Ep. 164 || Change is a Good Thing, Part 2 Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Hey friends, Laura here again. First off, we’re going to mention this later, but it is crazy that this is our last show of the season! Emily and I have really enjoyed trying out some different things this season and we hope you did too. Speaking of the season, I’m here to remind you—just in case you missed us mentioning it—we recorded prior to Coronavirus's widespread impact. Today we’re diving into part two of a two-part episode on sanctification. W know all of us are being sanctified by the virus and its effects: school closures, stay-home orders, loss of routines, events, celebrations, job loss or changes, the craziness of grocery stores—there are a lot of things sanctifying us right now, and as we were prepping to release this show, we felt like it’d be important to let you all know that this was recorded well before Croana, which is why we don’t include something that should so obviously be part of our discussion. But as we’ve said before, we trust God will use it, and hopefully, you can think of your own unique circumstances during this show to apply some of the principles to your own life.
Okay, on a side note - Happy Mother’s Day! I hope all of you get to do something special, even if it’s just a picnic in the living room. I also wanted to let you know that the Risen Motherhood ebook is on crazy sale this week - just $2.99, through May 12! And the great part about the e-book is it’s “touchless” and immediate, which means you could grab it for a mom in your life for Mother’s Day. If that’s not your thing you can still order the physical copy on sale and while it won’t likely come in time to wrap it up, there’s a free downloadable card that you can print on our site to give to let the recipient know it’s coming. Or of course, there’s always the audio version for those that like to keep their hands moving while listening. We’ll link all the options in our show notes today, or learn more and get the card at risenmotherhood.com/book.
Another thing I want to tell you about is that each Wednesday we’ll be doing what we’re calling Kitchen Sink Prayers on social media, where we gather as a community to pray for a specific group of moms. It’s a spin off from the Day of Prayer we did a few weeks ago and the idea is that we all usually at least see our kitchen sink each day, and many of us spend a decent amount of time there, cooking, washing hands, filling water bottles, you know, that sort of stuff, and our hope is that each time we see our kitchen sink, we think to pray. Even if it’s a kitchen sink at your place of work’s break room, our hope is to take something we all see many times per day and turn it into a reminder to pray. Each Wednesday, on our R|M social media platforms, we’ll be posting a pray prompt for you to pray about. We’d love for the community of Risen Motherhood to be known as a group of praying moms—I mean, guys, what a gift that we can approach the throne of grace anytime we like because of Christ, so let’s take advantage of it! You can join us by following and using the hashtag #rmkitchensinkprayers. We’d love to hear how God is working through your life or who your specifically praying for. Come follow us on social media, @risenmotherhood on FB, IG, and Twitter.
Before we get to the show, I want to say just one last thing: Thank you again for all your support this season and honestly, over the five years we’ve done this podcast. We’re so grateful for each of our community members and all of you who tune in each week. We’ll be back in late summer with more shows and hopefully, all of us will be inching our way back to a new normal at that time. Until then come find us on social as we’ll have regular content posted there each weekday and you’ll find all our updates on those platforms. We love you all, and we’re praying for each of you to be an example of God’s faithfulness and grace in your homes and communities while we navigate these crazy circumstances.
Alright, here we go.
Emily: Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood. The episode that you're going to hear today is actually a continuation of a conversation that Laura and I started last week. If you haven't heard it, we would encourage you to tune into that first. Last week we talked all about what our purpose in life is, what the point of all of the things that we face day in and day out are? What is it that we're really aiming for? This week, we are going to be talking a about how we change to the image of Christ. We have a lot of content here for you, some lessons that Laura and I are learning. Again, we hope that you will catch last week's conversation and you'll enjoy the continuation of it in today's episode.
Emily: We're going to shift the conversation now because we've talked about what's our purpose? What's the point of all of this? Where are we going? What's our destination? Along the way, I think one of the questions that a lot of us ask is, "Okay, I'm boots on the ground, how do I change? How do I actually do this? I want to live for Christ. I want to spend it all. I want to radically serve him with my heart, soul, mind, body, strength, all those things, but how do I literally do that?”
