you’re doing great day. And I just got back from Columbus from the Teach Them Diligently Conference. Thank you to everyone who came out to say hello. We so appreciate meeting you guys out on the road and hearing what God is doing in your life. It encourages us just to hear your stories of faithfulness to know that God is at work. Thank you that He’s letting this podcast really encourage you. That just blesses us. And speaking of that—thanks to everybody who’s leaving reviews for the podcast over at iTunes and around the Internet. I just saw a really awesome review the other day—actually, all of them are amazing. It’s just I love listening to you. Listen to this one from from Bakerynne14, she said—This podcast has truly changed my life. If parenting is stumbling your way down a dark path in the woods, then scripture is the flashlight. I love it. I love it. I love this review as so much she said and Heidi St.John? Oh she’s that friend who remembered to bring her flashlight and shines it on the path for both of you.  She addresses the current issues in our culture, answers the tough questions we’re all asking ourselves and best of all she saturates her responses with scripture. Listening to this podcast feels like a Bible Study, watching the news, reading a good book and laughing over coffee with a like-minded friend. I’m hooked!

That makes me a hundred different kinds of happy. Thank you so much for that review. Whenever you leave reviews for the podcast and rate it, it helps us get it out to more or listeners. So we want to keep encouraging you to do that. If you’ve read any of the books that I’ve written and you’ve never left a review, can I just encourage you to do that? Most people will read it and enjoy it, but not leave a review and your review is a way to help us get those books into the hands of other people. So thank you so much for doing that. Also, this podcast has a sponsor and many of you guys have been listing recently and you know that we’ve been taking on some sponsorships here at the podcast and this one is a public service announcement. So are you ready? Ready? Pay attention.

Father’s day is coming up. You. Are. Welcome.

And if you haven’t gotten your husband a gift for father’s Day,  this is absolutely the perfect time to let your man know how thankful you are with him. And I have been working with a company called MELT for many years. You guys remember I posted a long time ago an article called Hot Monogamy and we talked about marriage, and massage, and how those things work together. And I’ve worked with my friend Dennis and this over at MELT now for many years. And even though Father’s Day isn’t coming up until June 16th—there’s time to get free access. Did you hear that? There’s time to get free access to MELT Couples Massage Masterclass for 30 days when you purchase their Sweet Almond Oil from Amazon. You guys, all you gotta do is purchase their massage oil, which by the way is amazing—and you’re going to get access to their masterclass. Jay and I have participated in this, and I’m telling you what—we’ve been married for 30 years, this is one of our favorite things that we’ve done for our marriage. And there’s so much to tell you about the special offer from our friends at MELT that I’ve gone ahead and set up a special page at The Busy Mom just for you.

So here’s how you get to it and I’ll link to it in the show notes today. So if you want access to their free couples massage masterclass, you can get it for 30 days. All you gotta do is go to Amazon and purchase MELT Sweet Almond Massage Oil. And I’m telling you what, you will not be sorry. So all you need to do is go to TheBusyMom.com/Melt. That’s “m” as in “massage”, “e l t” to learn more about this inexpensive, memorable way to love on your husband this Father’s Day—or any day. So I’m super excited about this. And you know, this 2019 Father’s Day Promo is the biggest discount that they’ve ever offered. And so if you haven’t checked it out, there’s not a lock in contract to the masterclass. You’re going to love it. Your husband will be like—no way you got that from me for Father’s Day! Everyday should be Father’s Day! He’ll be super stoked. Check it out TheBusyMom.com/Melt. Let me know what you guys think. The oil is incredible. It’s cold pressed, sweet almond oil and it can be repurposed for many other applications, not just massage. You guys can use this with your Essential Oils—you know that I love them and I’ve talked about that a lot. So check it out. And then add to that a 30 days of free access to MELT—this is an amazing offer. Check it out TheBusyMom.com/Melt. I will link back to it in the show notes today.

All right, as usual, I want to get to your questions. There are so many questions coming in to the podcast these days and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve been trying to figure out ways that I can more easily disseminate those as they come in. So like I said last week, it would help me if you put Mailbox Monday in the subject line and then maybe just one word—maybe it’s homeschooling or maybe not just one word, maybe you can’t do it in one word—but very short and succinct, tell me what your podcast question is about. That really helps me sort of go through those things. And the first question I want to get to today is from a listener who is asking about her brother and sister law who are going through a divorce. And so this is a question, unfortunately, that I get a lot when I’m on the road—people will come up and they’ll talk to me about it. Having walked this road myself, I can tell you it’s a very difficult and very painful road to walk, but I also want to say the Lord is in the business of healing. God is in the restoration business.

