My Church's Ladies' Retreat--Piper, DeMoss, Chan, and more!!

I was thoroughly blessed at our ladies retreat this weekend although my body is still trying recover!
And yes, we had John Piper, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Jackie Francis Chan, and more  speakers at our retreat. Not in person, but on video!
I can't share all the fun, food, and fellowship, but I can share with you some of the speakers videos and/or information, so you can have your own little retreat at home. Our theme was being Women of the Word.


The first video we watched was:



After dinner, we had a testimony and then heard from Karen Eppler. She's developed some wonderful Scripture memory devices for using with children. In fact, you can find all her ABC verse rebuses and songs HERE.


On Saturday, we started with:

After another great testimony, my friend, Susan shared about Christian women through history. I've mentioned Susan before because she leads the book group I attend. It was such a blessing to see how God has used real women like us. She posted a bibliography and brief description of the ladies HERE.


In the afternoon, we had a breakout session in which we could choose one of three videos to watch. I'm posting the one I watched first, but now I can watch the others, too.
Honoring the Biblical Call of Motherhood--John Piper
Living a Life that Matters--Living Eternally--Francis Chan (scroll down to 3/8/09)
Singleness and the Next Generation--David Platt (scroll down to message #49 dated 6/12/11)


We ended with Nancy Leigh DeMoss' "Daily Devotions--Duty or Delight?" I can't seem to find the video for that, but I know her radio recordings on it are located on Revive our Hearts. She challenges you to a read you Bible 30 days in a row. 


Of course, I can't share everything about the retreat. After all, "What happens  at the retreat, stays at the retreat!! ;-)

Elisabeth Elliot on children and more

Last week, Revive Our Hearts with Nance Leigh DeMoss started a three day series with Elisabeth Elliot.  That godly woman shared many insights, of course, including the topics of being a wife, godly parenting, and just walking by faith.  I will link to all the days for your convenience.  It's not going to be wasted time as you can tell by quotes I copied.

Day One:  Read or Listen HERE
For parents to allow their children to be in control and not to lovingly make the children understand that the parents are the ones who have been given by God this responsibility, it creates a view of God that means we can run God.

Day Two: Read or Listen HERE
You’ve got to remember, whomever you marry, he’s a sinner. There isn’t anything else to marry.
Day Three: Read or Listen HERE
 I think older women not only have a tremendous privilege, but a very great responsibility to talk to younger women, to try to help them realize what a blessing it is that they are that age, and then to testify to them what a blessing it is to be this age.

Nancy Leigh and a thought from me!

Never Alone Friday, April 8, 2011

Did you play more video games at work today?”

“No, my boss was looking over my shoulder all day.”

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: When someone’s watching you, it has a way of affecting your behavior. We tend to be better behaved when we’re with other people than when we’re alone. But the apostle Paul reminds us that we’re never truly alone. In 1 Timothy 5 he says, “I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions.”


In other words, Jesus is watching. God is watching, and angels are watching. That should encourage us to obey.

So the next time you find yourself alone and you’re tempted to sin, remember that you’re not alone. Even when it seems like no one else is around, you’re still accountable to God. And He sees everything. In fact, that's what it means to live in the fear of the Lord.
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Here's a few of my thoughts after reading this.  I hope it might encourage you, too.

The fact that, "Jesus is watching, God is watching, and angels are watching," should not only encourage us to obey, but encourage us to keep on keeping on. 

One thing that those who work out of the home get is affirmation or feedback.  Even if you don't get promotions or raises, you still get a paycheck at the end of the pay period showing that you did do something. 

At home, however, what we get accomplished is not always noticed.  Sure, sometimes you get a "thank you" or "dinner was yummy."  On the whole, however, at the end of the day, your husband may not notice what you did or didn't do.  Your children may not notice what you did or didn't do.  Let's face it, by the end of the day, you may not notice what you did or didn't do. 

BUT GOD NOTICES!

Galatians 6:9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

An Exciting Word

This is from the daily devotional on March 22.  I think modesty is so misunderstood and anything that encourages it should be, well, encouraged!


Nancy Leigh DeMoss: What comes to mind when I say, “Modesty?”

“It's kind of a boring connotation.”

“Fully covered—almost not wanting to have any style to their dress.”

Nancy: Modesty can sound like an idea that’s out of date, but actually, it’s wonderful.

Modesty brings you peace. You can rest knowing you’re being obedient to God.

Modesty gives you power. You’ll be free from constantly changing fads.

Modesty provides protection. You’ll be less likely to get the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of men.

Modesty promotes purity. You’ll be more likely to get the right kind of attention from the right kind of guys.

Modesty leads to praise. Others will value you for inward qualities, more than unreliable physical characteristics.

Remember what God’s Word says: “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”


With Seeking Him, I’m Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Who is Supposed to Serve?

Friday, March 18 2011

Who is Supposed to Serve?


Nancy Leigh DeMoss: In the past couple of decades, there’s been a movement challenging men to love and serve their wives. Every woman I know is very encouraged when we see God turning men’s hearts toward the Lord and their families.


We need to remember that God didn’t make men to be helpers to their wives. God made the wife to be a helper to her husband. In today’s evangelical world, it’s “politically correct” to challenge men to go home and serve their wives. It’s not so popular to talk to women about their responsibility to serve their husbands.

If we as women focus on what we think we deserve—what men “ought” to do for us—we’re likely to get hurt and resentful when our expectations aren’t fulfilled.

If your husband’s learning to serve you, that’s great. But remember, you’re never more like Jesus than when you’re serving other people.

With Seeking Him, I’m Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Unleashing Your Children's Talents

This is from ROH Radio. It's the Nov. 22, 2010 episode.  You can hit the link and actually listen to it instead of reading.