Laura: Right. Is it by grace through faith, the destination of God's plan, the power of the Holy Spirit, reading scripture, developing a robust theology by modeling the life and actions of Christ? Is it rehearsing God's promises while we wrestle with our face and try to live it out? Is it through conversations with friends and wise believers, or through suffering in hard circumstances? Is it through mothering these kiddos and sometimes feeling totally and completely lost?
Emily: Amen. [laughter]
Laura: Yes! [laughter]
Emily: Yes. I think what we want to continue to explore here is, that it is complex. I think like a lot of things in the Christian life, it's not totally clear cut. It's not this perfect formula. It's not something that we have total control over, but that's good, because that puts us in a place of dependence. It puts us in a place of need before God. Then there's also that truth that we have to do something, we have to respond. God uses a lot of things to change us. I think one of the things I felt like at times is that I'm subject to my personality. I'm just this way, I'll never change. I can't be more patient, I can't have a quiet spirit. I can't be nice in these certain situations. I will never have the humility to sit and plan meals graciously for family or whatever that is, or thinking that I'm always going to be subject to my sin and failure like, "Because I was this way in the past, I'm marked and I'm stuck in that, and I will never overcome that.
Laura: Yes. Or your circumstances, you can feel like, well, other people have hurt me and they've made it hard, or even impossible at times to feel like I can live in a different way. I think this is a complicated topic but we actually read a really, really great book this past fall by David Powlison, it's called How Sanctification Works. It was really helpful for Emily and myself to understand all of the various ways that people change. It's not just through one means or even two, but it's quite the myriad of ways.
We want to recommend that book, first of all, and just suggest that everybody go ahead and pick that up. You guys know when we're hot on a topic it's because we've read a great book about it and we feel excited about it. Then also just know that we are going to be using a few principles of what he calls the five-factors of sanctification. We'll get there in a second, but wanted to mention that book right off the get-go.
Emily: These categories, again, come from David Powlison's book, but we thought these were really helpful. He actually has this diagram of a house and he talks about all these different things that work together, in very mysterious ways at times, to bring us more and more into the image of Christ. The first thing that he talks about is that God himself changes us, we are partakers in the divine nature if we have union with Christ, which means that the Holy Spirit has come to dwell inside of us. He's working in us, each moment, for God's purposes and our lives. Literally, God is the sovereign one! This is the most important piece of the puzzle undergirding the whole house. It is God ultimately who works on us.
Laura: Second, the word changes you. We know that scripture is living and active, it's sharper than any double-edged sword, and we're to be doers of the word, not just hearers. Scripture is where we learn what the voice of God is saying, we find what he loves. We find out what he hates. We find out His commands. We discover His plans for our lives. This is something that Emily and I talk about on nearly every show.
Sometimes I think it can be easy for us to offer platitudes, or broad truths from scripture or even say things like, "Preach the gospel to yourself," and that implies, like, "Say a scripture to yourself," or something like that, or just remember what Christ did for you on the cross, but that's not always as tangible in the moment. I don't know how God does it, but when we come to Scripture with a soft heart and looking for God's answers, not in a magic eight ball way, but in a true posture of humility of studying God's word, He will use specific passages to change us and grow us, and encourage us. There have been many times that, Emily, in my life where we're like, "I was reading this morning, and wow, it fits here, or it showed me this, or it revealed sin. It convicted me. It helped me know what I need to do to obey."
Emily: I was going to say that, that specificness of it and that's why Laura and I have learned so much. There's no substitution for daily time in the word of God and just being willing to see how He's going to use it in specific ways. That's one part of the house, is God's word changing us.
Laura: It's like the roof, I think, right? This diagram.
Emily: Yes, I feel like it's—
Laura: The foundation and the roof.
Emily: Those are the two really big important pieces. You cannot live in this house without those two things. Then the next piece of the puzzle is: Wise people change us. We need to live in community with others. We are not meant to do the Christian life alone. I was thinking as I was driving on the way over here about how we need to hear the word of God. It's not just in one way, we need to hear it taught. We need to hear it read aloud, we need to hear it prayed, we need to hear it sang, and a lot of those things happen in corporate worship.