So this sweet mom,  she wrote me and said—Hi Heidi. My husband and I recently found out that our brother and a sister in law are going to divorce. We are still praying for God’s intervention and restoring grace. So wonderful—keep praying for that. We are unsure how to approach this topic with our kids. We have two young children who are starting to notice that their aunt is not around. We went to build up their understanding of what God says marriage is and what a beautiful representation this relationship is of Christ and the church. We have planted the seed already and I’ve spoken to them briefly about marriage. We don’t know how to address divorce and if there might be a gentle or biblical way to age appropriately introduce it. Is there a book or some other source you might recommend? Very sad to write in with this question. Thank you for your biblical advice.

All right, so a couple things. First of all, you’re not alone. And second of all is I’ve been talking for a long time here—your kids are going to be confronted with things in the culture that they should never have to be confronted with. And truly, a divorce has been rampant in the church for a long time. And oftentimes, even though it’s been around for a long time—and we’ve certainly seen this in the church for many years—parents are still struggling to talk about these concepts with their children.

So the first thing I want to encourage you to do, if you’re listening to this today and there is a family member or a dear friend of yours who is in this position, you have to have God’s heart for those people.

God’s heart is for that restoration might happen. His heart is to have your children see how much God loves His people. And families are impacted by divorce all the time. And what we want our kids to understand more than anything else is that God is a God of healing. And so because it’s going to hurt them, and the older they are at —a two and a three year old, it’s probably not going to hurt so much. Unfortunately they’re going to grow up and probably never even remember a time when your brother was married to to his wife. And so I guess that’s a positive on that side of it. I think it’s much, much more difficult when the kids have been in the lives of their aunts and uncles, or your best friend’s family, or whatever it is, and they’re 11, 12, 13, 14, 15—it becomes much more difficult.

But the truth is always the same. And so as you see that they are asking questions—tell your children the truth. And when we talk to our children, unfortunately this has happened many times in our family—and so, we’ve had many conversations like this. Often they have been tear filled, painful conversations. And so I don’t want to deny the pain of them. But we always start out by saying—we’re going through a hard thing in our family, something that God doesn’t want and that we don’t want either, but this is what’s happening.

And so then we would go on to explain. I would encourage you to keep your kids out of the nitty gritty of the details. They don’t need to know it. What they need to know is that God’s heart is that marriage is a covenant relationship. And His heart is that we would never get divorced when we get married. God’s heart is that—that relationship would go on forever until the Lord takes one of us home. And so we’ve explained that to our children and frankly over the years it’s given my husband and I more of a reason to nurture and guard our own marriage. So I have a couple of articles that I know will encourage you. Some of them can give wording. I think hints at good wording are important, but I wouldn’t read anything off to your kids. All right? It needs to be a heartfelt conversation.

So I will link back to a couple of articles in the shown notes today that I think can help you and point you in the right direction. But the main thing you want to remember guys, is when you talk to your kids about this, especially if it’s about other people’s kids—can you please, please, please remind your kids that you are 100% committed to nurturing your own marriage. Because what happens so often, especially when the kids are little and they see this happening to their friends or to their family—they become insecure about their relationship with you as it relates to your marriage.

And so what my husband and I, over the years have done with our kids is said—first of all, we want you to know that Mama and Daddy are good. We’re doing good and we love each other and we are so committed to staying married. But there are some hard things that are happening in our family right now and we need to talk to you about it. And so ask the Lord—Jay and I have hit our knees many times before having conversations like this with our kids. Ask the Lord how He would have you address it. Stay away from the details of somebody else’s marriage and then remind your children of the preciousness of the marriage relationship. If they’re old enough, you can remind them that the Bible teaches us that we are in an absolute battle in our lives for righteousness and the family is under attack like never before.

The family is under attack. And so be prayerful as you go into these conversations with your kids. Be as honest as you can with them, as is age appropriate—and then model what good marriage looks like and commitment looks like in your own marriage. All right? Thanks for writing in. That’s a tough question, but the Lord will help you answer it. Okay? God’s never gonna leave you alone. He’s not surprised by what’s happening around you, and He will give you the words that you need to speak life to your children, even as you speak truth to them.