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Leslie Basham: Do you approach parenting with a mission mindset? Ann Dunagan casts a vision for your children.
Ann Dunagan: This world needs men and women of character, men and women of integrity, of deep, fervent devotion for God, not only as missionaries, not only as pastors of churches, but as men and women of God who are leaders in this world in all these different spheres of influence in society.
Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Monday, November 22.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss: As you know, at Revive Our Hearts, we talk a lot about this issue of legacy—not only living out a love for Christ and faith in Him and a vibrant, vital walk with Him, but having a heart to pass the baton of faith on to the next generation and to see seeds of purity and passion for Christ and ministry-mindedness passed on to that next generation.
I am so grateful to be the produce of a family that was mission-minded, to have had parents who were intentional about teaching the seven children in my family the Word of God, the ways of God, and cultivating in us a heart to live for the Lord, not for ourselves, but to be mission-minded.
We’re going to talk over these next couple of days about some of the ways that took place in my family, but I’m excited to have with me in the studio today a new friend. Her name is Ann Dunagan, and she’s a woman after my own heart. She’s written a book called The Mission-Minded Family.
Ann, welcome to Revive Our Hearts. Thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.
Ann: Oh, thank you, Nancy. I am very honored to be here.
Nancy: What you’ve written about in this book, and more than that, what you have lived in your life and your family, is something that resonates deeply with me. It’s something that I have a passion for and something that we want our listeners to have a passion for as well.
I want our listeners to get to know you. You are a wife and a mom. Tell us a little bit about your family because that’s at the heart of what God has led you to do in ministry.
Ann: I am very happily married to my husband John. We’ve been married for almost 24 years, and we have seven children, currently ages 8 to 22. We’re homeschoolers, so I’ve been teaching our kids at home. We’re finishing up our 18th year of homeschooling. We homeschooled all the way through high school, so we have three graduates.
Nancy: I still think mothers are the ones who should get the awards for this. You go to these homeschool graduations, and it’s the kids getting the awards, and I think, “Those moms deserve, like, serious medals.”
Ann: I do think at a homeschool graduation the parents do feel it very deeply. I actually faced a huge wall with homeschooling when my oldest one graduated from college, and I still had a first grader at home. It’s like realizing, “Oh my! We're running the marathon. We still have a long ways to go.” It’s kind of like getting up to the starting line again, but God’s grace is new every morning.
My husband and I, we have a passion for the nations. We have a passion for God’s Great Commission and extending God’s kingdom to wherever He calls us to go. Something that is deep in my heart is encouraging families to expand God’s kingdom and fulfill His Great Commission in whatever sphere of influence you are called to reach.
We’re not all going to be boarding planes and heading off to Zimbabwe or heading off to Tanzania or to India. However, we all need to have this mindset that wherever God has us, we’re His ambassadors.
So we have been just raising and training our children. We have traveled on many different outreaches, different trips. We’ve been in full-time ministry, though every single Christian is in full-time ministry. 
Nancy: Whether they realize it or not.
Ann: Exactly, whether they realize it or not. We have been involved in Christian missionary work for the last, about 23 years. We have been able to go to many different places. I’ve been to like 29 nations around the world. My husband’s been to about 60. Actually, all 7 continents. We’ve got quite the stories about how God even called my husband to go to Antarctica to preach the gospel.
And then along the way, we’ve just been raising and training our kids to see the needs overseas, see the lost, of going to places where the gospel has never been, of rescuing orphans and pulling little kids off the streets. It has absolutely transformed even our philosophy of parenting, the way we train our kids, the way we raise our kids.
In writing The Mission-Minded Family, part of it is I want to convey just the light from the Word of God of the need for the gospel and also to convey the darkness that we have seen in the different places around the world.
Nancy: And you want your children to have that heart for the nations as well.
I think sometimes when you think about missions, you think, “How could you do that with seven children?” That’s something you do when you’re single or when you’re in college or an empty-nester, or the youth group does a mission trip, but you’re saying missions really can be and should be a family mindset, not just an individual mindset.
Ann: Absolutely. God has called our families, even corporately together, with a unique combo of gifts. A husband and wife together have a unique combination of ministry skills and giftings that can impact society. It is so powerful when a family just loves God and is healthy and has fun but that is also being effective for the kingdom of God.
I’m talking about being effective for the kingdom of God out on the soccer field, effective for the kingdom of God like when you’re in an airport and people just seeing how you are interacting together as a family, how you are at church, how you are in the neighborhood. God just wants us as a family to be a light.
Nancy: Yes, a shining light. This is really a counter-cultural way of thinking even for many Christians, sadly. We talk a lot on Revive Our Hearts about this counter-cultural revolution of women who swim upstream against the culture. They say, “We want to be God’s women in this dark world.”
It’s counter-cultural when it comes to family today, don’t you think, to be mission kingdom minded? I mean, really, the prevailing mindset seems to be a lot more self-centered, building children to have self-esteem, to make worldly goals. Do you see this around you?
Ann: Absolutely, and even just as Christian women, sometimes there’s this inward striving of, “I want to do something big for God. I don’t want to just stay home. I don’t want to just be sweeping the same floor over and over again.” But God has a passion for our homes just as He has a passion for us to take the gospel to the nations.
Something that God has really put in my heart is that there is a divine balance for each day inside of Christian families.
I remember there was this one time my husband was taking some different mission trips, going and doing evangelism in some remote places. At this time, we had four little ones at home, and I wanted to go so badly. “I want to go. Can’t I go?” My husband just really felt, “Right now, you are needed here at home.”
There was this one day I got very frustrated, and I just told my husband, “What do you want me to do? You want me to just sit around here on the couch and just read story books?” He looked at me, and he said, “Yes.”
Those kids are now grown up. Those kids, they finished up high school, they went off to college, a couple of them are done with college, and they love God, and they love me and my husband. We’re a close-knit family, and it is because we were willing to invest time with our children and be with them and play with them and read to them.
Nancy: But as you were doing that, you weren’t doing it just so they could be happy and have successful lives. You really have done it with a view toward those children being kingdom-minded.
Ann: Yes. I would read good story books. Even just reading books to our kids that would instill in them a fervent heart for God.
Nancy: What kind of books?
Ann: Oh, some of my favorites are The Christian Heroes: Then and Now, missionary biographies, just being able to read about men and women of God like Amy Carmichael or about David Livingstone or Lauren Cunningham.
Nancy: I have to tell you, I teethed on those kinds of books, on Christian biographies, missionary biographies. We didn’t have a television in our home when I was growing up, for which I will be eternally grateful. Of course, we didn’t have computers, laptops and iPhones, cell phones, video games, and all those technologies either, but we did have good books, and I loved to read. I still do. I have one of the greatest collections of Christian biographies.
As a little girl, my heart was so inspired and inflamed with love for Christ and a passion to serve Him because my parents made available to us good books of men and women who had been faithful servants of the Lord. Those were my heroes growing up. It wasn’t sports figures or entertainment figures or actors or actresses or celebrities of the world sort.
It was the Amy Carmichaels and the Hudson Taylors and the George Muellers and the Gladys Aylwards. Those were my heroes, and that’s where God really lit in my heart a passion to serve Christ and to be kingdom-minded. So I’m a big fan of this reading good books to your kids, getting good books in their hands.
Let me just say, we’ve posted on ReviveOurHearts.com a list of some of those books that you and I recommend that listeners may want to check out. There’s so many good series available today that weren’t as available when I was a little girl. What a great thing to cultivate in your children a heart and a hunger for knowing and serving the Lord through that kind of reading.
Ann: And even just to instill in our children that it’s not just what they do. The bull's-eye is knowing Him, that we would just train our kids to pray, to train our kids to love the Bible itself. That’s the best Book ever to read to our children, to read aloud to our kids—the Bible, and get them to learn how to read the Bible.
Nancy: Did you find that your children were all receptive and responsive to this kind of influence? Were there some that didn’t seem to have quite as much interest? How did you cultivate that interest in them?
Ann: Even just realizing that God has unique calls and purposes for each one of our children. When the Bible talks about “train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6, KJV). In the Amplified, it says, “Train up a child in the particular bent.” There’s a particular talent, different character traits that God has uniquely equipped each one of our children.
We need to get out of our heads that a missionary is just this Indiana Jones sort of character that puts on a leather jacket and a hat and trudges off to the remotest jungles in Africa, and you hear the beating of the tribal drum and people are dancing around the fire. Missions is getting God’s heart; it is just knowing Him and allowing for His presence to flow through us in whatever sphere of influence God is going to call each one of our children.
So to train them up to love God and to know Him, to begin to develop the gifts and talents that God has given each one, and that they would hear His voice and His direction, whether that is to go into a city, whether it’s to go into media, whether it is to go into the education system, to go into business, to go into politics, to go into the military.
This world needs men and women of character, men and women of integrity, of deep, fervent devotion for God, not only as missionaries, not only as pastors of churches, but as men and women of God who are leaders in this world in all these different spheres of influence in society.
Nancy: Where did you get this heart?
Ann: A heart for Jesus? Oh, I have loved Jesus ever since I was very little. My mother led me to the Lord when I was three. I grew up in a beautiful Christian home. My dad was a high school teacher, coached golf. My mom was a stay-at-home mom who was just always there, and my mother loves the Bible. She just has such a love for the Word of God.
Nancy: Is that something you caught early on?
Ann: Yes. There was one time when I was at a camp when I was eight years old, and a teacher . . . It was a family camp, actually, but the children were having a little class, and there was a teacher that encouraged the children, “Take your little, worn-out Bible and go out into the woods and believe for God to give you a reference or something.”
So I went out into the woods, and I just prayed. I said, “God, could You speak to a little girl like me?”
The thought came to my mind, “Jeremiah—read Jeremiah, chapter 1.” My initial thought, which now I really believe was also direction from the Lord, was, “Oh, my! Jeremiah—that’s full of confusing words and hard names.” And when the book starts out, it is filled with names and confusing words. “The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests . . .”
But then Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 4 says,