Also, the Christian community or when we get together one-on-one with other believers. We have these great conversations, and somebody speaks the word of God to us. People who give wisdom based on the word of God and speak directly into our lives. I don't know how many times somebody's passing word, was used by God and God used that and brought that back to my mind multiple times to help change me to become more like Christ in a certain situation I was facing, or to make a more wise decision.
Laura: Amen. I know Proverbs talks so much about, "Do you want to grow in wisdom? Get wise counselors around you, get wise people around you."
Another one is suffering, struggle and troubles change you. Suffering, I think we can all agree, shows us where our weaknesses are and where our needs are. Sometimes there is sin in our own hearts and failures that we have done, and then sometimes it's other people and outside factors that are wrong and hurt us.
We had a grape vine at my old house in Minneapolis. It was 12 years old when we purchased the house.
Emily: You guys had a lot of plants in that yard.
Laura: Oh my goodness, we bought like an oasis in the middle of the city.
Emily: No grass, only plants.
Laura: The front of our yard was supposed to be native prairie grasses. There was a sign that the previous owners had put in and they were very, very proud of the prairie grasses, but they were 12 foot tall weeds. [laughter] I'm not kidding, you couldn't even see our house. We felt badly, but after we got into the house, and we realized how tall these beautiful prairie grasses that were self-sustaining were, we ended up chopping them down, putting some real grass in.
We did not chop the grapevine. The previous owners left us a four-page document of how to care for the home and particularly the yard. One of the pieces in there was they said, "Our grapevine is a prolific producer of grapes." We were like, "Great, we're going to have grapes every September, it's going to be so wonderful." The first few years, we didn't get any grapes on that grape vine. What we didn't realize was that we actually needed to prune the vine, we needed to harshly, almost savagely, prune it back.
What we didn't know was that grape vines actually only produce fruit when they're struggling and fighting for life. That's why when you see a grape vine, it's so like skinny and little, because ours was big and bushy, and had all these leaves, and it was beautiful, but then we'd get two clusters of sour grapes. I think that is good analogy for how in our own lives, producing fruit often comes from some kind of death. Christ's death is what gave us life.
For us to bear fruit in our lives, often it's going to hurt a little bit. We're going to have to sacrifice a little we're going to have to be pruned back, and this is something that works at our salvation. It makes us grow.
Emily: One of the prayers I was reading recently in The Valley of Vision talked about how the blessings of God and the comforts of life can actually be bad things for us if they are getting in the way of our love and enjoyment of God. Sometimes it's actually a huge blessing if He takes those things away, because it makes us hurt and need, and depend. It makes us fight for life and who do we turn to for that life? It's Christ.
Laura and I have been talking in our personal relationship and friendship that we've both faced things recently that have made us just feel like the ground under your feet is quaking. All the things I was clinging to are less stable than I thought. There's something though about that feeling that also is invigorating, because it makes Christ so real and our need for Christ so palatable, again, that those situations can actually be a gift. It's like that double edged sword I’m like, "Oh, I don't want that feeling because that feels terrible." But at the same time, it's just those moments when I look back and I think, "Oh, I just clung to Christ and I was so desperate, and I was praying continually, and was in His Word, and I was doing all the things that we know we should do were the moments where I was in the most pain.”
Laura: I'm sitting here nodding along and just saying, "Oh, it hurts so good." It's true when life is most bitter, Jesus is most sweet. I wish it didn't work like that, but what a gift that our pain can be used for good and that there is beauty that comes out of the most difficult situations. And I love what you said Emily, that when I'm most communing with God, I'm most talking with God I am most in the word. That is so true. It drives us to admit our weaknesses and say, "I need you God." Which should be the perpetual posture of our heart.