All right. Next question comes from a listener who wants to remain anonymous. She says—Heidi, how do you deal with toxic relationships in your life? My mother has lived her entire life, and mine, in a state of a victim mentality, depression, and manipulative relationships. I am hanging on by a thread with her. She raised us in church and hides it under the guise of Christ and how we should honor and respect. However, her remarks, digs, and refusal to see the trauma and chaos has caused is becoming too much to bear. If I walked away tomorrow and didn’t talk to her again, I’m ashamed to say I would be okay with it. I want to do the right thing, but I’m 38 and tired of it. I would love your thoughts.

So first of all, broken relationships and toxic relationships are absolutely prevalent in the church. I grew up in this very same environment. I grew up with an absolutely toxic relationship—my parents’ marriage was very toxic. And then as I grew up, that toxicity followed me into my marriage and as I was raising my own children. I wrote about this and Becoming Moms Strong, if you haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet, do it. I think it will encourage you. But here’s a couple of things that you need to know right off the bat. Your primary responsibility is to your family now—your husband, or your wife, and to your children. And if you notice that this toxicity is impacting that in negative way—it’s actually okay for you to walk away from it, right? You don’t have to be a jerk, but walk away. And we did this for many, many years until we felt it was healthy enough to healthy enough for us to engage. And we have re-engaged with many of the relationships in our lives that we took breaks from over the years. S sometimes those breaks are permanent breaks, right? And sometimes they’re temporary breaks. But you know what’s not temporary?—we always pray.

We are always asking the Lord to heal it, but because we live in a broken world, and because not everybody wants to open up their heart to the disinfectant that is the Word of God—sometimes because that infection, it just sits there and festers and it,  and infects everything it touches—sometimes the answer to that is that we have to just walk away and separate ourselves from it. So I want to encourage you to pray about that. All right?

We are not called to be doormats for Jesus, right? This is an argument I hear all the time out on the road and at the women’s conferences that we do around the country. I see women sacrificing their sanity and their emotional health on the altar of a misguided version of Christianity. And this is not God’s heart for us. All right? The Lord wants us to be healthy in our relationships, especially in our own marriages and with our children. All right.

And so there’s a couple of things. One of the things that helped me when I was a lot younger, I’m almost 50 now, but I see you’re hurting and that heartache at the age of 38 and certainly I was there in my own life. I read a book called Search for Significance. I will link back to it in the show notes today. So important for you to see yourself, how God sees you. We want to see ourselves how the Lord sees us, and God says that were precious in His sight. The Bible teaches us in Psalm 139 that he ordained are days for for us, before we took a single breath, before any one of those days came to be. And God wants us to walk in right relationship with Him. Proverbs 14:12 says, there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death, right? And He’s talking about eternal death. But there’s also ways that seem right to us because we’re just trying to help. We know we don’t want to sever a relationship and in the end it causes more harm than good.

And so I want to encourage you, pray with your husband about this. Seek godly counsel. You don’t have to be destined to be in that relationship forever and certainly not in the name of Christianity. All right? So I hope that that helps you—check the show notes today. I’ll link back to some things I think may really bring you some peace and we really definitely need that.

All right, next question comes from Janie. She says—Hi Heidi. With the intense amount of publicity surrounding the abortion topic lately, I’m realizing I need to have a hard conversation with my daughter sooner than I was hoping. She turns five in a couple of weeks and is a great reader. We drove past some protesters yesterday and she asked—mom, why are those ladies holding up signs that say, my body, my choice. I assured her would have a conversation and I will answer a question, but I needed a little bit of time. I know it’s best to answer a question honestly, but only to a point that appropriate for her to handle it. This stage of her development. Any tips or resources that might be helpful? In the meantime, I’ll be praying the Holy Spirit will give my husband and me wisdom as we talked with her.

So first of all, Janie, that’s the place you want to start, right? Lord, give me wisdom. Lord, help me to explain this atrocity to my child in a way that does not wound her spirit and gives her peace—because so often these are difficult questions you guys. Were surrounded in the culture right now. I just posted an article the other day on my blog about Gillette—I don’t know if you guys have noticed. These are hard conversations, you guys, that we’re having with our kids. And we can’t run away from them. We have to engage in them.

And Gillette just has a brand new ad out that’s pushing a transgender agenda with a girl who thinks she’s a man shaving her face. Right? And I want you guys to understand—and Janie, I’m going to get to your question—but I want you to understand what is behind all this. It’s demonic in nature. All right? The idea that mothers should be given the option to kill their babies is demonic. Transgenderism is a lie from the father of lies. It’s demonic. And in the article about Gillette’s decision to do this, it says—this novice shaver, this girl is a Toronto based trans-activist named Samson. The older man in the video is the youngsters father. You guys, how messed up is this?!