The word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations."  Then said I: "Ah, Lord GOD! I cannot speak, for I am a youth." And the Lord said to me: "Do not say, I am a youth," You will go to all whom I will send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak (verses 4-8, NKJV). 

So that was something that grew in me from the time I was a young girl, and God has just been very faithful.
Nancy: And then God gave you a husband who had a similar heart.
Ann: He did. In fact, we were pretty young. We had both just graduated from high school, and my husband was coming in to be a guest speaker at our youth group. At the time, I looked like I had my whole act together. I did love the Lord, but there was a period of time during my last year of high school where there was some compromise in my life, and there was some areas of rebellion.
I looked like Miss Leader of the youth group. I was up there leading worship; I was one of the leaders there. But this guy came in, and he was like a soccer star and loved Jesus. So he was coming to share about “daring to be different and encouraging the young people in that room to allow no compromise in your life of the type of music you listen to, the type of music and the type of movies you watch, the decisions that you make, the friends that you have. No compromise.”
I just remember looking at him, and I was very convicted. At the end of the service, I went up and talked to him. I had kind of my reasoning in my head that I’d allowed these little inroads of junk, sin, into my life. So I asked him, “I work as a waitress in a restaurant, and there are times that I don’t get off work until 2 o’clock in the morning. Sometimes I need to have a radio going on to be able to keep awake. I don’t get any Christian stations, and so sometimes I listen to a soft rock station. It’s not too bad. Is that really that big of a deal? Is that okay?”
It was so awesome. He just looked at me and looked me in the eye, and he said, “Can I ask you an honest question?” I said, “Sure.” He said, “How’s your prayer life?” I just shook my head and just said, “It could be better.” It dug deep.
He said, “Well, you know what? I just challenge you. Next time you go to work, just turn that radio off and pray. Pray for the people you’re going to work with. Pray for the people that are going to come in that restaurant, and see what will happen.”
So the next day I turned off my radio, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing to say here—those of you who are listening to good stations, you keep your radio on because this is a good program. But I turned off my radio, and I prayed. I prayed for the people who I was going to be working with.
That day, the restaurant was really slow, and there was a woman in her 30s who came up to me out of the blue, and she said, “My sister, lately, she has been talking about how you’ve got to be born again to go to heaven. What do you think about that?”
Nancy: Wow.
Ann: I was just blown off my feet. I’d worked there for a year and a half, and I’d never had a chance to share my faith before. And without me even initiating a conversation, someone came up to me and said, “Will you please witness to me?”
So that was a very influential turning point in my life. When I drove home that day, I was just praising God in the car, and just thinking, “God, You are so real, and You are so big, and I do not want any compromise in my life. I just want to fulfill Your purpose. I want to serve You with all, everything, 100 percent, and I repent of this, and I repent of that.” I was just asking God to come in and direct my life.
Then we even got to see each other again, and I told him the story. He thought it was kind of cool that someone had actually listened to what he had preached about. Then two years later, we were married, and we have now been married for 23, almost 24 years.
Nancy: How neat it is to see the way that God put two kindred spirits together. I think some people could listen to your energy and your enthusiasm and wholeheartedness and think, “Well, that’s Ann Dunagan. God didn’t make me quite that way” or “That’s a little extreme.”
Certainly everybody doesn’t need to be that way, but I’m thinking back to that verse in Jeremiah chapter 1 where God says to Jeremiah what I believe is true of all of us, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; and before you were born I sanctified you” (verse 5). We have been set apart, before the foundation of the world, to be consecrated to God for His purposes, for His kingdom purposes.
What you’re talking about . . . We have different personalities. We may express it differently, but God has called each of us to have a heart that is wholly Christ's—no compromise; passionate devotion and love for Christ; living our lives not for our sakes, not for our kingdoms, but for His kingdom; to only only have that kind of life, but to influence the next generation, the children God has given to you; to believe that this is God’s calling and commission and purpose for their lives; to fulfill whatever it is that He made them to do and to be.
So this isn’t something that's a way of life just for some small minority, very pious missionary types. You’re really talking about a calling and a lifestyle for every child of God.
Ann: The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:20 that we are ambassadors for Christ. Part of this verse says, “as though God were pleading through us.”  God has a passionate love for this world. “As though God were pleading through us: I implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (NKJV). There is a passionate love for a very lost and hurting world.
We don’t all have the same personalities; we’re not all outgoing. Some people are shy. I once heard somebody say, “How can I share my faith? I’m a shy person.” I heard someone say, “Well, you can witness to shy people.” There’s no excuse. We have the light of Jesus Christ, and this world desperately needs God. God wants to plead through us to see His kingdom expand here on this earth. That’s what it means to be mission-minded.

Well-Balanced Reading

Today's Seeking Him from Nancy Leigh DeMoss was good...


Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Almost every mom struggles to give her kids a well-balanced diet.



“It doesn’t matter what I cook! She only wants to eat pizza and peanut butter and jelly!”


Nancy: Do you know that we can approach the Bible just like a picky child?


(Yawn) “Oh, where was I? I guess I’ll just read a psalm—a short psalm.”


Nancy: Just as our bodies need a balanced diet, our spirits need the whole counsel of God’s Word. Some passages seem more appetizing than others. But if our diet consists mainly of the Psalms with a smidgen of the New Testament Epistles on the side, we just won’t grow as we should.