When we have everything or lots of thing, we just easily forget, like the Israelites—where we think they're cray cray for worshiping all those golden calves and other gods and we're like, "What, we'd never do that!" But we do it all the time! [laughter]
Emily: The fifth thing here is the reality that you change you. We have to act, James 2:18 says, "but someone will say you have faith and I have works, show me your faith without works and I will show you your faith by my works." Another verse that comes to mind is we need to be doers of the word and not just hearers. I think sometimes I've heard this said before, we can just sit around waiting for a zap of lightning like, "Okay, I know I need to change but I don't know how." I think I'm describing this and probably you guys are nodding even though it's so hard to describe this feeling that something is just going to happen someday, and it's going to make everything a little bit easier, or I guess I'll change tomorrow or...I don't know.
Laura: Like I will be like zapped with the right wisdom to know what to do.
Emily: Right. You and I have been talking lately about how most of the time, we know what we need to do. We know what we ought to do and we are not doing it because there's that rebellion in our spirit. We don't want to submit to God. But it's not that complicated most of the time.
Laura: Yes. Well, I think we want it to be spelled out in super, super clear, at least I know that I'm like, "Well, I just need a sign from heaven." Basically, that's how I'm acting. Ultimately, it's like, "No, it's just do the next thing." There's an element that we may not have it all figured out exactly, but we need to just take one step of faith. We want to know what it’s going to look like a mile down the road. We might only know the next step. And like Emily’s saying, we often know what that step is, and we can at least make progress there. We don't have to know 10 miles ahead what's going to happen.
Emily: Yes. There are some practical things at times we need to do. I know I've heard this example before that sometimes we need scaffolding or going back to Laura's vine example, a vine can just grow wild and it can continue to grow and produce fruit but if it has a trellis, or it has some type of support and some type of order to it, it helps it grow. I don't know more correctly, I've never grown a vine. Maybe you should tell it Laura.
Laura: Ha! Well yeah, there is something about it needing to grow vertically, so it can grow its roots more deeply, and then it has a place for all the fruit to go or I don't know, I'm not a botanist! [laughter]
Emily: I think of a tomato plant. I'm familiar with tomatoes. If you didn't give it some structure, it would all just like flop over. And those tomatoes will rot and so we don't want to take this too far, but all we're saying is there are some practical things that we need to do in our disciplines, in our habits. There may be some actual tangible steps we need to take to make some of those changes.
Laura: Okay. Now we want to have you stop and think about a moment when you have changed in your life. You've seen progress in your life, and you felt like you have victory, and that's something that as believers, sometimes it seems like we don't acknowledge enough—that there are areas in life that we have victory. Think about that. How did you change? Was it through a friend or a passage of scripture, or a sermon or a podcast? Sometimes I'll feel like God has the crosshairs on me. I'm like, "What!? It’s coming from everywhere!" This topic, everyone's talking about it suddenly and my friends, and my personal life and online, it'll feel like everyone's talking about that.
That's where I know God is changing me. God wants me to listen up. This all works together. God uses a combination of these five different things in a myriad of ways to change us. I think that sometimes we might think it's just one thing but if we look more closely, we'll see just a series of probably a lot of little things that all add up that transform us by the power of the Holy Spirit into Christlikeness.
Emily: Yes, hopefully if you've stuck with us this far, you're nodding along and saying, "Yes, this is what I want." This is what Laura and I want. This is our heart for risen motherhood. This is our heart for our community, that where God has us, we will be creating disciples. We would all be making wiser decisions according to Scripture, we'd be recognizing sin patterns, and we'd be repenting of those. That we'd be growing a deeper love for God's people and be getting involved in a church, that we would continue to live a life of not just keeping our gratitudes written down, but giving great thanksgiving to God for the good gifts that He's given.
That we would be good stewards and we would be generous, that we would grow in humility and kindness and be a better steward of our time. When we think about what does God want for us? What do we want for our community and our ministry, and all of you who are listening? It's this. It's not necessarily the perfectly decorated home, or the easy schedule.
Laura: That's why we don't do practical here.