According to the activist’s website, this young woman who’s trying to be a man, the professional performer believes she has been gifted from birth with the gifts of necromancy. Necromancy and mediumship. Do you wonder what that is? Well, necromancy is the supposed practice of communicating with the dead, especially in order to predict a future. Necromancy—I got this definition from a cult world in case you’re wondering—is divination using sleep, especially retrieving information from a sleeping person? Creepy. And then mediumship of course is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between spirits of the dead and living human beings. You guys, this stuff is sick. It’s demonic. And parents—you need to know what you’re up against.

So when you go into conversations about any of these things with your children, preface them with prayer. Pray alone, then pray with your children. Pray with your kids because you’re not messing around with some benign force here. If you haven’t been watching the videos lately of pro-lifers getting smacked in the face and kicked and shoved and spit on—it’s because the mask has come off, and what you’re dealing with is demonic. So know that going into it. All right?

And then what we want to do, just like I was saying before, when we talk about divorce, we always start with God’s heart. Always. We preface everything that we say to our children, no matter what it is we’re talking about—with the heart of God. You see, God is actively and personally involved in the life of an unborn, right down to planning each day of the life of that child. Psalm 139 for you created my inmost being. You Knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in a secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:13-16

You see, the Bible teaches us that children are precious to the Lord. They are precious. The Bible says in Psalm 1:27 that children are a gift from the Lord, like arrows in the hands of a warrior. And so when you talk to your children about this topic of abortion, let them know that God’s heart is for these children and then the step you take after that is to say—not everyone knows the Lord. Not everyone has the Holy Spirit. And we have an enemy. The Bible teaches us that there is good and there is evil and what is happening in our culture right now as a result of a nation that has walked away from the authority of Scripture and the belief that God has something to say as our Creator about human life.

The Bible teaches us that our bodies are not ours. They belong to God, right?

2 Corinthians 6:16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”  

1 Corinthians 6:19 — Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

You are not your own. And when we talk about abortion with our children, they need to understand that this is absolutely a fight of good versus evil—and so your children need to know that you stand for life and that you can pray to end abortion. That’s what we’ve been doing with our children for many years. We pray to end divorce and we lend our voices where ever it is possible to do so. And also your children need to know just like when we talk about divorce or any other sin, whether we’re talking about transgenderism or homosexuality or abortion or whatever it is that’s in the culture right now that is making this culture as sick as it is—we want our children to know that God can take our brokenness and make joy out of it. That God offers restoration.

Psalm 40:1 I waited patiently for the Lord and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me up out of a slimy pit out of the mud and the mire, and he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.

Our children need to know that God sees them as special. That when we blow it, when we sin—God offers restoration. God offers healing. He can take our brokenness and replace it with joy. All right? At the end of the day, we belonged to the living God. And so rather than have your children, I mean—if you’ve got really young children, I wouldn’t go into detail. I remember telling my son a long time ago when I was pregnant with one of our younger children—one of my older kids had just heard about abortion. I think from a similar—they probably saw people holding signs or whatever. And I’ll never forget this as long as I live—he was sitting on the couch with me, put his hand on my belly, and he could feel our little unborn daughter. And she had the hiccups and she was hiccuping, you know, kind of in rhythm. And then everyone smiled. She would kick. And he said—Mama, I heard that people in this country can kill unborn babies. That’s not true, is it? And I very quietly looked at him and I said—yes, it is true. And he just had big tears in his eyes. And he said—why? And my answer was very simple—because they don’t have Jesus, they don’t have Jesus.

You guys. This is why the gospel is so important. This is why teaching people about Genesis, and the power of their Creator, and the existence of a Creator is so important—because having a creator changes everything. It changes everything. So speak truth into the lives of your kids. I want to just encourage you, I’m out of time today, but if you haven’t joined me—we are starting a brand new study on the Fruits of the Spirit at MomStrong International. We have a verse that we’re following today. It is Galatians 5:19-21. I just want to encourage you, look it up, read it with your kids. Do the copywork with us at MomStrongInternational.com.

You guys, God has something to say about what’s happening in the culture right now, He cares about you. He cares about your children and I just want to encourage you—train them in righteousness.

Join us at MomStrongInternational.com and get involved in the Bible study. It is just $8 a month and you can download Kids Strong with it and we will teach you how to take what your learning and teach it to your children. You guys, God’s Word is powerful. It is true, it is active, it is sharper than any two edged sword and He has life for you as you enter into right relationship with Him and teach your children to do the same. Thanks for listening everybody. I really appreciate it and I’ll see you back here on Wednesday.

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

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

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