Paul reminded Timothy that “all Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable.” We need the Psalms and Epistles. But we also need the Old Testament books of the Law, history, the Prophets, and the New Testament Gospels.


Are you getting a balanced diet from God’s Word?


With Seeking Him, I’m Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Divine Interruptions--Nancy Leigh DeMoss

January 7, 2011


Divine Interruptions

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Sometimes we need to ask God to keep us from distractions during our devotional times.

“Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place." (Ding) "The dryer’s done. No . . . I think it can wait. Let’s see . . . 'Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: "Everyone is looking for you."’”  (Phone ring.) “Uhhh. Maybe it’s an emergency. (ring) No, keep reading. ‘Let us go somewhere else (ring) to the nearby villages (ring) so I . . .'”

Nancy: But sometimes an interruption may be God-sent.

“Mommy, what are you doing?”
“Well, come here. Let me show you. See, I’m reading about Jesus.”

Nancy: Ask God for discernment. Sometimes an interruption is actually an opportunity from Him.
With Seeking Him, I’m Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Raising the Bar

Well, Nancy Leigh deMoss has been used this week to correct me.  Been having some problems knowing how to handle some behavior issues my DD has been having. I've been everything from frustrated, down right angry and feeling hopeless.  This devotion reminded me that I need to make sure I'm also forgiving...not holding on to grudge even.

Raising the Bar


“I can overlook the little things pretty easily, but nobody can forgive everything. Can they?”

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Colossians 3:13 says, “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” That raises the bar pretty high, doesn’t it? We’re to forgive the same way God has forgiven us. How has God forgiven us?

The psalmist tells us, “As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

God’s forgiveness is complete. It’s permanent. It’s unconditional. And here’s what I love most—it’s undeserved. We can’t earn it, work for it, or perform harder to get it. It’s all because of God’s grace.

Do you have trouble forgiving? Maybe you need to spend some time thinking about how much God has forgiven you.

With Seeking Him, I’m Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Real Answers from a Real God

This is from today's Revive Our Hearts you even listen to here.


At Revive Our Hearts, we’re marking our 10th year of broadcasting. Over those years, listeners have heard from Kathy Helvey many times. She’s offered practical advice in living out God’s Word in tough seasons of life.

 We’ll hear a recording Kathy made with a group ladies in 2007. This group had just heard Nancy teach through the book of Habakkuk. We’ve revisited that classic series as part of our 10th year anniversary. And as part of that series, we’ll hear Nancy talking with Kim Wagner, Holly Elliff, Maria Johnson, and the late Kathy Helvey.

 Holly will begin.

 Holly Elliff: I have to tell you as I was first of all reading through the book of Habakkuk and then during this study on the day, I think, beginning in chapter 2 where you started talking about Habakkuk climbing into the watchtower to wait for God, I had this vision of myself tying to climb the tower and all these little people grabbing my ankles and saying, “Mom, wait, wait, wait.” [Laughter]



I have a bunch of children. Literally, I sat there thinking, "Would I be able to get up in that watchtower and say I’m going to sit here until God speaks?" Then I thought, well, "I could maybe do that like at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning." It would be quiet enough. It was just almost comical as I thought about myself trying to get in that posture.

 Nancy: . . . of listening to the Lord and waiting on Him.



Holly: . . . saying I’m going to sit here until God answers. I know God has a way for me to do this, but it was a pretty comical picture.


Nancy: So as a mom, how do you get alone with the Lord? How do you get still and quiet and let Him speak to you.


Holly: For me, literally it is sometimes 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning when it’s finally still and quiet and I know there’s a good chance that nobody’s going to be waking up for a while. That’s when I can get to Him. I’ve found that even just a few minutes in the midst of my day makes a huge difference.




Nancy: I know, Kim, you have very busy days. We were just talking about how you’re at a season of life where your days are so full. How do you get that time to just really listen to the Lord?


Kim Wagner: I have to have that time. That’s how I get that time. The Lord taught me several years ago that if I did not meet with Him first . . . that’s my sustenance. That’s the only way that I can operate is by meeting with Him first thing. I know Holly’s time is late at night. For me, I have to meet with the Lord first thing in the morning.


Holly: Actually, see mine’s earlier in the morning than yours.


Kim: Right! Mine’s just about two hours later than yours. But I told my friends, you don’t want to be around me until I’ve met with the Lord because He needs to deal with me first thing in the morning.


Really, that is the sweetest time for me of my day, to really go to Him, lay out my heart before Him and just seek Him, ask Him, what in my heart do You need to deal with? How do I need to surrender to You? Then to intercede for others that He is bringing to my heart and mind as I’m just seeking Him before I get into a time in the Word.


I’m a pastor’s wife, and probably the first ten years of being a pastor’s wife, I had a quiet time with the Lord pretty typical of probably most Christians. I would do it one day and go another day. I remember pulling out a journal as we were moving from one pastorate to another.


Going through the moving boxes, I pulled out one of my spiritual journals. I remember thumbing through it and saying, “Oh, wow, this is good. The Lord met with me here October 24. That’s a good word. That’s interesting.” I go to the next day, October 25, and then I go, November 24? What happened between October 25 and November 24?


The Lord really used that to convict me that there were several days there missing. All through that journal I could tell, it was very sporadic, my times of meeting with the Lord. I started to wonder, “Father, what did you want to speak to me on those days when I didn’t stop and meet with You? What did You want to teach me that I missed out on?”


That wasn’t enough to convict me. It took about a year later, I guess. We were living in Indiana at the time. I was traveling to Indianapolis to minister to someone in the hospital. As I’m driving along just going my merry way to minister for God, the Holy Spirit so faithfully spoke to me and said, “You’re going to minister to someone, but You did not meet with Me this morning. You didn’t seek My face first.”


Me in my prideful, arrogant, flippant way said, “I’m meeting with You, God. I’m listening to Adrian Rogers right now on the radio.” God very clearly and faithfully spoke to me and said, “No, you did not seek My face this morning. You did not meet with Me this morning.”


There’s so much in our lives that gets so hectic, with children, with responsibilities, with people needing to be ministered to. We can let all of those things crowd out the most important thing. I’m so thankful for Luke 10, an example of Mary who, yes, there was a lot of busyness going on.


Martha was doing a lot of good things, a lot of needful things. Those men needed to eat, but Mary was doing the most important thing. For me, I’m not saying it’s the same for everybody, but for me, God has shown me that I must begin that in the first time of the day.


Maria Johnson: For me, it’s a little bit different, because life isn’t always so ordered if you’re up all night with a sick child and such. I love the morning. That’s my most favorite time, before the sun is up, time. Just go outside with a cup of coffee even wrapped in a blanket. There are the stars, and it’s you and the Lord. That’s my favorite.


With four children and six grandchildren and my husband’s work schedule, I can’t always do that, that 5 o’clock or 4:30 or 6 a.m., not when you’ve been up two or three hours with a sick child or grandchild or something.