Emily: Yes, and practical is not bad in and of itself but that's not our aim. God can use all these things to work together but there is that element of are we putting ourselves in the path of some of those things that change us even? Or are we putting ourselves in the path of worldliness?
Laura: Yes, I think that this is why I love getting older. I love it. I know some of you will probably think, "Oh, they're in their 30s, they are not very old.” Some of you will think we're archaic. But it is so wonderful to grow and transform, and to be like Christ, and to behold Him and fall in love with Him more. I think there's a security that comes as we get older and more rooted in our faith, that we start to realize what we really, really want deep down. And I think it's really easy even still for both Em and I to get caught up in wanting recognition, perfect children, more interesting daytime work-
Emily: More appreciation.
Laura: -more appreciation, yes. More recognition from stuff—but when we really step back and we put on our eternal lens—what do we want? We want to be marked by Christlikeness. We want to be marked by our love and devotion, and adoration of our King. I have to remind myself, is that what it all boils down to is: Do I love Jesus more? More than my comforts, more than my desires, more than whatever it is that day that seems like it would be better or smoother, or more simple, is do I love Jesus more?
I think about 2 Corinthians 3:18 where it talks about, “We all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” There's a lot of things to unpack in there, but I love it because it talks about beholding the glory of the Lord. The whole thing is like setting your gaze and staying your eyes, and really seeing all that there is.
For me, it's like if I am focused on the dishes, or the dirt, or the struggles, or the griefs, or the pain. I'm not beholding God, and then I'm not beholding God, I'm not focusing on him. Therefore usually that means that I am looking more inward, I'm feeling more sad, I'm feeling more of those feelings of “does this matter? Is there any point?” But when I'm beholding Christ, when I'm saying he is my all, he is my focus, he is my goal.
I know what my destination is, and I'm walking on the path to get there, then I think there's so much more meaning and there's so much more purpose behind the work that I do.
The other thing I want to point out really quickly, is noticing the “one degree of glory to another,” “one degree by one degree.” This is a slow change that so often just like with our kids, we’re like you get a week to do that behavior, and then you're done. But it takes years and years and years to change. As we talk about, “what does it look like to conform to the image of the son?” It's going to take a lifetime!
It’s just one small degree by one degree.
Emily: Just to bring this to a close, we know that we're sending you guys out into the rest of the spring and the summer. This is our final episode for this spring 2020 season. We just want to say to you, as we say to ourselves and to each other, in Christ, this life is not meaningless. Yes, we're going to have griefs, yes, we're going to have challenges but our days are not insignificant. When we are looking to Him and we're going to His word, and we're spending time with His people, and we're doing it one little bit at a time, we can trust that God is going to be changing and using our lives for something that matters. That by being faithful we are doing the most important thing.
It was funny my oldest son got in the car earlier this week and as he flew open the door, the first thing he said is, “Mom, can we talk about how I can do great things for God?” I was like, “Oh, okay. Right now? Because we need to get through this school line.” It was really interesting for me to say to him, “The greatest thing you can do for God right now is obey mommy and get in your seat, and put your seatbelt on with a happy heart, and then let's keep talking. The greatest thing you can do is to be like Jesus and to love Him in whatever situation you're in. That faithfulness is the greatest thing.”
It was even cool to be able to communicate that as I reminded myself, “Yes. It's not about the accolades or the home or all the things that I think I need to have, it's about ongoing faithfulness, getting from one checkpoint to the next saying, ‘Okay, God, I need you for the next part. I need your grace for the next thing, help me live like Jesus.’”
Laura: Amen, may that be our prayer. Help us live like Jesus.
As we go out here, we hope that you guys will check us out at risenmotherhood.com to learn more about our ministry and what we're all about. You can also follow us on social media: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, we are @RisenMotherhood. We will be posting content there all summer so you will find us there even though we go on break for a few months, we'll be back August, September, sometime in there. Definitely keep up with us, all of the news and events, and announcements will be posted on social media or on our website. We hope that you guys have a great summer and we'll see you in the fall.
Emily: Thanks guys.
Laura: Well, hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood. I'm Laura and I have my sister in law Emily, here.
Emily: Hello.
Laura: Mother's Day is around the corner, and we want to encourage you guys, if you have not checked out the Risen Motherhood book yet, it would make an awesome Mother's Day gift if you're looking for something to add to your list—or to perhaps give to another mother in your life, a friend, a sister-in-law, your own mom, etc. The book is really beautiful. We're hopeful that it feels very giftable in a way and that it would be a blessing for any mom that receives it. You can buy that anywhere books are sold.
Emily: Yes, and there's also a Kindle version and an audio version as well, if either of those two are appealing for you. In today's show we're going to be talking about something related to the book because in the book, we're exploring the overarching vision for motherhood and in the way that we take the big story of the Bible, the gospel: creation, fall, redemption, consummation—and apply that into our very everyday lives. I think sometimes we can lose our bearings a little bit in the mundane responsibilities that we have.
Laura: It can often feel like what is the point of all of this? What are we pursuing? Maybe you wouldn't phrase it exactly like this, but I think deep in our core, we all are wondering, “Does all this matter?” The hard stuff, the mundane stuff, the light, the easy. I know, it can feel very cyclical, very routine, and we're wondering, “Is this going to be worth it?” Or, “Where are we headed?”
Emily: Yes, I feel that way a lot in meal planning. I'll spend time on the weekend and I'll try to get all these recipes, and I get all my groceries, and it'll feel like, "Well, nobody even really liked what I made," or, "Nobody ate it that night," or, "My husband ended up coming home from work late so he ate it cold." You're like, "I put in all this time and did that help anybody?" [chuckles]
Laura: I’m so curious what the number of hours a typical mom spends on meal planning and meal prep. It's got to be a significant portion of our lives! If you think about social media, they say, “Oh, you spend three hours a day on social media, that's seven years of your life.” What would it be for meal planning?
Emily: It's a lot more for food.
Laura: It's got to be like 50 years. [laughter]
Emily: It is a huge part of how we nourish our families.
Laura: It's important.
Emily: I think at times, even though we know it's important, in the moment, it can still feel very futile. What about some deeper things?
Laura: Oh man, I think for me, I can feel the nights and days start to get really repetitive. I have a night-waker that is often in our bed for at least a few hours. That's definitely one of those things where I'm like, "What is the point?" Or "Does this even matter?" Then I think too when I feel brokenness in relationships with friends or family, that's an acute moment for me to feel like, "What am I pursuing? What's the goal?"
I think, "I'm so tired with this. I'm so tired of the ongoing griefs." There's this idea of trying to do life-on-life, and I'm continually investing in relationships and continually working out all the things that come up in relationships. Sometimes I can feel weary of that and—I don't know, it's easier to sit at home and keep to ourselves and watch Netflix than it is to keep pressing through and loving people well in relationship. Or I can feel this way about children sometimes being annoying or unreasonable with the requests or you feel like, "I put a lot of time to this. I'm really actually trying to train you up in the way of the Lord. I'm actually thinking about bringing new library books in the car so we can have a pleasant drive on the way home.” Trying to do things so they can flourish yet they don’t care can sometimes feel for not.
Emily: Yes, absolutely. I think for anybody who's listening, you can think of probably lots of your own things. Perhaps it's laundry for you, recipes, meal planning, coordinating childcare for your job or getting to work, redecorating your living room, feeling like the next second you're on Instagram, and you're like, "Well, that's out of style as of five seconds ago. Target fully restocked their decor section.”
Laura: Everything is better somehow, what I just bought. [laughter] Or maybe it's that you are trying to help your husband to lead your family and teaching your kids the Bible, but you're not seeing him show interest, or maybe there are a lot of griefs in your life, over and over again. I know sometimes I can feel I'm rolling from one grief to the next. Or maybe it's hearing bad news consistently and feeling like it never seems to get better for you. This is where I think all of us are saying like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, "I've seen everything that is done under the sun and behold, all is vanity and are striving after the wind."