So what the Lord began showing me from Psalm 16:11 was that I was very consistent with that morning quiet time, and I became proud in that. “In His presence is fullness of joy.” He began showing me that I had to live every moment in His presence. Every moment.


So whether it’s with a sick child or helping my married kids with their children or a neighbor at church, whatever it may be, whatever the need is, it’s in that moment to realize God is there, and that He has made provision for His glory in whatever the circumstance is.


That’s not to say time with the Lord in His Word isn’t important, but it’s even bigger than that. Where can we go from Him presence? Nowhere.


I can remember riding on a subway in Boston and turning to my cousin and saying, “Look at all these people, all these nationalities. I can’t bare to think that they’re going to die and burn and hell.” It’s just realizing that His presence is everywhere and in His presence is fullness of joy.


My favorite place, of course, is before Him in His Word in the quietness alone. But everywhere He wants us to see Him, and everywhere He’s made provision for His glory, whether it’s pointing out lost or helpless people or ministering or just having fun like drawing chalk pictures on the sidewalk with the kids. Everywhere God has made provision for His glory. It’s remembering that and remembering we’re always in His presence. Always. Always.


I was taught early on about that early quiet time, early quiet time. Boy, I did it. Tell me what to do, and I’ll follow those three steps. There’s a pride in that. Then God said, “No, it’s bigger than that. I’m always there, and I’ve made provision for My glory everywhere I’ve placed you.”


Doing puzzles with the little kids, teaching women. It doesn’t matter. God is there. Our purpose for being there, my purpose is to glorify Him.


Kathy Helvey: Nancy, you mentioned something, I was looking in my notes here and I cannot find it, about the Word of God. If we were to really believe it and live it, then our lives would be so transformed. It would be so different. I think of that Scripture in Romans where it says, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2, KJV).


Since we’re talking about quiet times and time with the Lord, as I’ve grown older, I’ve had to walk for exercise to keep the weight off. One thing that motivates me to get out there everyday and walk is something I started doing a few years ago and that’s memorizing Psalms because it’s a lot like poetry. It flows.


So I started memorizing different psalms. I would motivate myself to walk by taking my little 3 x 5 cards out on the road with me. Then I would just quote them and say them over and over. As I started walking, there’s that little jingle or little chorus that goes, “And He walks with me and He talks with me.” That’s what started happening.


I started having the best quiet times, and I still do, with the Lord when I’m out walking by myself. I’m very selfish about these walks. People have said let me walk with you. I’ve said no. I just need to do it alone. It just wouldn’t fit into my schedule.


Nancy: Tell them you already have a walking Partner.


Maria: That’s right, and I love Him. So as we walk and as He talks with me, it was just a joyous surprise. I think C. S. Lewis wrote a book, Surprised by Joy, and that’s kind of what happened to me on our walk one day.


I was talking to God about a certain situation and then I started quoting this little 3 x 5 card psalm. It ended up I started praying those very words to God. Before they were just rote memorization, but it became a part of who I was, what the situation was, about what I wanted to say to the Lord, and what He wanted to say to me.


So much of life change now has come to me by memorizing God’s Word. I was told when I was very little in daily vacation Bible school how important it was to memorize the Word of God, but I had no idea. Now I have many 3 x 5 cards, and I just walk and I talk. The Word of God becomes a prayer back to Him, and it’s thrilling.


Nancy: I’ve found that happening myself even in this study of the book of Habakkuk. As I’ve been meditating on the book and studying it, I’ve ended up memorizing it. That last verse, “GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places” (Habakkuk 3:19).


I found myself just so needing the strength of the Lord, but drawing strength from the Scripture that is now in my heart and saying by faith, “God the Lord is my strength. Lord, You are my strength. You make my feet like the deer’s. You make me tread on my high places.”


Going into this recording session—this is a high place for me, a hard place. It’s taking more stamina than I have. It’s taking more wisdom than I have. The Scripture becomes personal that way, so it’s not just Habakkuk saying that. It’s not just me knowing it in my head. It becomes a part of my actual walk with the Lord.


Kathy: So many people will say when I ask them how’s their quiet time, because a lot of times most of the women I talk to are women having some kind of problem, and I’ll say, “Well, how’s your quiet time?” They’ll say, “Well, I pray all the time.” Then my next question is, “Well, that’s great, but when do you listen?”


That’s what you’re talking about. Your 3 x 5 cards—you’re not just talking to the Lord. You’re listening because He’s talking back to you through His Word. That is how He talks to us and directs us, corrects us, through His Word, so that’s a neat way to do two things at once.


Kathy: There’s a verse in Psalm 94 and it says, “When my anxious thoughts consume me.” Another version says, “When my anxious thoughts multiply within me . . .” (Psalm 94:19, NASB).


Nancy: Yes, we all know that verse!


Kathy: Then the second part is, “Your consolations delight my soul.” To me consolation is what He says, what He promises. If I haven’t been there to know what He’s saying, then when my anxious thoughts get carried away and multiply and the stresses and fears of life come and the demons of darkness come in the middle of the night waking me up and I’m fearful. If I don’t know God’s Word, haven’t hidden it in my heart through memorizing it, then I’m lost.


Kim: There’s nothing to counteract those lies. You don’t have that truth hidden away.


Kathy: It can’t grab a hold of my life, and I can’t have life change. Can’t trust. Don’t just read God’s Word, but memorize it.


Kim: Meditate on it.


Kathy: If we memorize it, I think God’s promise is, it’ll come back to us.


Holly: I agree, Kathy. So many of the women I talk to haven’t even picked up their Bibles and they don’t understand why they’re not getting what they need from the Lord. “God is just not listening to me.”


I thought about Habakkuk being so determined. I mean he got real honest with God. He told Him what his questions were. But then he was determined to get in a place where he could hear from God.


I think if we’re not careful, we put all the blame on God and don’t accept responsibility for the fact that God’s Word is readily available. I’m sorry, everybody can find time somewhere to get to God.


I know there are crisis moments where it’s just incredibly tough, but unless you are at the deathbed of a loved one, or it’s a hospital stay, or I mean it’s just a crisis moment, there is time in most of our lives.


Nancy: Actually, it’s in those crisis moments that a lot of people do get to God.


Holly: Well, then you remember He’s there.


Nancy: Right.


Holly: But we are so unprepared even for when those things come because in the midst of our everyday lives, we forget. It’s not that we forget. We know. We just are not desperate enough to hear what God has to say, which means, as Nancy brought up, that we’re just dependent on ourselves, and what we have is what we have apart from Him. That is so frightening to me.


Kathy: We’re so feeling-oriented, especially as women. What came out to me through this whole session was that Nancy kept saying it’s a choice. Someone once wrote a book, Faith Is Not a Feeling. I thought, okay, faith is not a feeling.


Sometimes we’re so consumed with our feelings because of the hurt or the pain, whatever is going on in our life that I like to think of it now as a contrary choice. I have got to go contrary to everything I am when I’m in that situation. That’s hard to do unless I’ve invested while it’s good. I’m walking close with the Lord.


Dear Habakkuk, I love you. [Laughter] Because I sat there thinking, this is a Habakkuk conundrum. This is what it is. He’s puzzled. He’s confused. He’s angry. He’s at a loss. He feels he’s been abandoned, rejected. Where are You, God?


We’ve all been there. I want to follow that man. I want to be a Habakkuk and go from my conundrum to where we ended in this little book—faith.


Holly: Well, I’m just wondering as you talk with other women why it is that you see women not doing that. Why do women not make that choice?


I talked with a gal a couple weeks ago. In the course of the conversation she maybe mentioned ten other women that she had already shared with what was going on in her life. When I finally said, “Have you had time to get to God about this?” “No.” She really hadn’t. She was so quick to get to everybody else. I just think that’s such a dangerous thing to get enough salve on the wound that we don’t need to get to get to God like Habakkuk did.


Maria: It comes so naturally though to be independent. You don’t teach a child to say, "I can do it myself." You teach them to share. I think that’s part of it. It’s one of the things, like Kathy had said that I liked about this book is how real God is with His Word. He’s so practical.


Emotions are real, and we as women know that. But what are we going to do with those emotions? Now, he had fear. He had questions, I’m sure. Habakkuk had doubts. I mean he said how long and why? Emotions are real, but we can’t stuff it, deny it, ignore it, or medicate it. We’ve got to learn to run to God.


I have watched over and over, He allows that pressure to come to remind us we do need Him because we tend to be so self-sufficient. I can do this myself. It’s just an attitude that we’re born with, I really believe. You have enough of those things in your life happening and you begin to realize you need him.


There was a season in our life where in an eight-year period, the longest we went without a major crisis was six months. I’m talking death, hospitalizations, major accidents, a child nearly dying three times in six months. The longest we went with peace was six months in eight years.


Yet I would not trade those eight years for anything in the world because in the midst of that I learned to run to the Lord. Our whole family did. You get a glimpse of God when everything else doesn’t work, doesn’t help, doesn’t satisfy. I mean you need real answers. You need a real God, and He is there.


“The LORD sat enthroned at the Flood, and the LORD sits as King forever” (Psalm 29:10, NKJV). That’s the verse the Lord gave me beside my 17-year-old son that was unrecognizable. No one even knew that was really him except me and his daddy; he was so injured. I just sat there, and that is the verse the Lord gave.


That was the beginning of eight years straight. Six-month breather. Big things. Lots of deaths, surgeries, accidents, financial loss. I mean like how long, Lord, and why? He was there, and He was enough.


You have a few experiences like that in life and you can sing with Habakkuk at the end. There are seasons of that. I mean, that’s not the only time. But you have a good season of it, and you begin to realize God is enough. He doesn’t mind those honest questions.


We were waiting once, even before that season, when we felt God had led us to adopt even though our first two children were 13 and 15. Everyone thought we were crazy, but we really felt that God said there were specific children. It wasn’t like I wanted a baby or we didn’t have a son or didn’t have a daughter or we wanted this or that.


We were waiting. It took 18 months, and it only takes 9 months to have a baby biologically. This was too long. The social workers kept changing.


Anyway, a friend of mine who had a lot of courage took me to lunch one day. I was just complaining, like you said, whining and whining. She leaned over to me and she said, “Maria, you are not waiting on a social worker, and you are not waiting on children, and you’re not waiting for your house to sell, and you’re not waiting to buy a bigger house” (because you’re going to have more kids). She said, “You are waiting on the Lord.”


Now we were in a restaurant with a server, they call them now. What does a waiter or a waitress do? They wait for you to signal, nod, gesture to them, and they come to you. That’s my picture the Lord gave me in that second, that I was to wait like a servant on the Lord. He would nod, and He would gesture when He wanted me to go or stay or left or right. I’ll never forget that. We’re waiting on the Lord. That’s what Habakkuk did. He waited until God answered him.


Leslie: That’s Maria Johnson. We also heard from Kim Wagner, and Holly Elliff. And we heard from Kathy Helvey, who went home to be with the Lord this past April.


These ladies listened as Nancy Leigh DeMoss delivered a teaching series called, Habakkuk: Moving from Fear to Faith. Today’s conversation was a follow-up exploration about what this teaching looks like practically day to day.

A High and Holy Calling

Leslie Basham: Nancy Leigh DeMoss says women can nurture life in a variety of ways.



Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Childless women whether married or single can do so much to support the parenting ministry of others in the Body of Christ.


Leslie Basham: Nancy doesn’t know we’re using this story, but it illustrates the point perfectly. It comes from the co-author of Lies Young Women Believe, Dannah Gresh. She was visiting Nancy’s home while they were preparing to write the book together.


Dannah Gresh: I’ve been given this picture into Nancy’s quiet life, her private life. She is the same woman if not a deeper woman in quiet. When she talks about true womanhood and says that a woman should be hospitable, it would be easy for her as a single woman not to have to do that. But she’s had me sleep over at her home once, and she tucked me into bed with a prayer. That’s mentoring and mothering and nurturing at its best in a quiet place where nobody else sees it and nobody else needs to know.


When she’s had groups of us over for dinner, she’ll take time the night before to research what our names mean to make placards and to speak truth into our hearts, which is again a very mothering and nurturing thing to do. So what she’s teaching, she’s living.


Leslie Basham: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Friday, June 25.


Thousands of women have added their names to the True Woman Manifesto. You can read it and add your name to it at ReviveOurHearts.com. That document includes this line:


Children are a blessing from God; women are uniquely designed to be bearers and nurturers of life whether it be their own biological or adopted children or other children in their sphere of influence.


Nancy’s been teaching through the True Woman Manifesto in several series this year, and she’ll focus on this important statement today.


Nancy Leigh DeMoss: I’m holding in my hand the May 3, 2010 issue of Time Magazine. You may have seen this. The cover says in big letters, THE PILL, talking about the 50th anniversary of the Pill. And the feature article in this issue was written by Nancy Gibbs. It’s called “Love, Sex, Freedom and the Paradox of the Pill.”


Let me just read the first part of that article. She says,


There's no such thing as the Car or the Shoe or the Laundry Soap. But everyone knows the Pill, whose FDA approval 50 years ago rearranged the furniture of human relations in ways that we've argued about ever since. . . .


Today more than 100 million women around the world [that figure boggled my brain] start their day with this tiny tablet.


There’s a lot of very helpful research and background history in this article if you want to know some more about the background. Let me just read a couple quotes from it.


In 1960 the typical American woman had 3.6 children. [I don’t know how you have 3.6 children, but I think that’s on average.] By 1980 [20 years later], the number had dropped below 2. [Which, by the way, is below replacement rate for a culture.]


For the first time, more women identified themselves as workers than as homemakers. "There is a straight line between the Pill and the changes in family structure we now see," says National Organization for Woman president Terry O’Neill, "with 22% of women earning more than their husbands. In 1970, 70% of women with children under 6 were at home; 30% worked. [They all worked but 30% worked outside the home.] Now that's roughly reversed."


Dr. Al Mohler from Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky was quoted in the article. And he said,


The ability to control human reproduction has done more to reorder life than any event since Adam and Eve ate the apple. Go back a hundred years. The idea that you’d have adults who’d intend to have very active sex lives without any respect to the likelihood of children didn’t exist. And it’s now unexceptional.


So today it’s just a given that there can be an active sex life without any consideration of the likelihood of children.


Dr. Mohler in his blog commenting on this Time piece, this feature article said,


The idea that sex would be severed from child bearing is a very modern concept and a concept made meaningful only by the development of the Pill and its successor birth control technologies. The severing of this relationship represents a quantum change in human life and relationships, not to mention morality (from his 4/26/10 blog).


Now, it’s not my intent in this program to talk about the Pill or birth control, contraception. That is not the issue that we’re talking about today. We’re looking at the True Woman Manifesto though and it’s just interesting that this article appeared at the time that I was preparing for this series where we come to this point in the manifesto that says,


Children are a blessing from God; women are uniquely designed to be bearers and nurturers of life whether it be their own biological or adopted children or other children in their sphere of influence.


And as is true with so many areas of life, the trajectory that the world is on is moving right directly away from the trajectory of Scripture, the worldview of Scripture. And again, please don’t quote me on this program as drawing any conclusions about the Pill. That’s not the point here. The point is that in the last 50 years or so there has been a concerted move away from women having children or delaying childbearing until they’re really past their most effective time to have children.

These trends have had consequences. Thinking has consequences. Ideas have consequences. And the consequences within our culture have been significant in ways that perhaps you’ve never even thought about.


But what I want to do is just take us to God’s way of thinking because the best way to combat the darkness is to turn on the light. And the best way to combat things that aren’t true is to show people what is true. I think sometimes we Christians are just thought of as being negative, as being against this or against that. Certainly, we need to be against sin, and we need to hate the devil, and we need to hate deception.


But it’s the truth that is more powerful than lies. So I just think by educating women in God’s Word, God’s truth, God’s ways of thinking, then the lights start to go on and things start to click.


A woman came to me before this session and she thanked me for the last session where we talked about children being a blessing. She had tears streaming down her cheeks as she said, “I have three children, but I have not considered my children always a blessing.” Now, I know there are moments in every mother’s life when blessing isn’t the word you would use to describe your children.


But she said, “Thank you so much for helping me see that my children really are a blessing." And then she said something really interesting. She said, “My children make me impatient.” Now I knew what she meant, but I just took a moment there in that conversation to remind her what we all need to be reminded of whether we think it’s our children that make us impatient or our co-workers or our laptops, whatever.


I said, “You know, really it’s not your children who make you impatient. The fact is, you are impatient. God knows that’s in your heart and He loves you enough to bring circumstances into your life (in her case it’s three children) who squeeze you and bring to the surface what’s inside you so that you can see that you really are impatient so that God can change you, so He can sanctify you.”


So I said, “That’s why your children are a blessing because they help you see areas of your life that need to be changed.” And of course, I wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. But that’s how we need to remind each other to think about even the challenge of children, that God uses this in a sanctifying way in our lives.


Now, I’m getting ahead of myself. I want us to think just for a moment about the first mother. Genesis 3:20 tells us that "the man called his wife’s name Eve." Now he had already called her woman. He was man; she was woman. But he had a proper name, Adam, and he gave her her proper name, Eve.


He called his wife’s name Eve. Have you ever wondered why? I mean, did he go through a book of 20,000 names? Well, there weren’t any books on naming your wife, and they didn’t need books on naming your baby at that point because there were no babies. So why did he come up with this name? Well, the Scripture tells us. He called his wife’s name Eve "because she was the mother of all living" (verse 20).


Now if you’re using as I do the English Standard Version of the Bible, there’s a little marginal note that says Eve sounds like the Hebrew for life-giver and resembles the word for living. So he called his wife something that reminds us of life-giving, of living. She is the mother of all living.


When you think about Adam naming his wife life-giver, living, it’s a statement of faith that Adam is making in the promises and the redeeming love of God. You say how so? Adam and Eve had just made this fatal choice for which God had said the consequence would be what? Death. "In the day that you eat you will surely die" (Genesis 2:17). Yet Adam gives his wife a name that highlights life and her calling to be a life-giver.


What is that saying? You see, God is going to mercifully allow Eve and women subsequent to her to give birth to children who will continue the human race. So God has said, “You have sinned. You will die.” And yet God has made this provision through childbearing for there to be subsequent generations. For the woman who had brought death to the human race, the woman and Adam, to now be givers of life to the human race.


God has made a provision for this woman and for her offspring to have eternal life. Yes, the wages of sin is death. But from the very beginning, from before creation, God had already made plans for life to eclipse death through Christ and His sacrifice on our behalf.


Now Adam and Eve couldn’t have told you that whole story at that time. They only had tiny, little glimpses of it. But now we see the story. We look back on what they were looking forward to. We see that this was a statement of grace. This was a statement of faith that Eve will be the mother of all living, that though we’ve sinned and though there is death, God has made provision so that we can have life.


So even in the naming of the first woman, there’s a hint of the gospel, a hint of what we can experience through Christ and a reminder that being a life-giver for a woman is a high and a holy calling. We need to recalibrate our thinking. Now 50 or 100 years ago what I’m saying would have been “duh.” Everybody understands this. But today, it’s really a counter-cultural way of thinking that mothering, that bearing and nurturing life, is a high and holy calling in the will of God.


All through Scripture you see mothers given a place of honor. You see God’s heart for women to be childbearers. I love that verse in Psalm 113:9 that says, “He gives the barren woman a home making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the LORD!” God’s saying there’s something to be celebrated when women give birth, when women have children, when women make homes.


Now as we’re going to see, there are different ways that God allows different women to do that. But I don’t want to overlook the obvious physical way. None of us would be here if some woman would have not said, “I am willing to be a bearer and nurturer of life, to have a baby.” And physically we see women are uniquely and intentionally designed by God to be bearers and nurturers of life. Our bodies are designed physiologically to conceive and carry children.


Let me just state the obvious. Men cannot have babies. And women are designed physiologically to nourish and nurture their babies through the pregnancy. I read this about child bearing: “Women’s bodies,” this one author said, “tend to store up fat.” Now, we don’t like storing up fat. “Women’s bodies tend to store up fat in order to nourish babies both during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. This is your body’s way of protecting you and your baby from famine.”1 So thank the Lord for fat deposits! Right?


Women are uniquely designed to have children. They are uniquely designed to nurture them once they are born. There’s a God given capacity to feed, to nurse them with your own milk, nurturing. It’s a picture of all kinds of motherhood that God has equipped us to do by pouring our lives into others.


Even when we talk about discipleship and mentoring and Titus 2 mandate, it’s this concept of women being mothers, physical mothers, spiritual mothers. This whole concept of nurturing is something that is not as comfortable for many women today as it was at one time.


I saw a poll conducted by Women Today Online in which half the respondents said that they did not see themselves as nurturing in a way that comes naturally to them, half of the respondents.2


Now these things used to be axiomatic. They were givens. In the 1960s if you were a mother and a nurturer, a nurturing woman, you were honored. It was the right thing to do. It was accepted. There was a degree of respect recorded to that.


But in so many ways culture has stripped this from women. We’ve tried for now five decades to eradicate the things that God put into women’s lives or at best we have devalued so many of those things. We’ve allowed our selfish instincts to rule. And so many women today who have been put in positions of taking the man’s responsibility to provide don’t have energy or capacity left to nurture.


Now again, I’m trying to state general principles. Don’t let your mind go running off and say that I’m making absolute statements. I’m not saying no woman should be working outside her home. We’ve done other series where we’ve explored those kinds of issues. But I’m just saying if you look at the culture as a whole where women are feeling like they have to go into the workplace for their family to survive, one of the things that has done is exhausted women so that they’re not feeling the capacity to give their children the best hours of their day and to nurture them.


It’s no longer considered particularly desirable or meaningful for a woman to be a nurturer. What kind of occupation is that? Rather, we have “supermoms” who manage their children. They’re administrators extraordinaire. But the opposite of nurturing has been drilled into them. That has to be taught. That has to be trained today.


But let me just remind us if we go back to creation, God has wired and equipped us to be bearers and nurturers of life, physically and spiritually. The calling is to surrender to that work of the Spirit in our lives, as true women to say, "Lord, maybe nurturing doesn’t come naturally to me." Maybe you didn’t have a nurturing mother. You say, "I don’t know how to nurture."


It used to be that once a woman held a baby in her arms there was just something natural that really came out. Today, there are first-time moms, second, third-time moms, who hold these babies in their arms, and there’s no instinct there. It’s awkward; it’s not natural. Now, I’m not saying that having babies and nurturing babies is all easy, but it used to be more instinctive. But God has still put that within you. If you will let Him by His Spirit, He can bring out that God-created bent, that wiring to bear and nurture life.


You read this concept through the Scripture. I love that passage in 1 Thessalonians 2 which is not a passage on mothering particularly. But you see Paul describing his ministry to the Thessalonians. And he says, “We were gentle among you like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (verse 7). He didn’t say we were gentle among you like a nursing dad taking care of his own children. Dads can’t nurse!


Now, I’m not saying men can’t be nurturing. But I’m saying there’s a unique sense in which God has equipped women to be nurturers. So Paul says, “We were gentle like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.” That just brings a picture to mind of how Paul ministered to these believers.


So he says, “So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (verse 8). Paul looked at how women were wired and he said, “That’s a quality there, that’s a quality I wanted to have in our ministry.”


Elisabeth Elliot wrote a book years ago—if you can get a hold of a copy of it, I don’t know if it’s still in print (it may be)—called Let Me Be A Woman. A fabulous book written I believe to her daughter if I’m not mistaken. And she said,


Every normal woman is equipped to be a mother. Certainly not every woman in the world is destined to make use of the physical equipment but surely motherhood, in a deeper sense, is the essence of womanhood. The body of every normal woman prepares itself repeatedly to receive and to bear. Motherhood requires self-giving, sacrifice, and suffering. It is a going down into death in order to give life.


We see it in the salmon swimming upstream, going back to their homes so they can lay their eggs and die. It’s a life of sacrifice. It’s a life of self-giving, of suffering at times in order to bear and nurture life.”


Now clearly your own children, those of you who have been blessed with children—the affirmation here is that children are a blessing. Those of you who have biological or adopted children clearly there’s a call to love them, to nurture them, to nourish their lives. But there are so many other ways, both those who have their own children and those who don’t, can be bearers and nurturers of life as they invest in other people’s children, in other lives.


I think of a woman I heard about recently who was not ever able to have children. She’s an older woman now who has shepherded hundreds of kids in her church’s youth department. I think of foster care and adoption and so many women who are loving children who are not their own flesh and blood.


So I don’t know what season of life you may be in. We have gray-haired women here. We have much younger women, women in every season of life—some empty nesters, some of you doing the hard work right now of little ones at home. I just want to say that whatever season of life you’re in would you ask God to give you a heart for bearing and nurturing life? Ask God to help you make room in your life for children.


You say, “I’ve got seven kids.” You need to make room in your heart for those children because sometimes you can start to resent those children that are such a blessing from the Lord. I know some of you are thinking it’s a hard season right now. Some of you are so sleep deprived you hardly know how to function. That’s where some like me need to come alongside and say, “Can I give you a break and let you and your husband get away, let you have a date night, let you as a single mom go spend some hours doing something you need to do for yourself? Let me take your kids.”


See what we can do to help lift the load of others, to invest in children and realize that as we do we are investing in the next generation. We’re passing the baton of faith on to the next generation.


There are women in this room who have prodigal children and your heart is so heavy for them. When I talk about children being a blessing, you’re just thinking about how they’ve broken your heart. Wouldn’t you love to have some other women in the Body of Christ come around and say, “I’m going to pray with you and for you and for that son or daughter who’s way far from the Lord, and I’m going to believe God with you to break through in their life”?


Sometimes you have to be willing to be in there for the long haul and say, “How can I pray for you? How can I encourage you in this season of life?” Children are a blessing from the Lord. What a privilege God has given us as women as He has uniquely designed us to be bearers and nurturers of life for His glory and for the advancement of His kingdom.


Leslie Basham: Nancy Leigh DeMoss has challenged every woman, even if you have no biological children, you can nurture life. That message was based on the True Woman Manifesto which you can read at ReviveOurHearts.com. The True Woman Manifesto was created in conjunction with the True Woman Conference. Earlier this year conference goers heard the Manifesto read and affirmed these statements by saying, “Yes Lord.”


Nancy, it really was a powerful moment.


Nancy: It was Leslie. And actually it was just one of many very powerful moments at that conference. A woman who attended the True Woman Conference earlier this year wrote to us afterwards and said, “I’m 26 years old and I didn’t realize how important my role of a wife and mom really is.” She was challenged to rethink her view of that calling at that conference. And she said in her note, “I’ll never forget this experience.”


We put in a lot of effort to make sure that the True Woman Conference is thoroughly biblical. Your Bible will be open all weekend. You’ll understand it better and know how to apply it to practical areas of your life, whatever season of life you may be in. It’s a great thing to be able to experience that teaching in the context of other women who are wanting to become true women of God.


So that’s why being at the conference is different than just listening to the messages on CD or reading the same material. I want you to experience a True Woman Conference for yourself as thousands of other women from all across this country and even other countries will be doing this fall.


So plan to join us in Indianapolis this September or come to Fort Worth in October. For more details and to get more information about group discounts, visit ReviveOurHearts.com.


Leslie Basham: Nancy’s going to continue leading us through the True Woman Manifesto next time. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.


Revive Our Hearts is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.
All Scripture is taken from the English Standard Version.


1 http://www.llli.org/NB/NBSepOct00p156.html

2 Stacey Wiebe. “Born to Nurture” – http://www.Womentodaymagazine.com