Emily: Yes, It's really interesting to even read through Ecclesiastes and see all of the things that Solomon tries out. He was somebody with abundant riches and abundant wisdom. He had all this wealth and power and influence so he could say, "Okay, I'm going to try to find meaning and all these different things." If you read through the book of Ecclesiastes, you see him saying, "I'm going to try to find meaning in laughing more, and pursuing pleasure, and drinking great wine, and learning new things." He built big houses. He plants gardens. I think one of the verses talks about him planting a forest. "I'll enjoy the beauty of the outdoors." He has people that serve him.
He pursues it in sex and riches, social status, music and art, working hard, good food, good drink and even having children, having a large families. I think one of the verses says, "Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them." His conclusion after all of these in the end is “everybody dies.” None of these things in the end held that quenching power for the meaning of life, the purpose of life. He’s just like, "It's best to serve the Lord and follow Him and enjoy the good gifts He's given us in our lives while we can, because ultimately, it's only God that satisfies."
Laura: I think we can emulate Solomon. So often we're saying, "Well, what's the point? When am I going to finally be happy, have that fulfilling job, have a connected marriage, have more time for my own self-care, live a well-accomplished life or climb the corporate ladder, get to the bottom of that never ending to-do list?" We do the same thing that Solomon does—try to find meaning and purpose because we want to know that our life matters, we want to know that there really is a point to all of this. We invest our time and things, and what we really want to get to the heartbeat of today is, what's our destination and our goal as believers? We want to look for a moment at this passage in Revelation 21—perhaps we should read it.
Emily: Yes, let's read it!
Laura: It's Revelation 21:1-4, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who is seated on the throne said,’“Behold, I am making all things new.’”
That is really powerful.
Emily: I never get tired of hearing that passage. Actually this last fall, Laura and I heard Erin Davis give a really great talk on this passage. The point of her talk was to point out this reality that there's only a few things that are going to last. There's these two buckets. I think she talked about them like farm girl buckets, which we totally understood that imagery, [laughter] that there is no third bucket. The things that are going to last are God and his people and his word. Those are eternal things. Then there's going to be a whole bunch of former things.
In this passage, we see death is going to be no more, tears are going to be wiped away, mourning, crying, pain, all of those are going to be former things. Those are some of the things that we feel in that futility of everyday life, and sometimes, some of us cry over laundry or we cry over a diagnosis where we feel the pain alongside our children and we feel pain in our own bodies related to motherhood, and that reality is that those are former things. There are also eternal things that are important that we invest in.
Laura: Yes, I have to remind myself with all of these that what is so sobering about this passage is that you cannot save stuff. You can't even save your own experiences or your days. You can't hoard it somewhere for later use. As Emily was saying with the two buckets, you have these former things and you have eternal things, there is no in-between. Peter writes, "Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, it's clear what people you should be in holy conduct and godliness as you wait for the day of God and hasten it's coming." This is the question Emily and I are constantly asking ourselves: “What bucket are we putting things into? Are we putting into the former or into the eternal? Are we hoarding things or are we saying, "No, I want to be holy in conduct and in godliness as we wait for God, as we get excited about His coming?”
Emily: I think as we're looking at this passage, and we're seeing the weightiness of the things that Peter is talking about, these are not things that we talk about on Risen Motherhood in this deep sobering way a lot, but let's make note for a minute that what this doesn't say is that, in the meantime, you should be striving to have a Magnolia-style decorated house and have a really great social media following, or have children that make good grades and go to an Ivy League school, or you should travel the world and eat the best food and be physically beautiful, and wear amazing clothing [laughter].
All of these things, that's not what our life is meant to be about, but a lot of us live like that's what our life should be about, thinking our destination is this illusive version of ourselves. We've talked about this on shows in the past, about this idea that we have of who we should be and, “If I can just make it to that point. If I can just look that way, if I can just get my life ordered that way, then I'll be happy and that's my purpose.” But that's not what the Bible says our purpose is.
Laura: Emily keeps using this word destination and I think it's such a helpful word. Romans 8:29 says, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son so that he would be firstborn among many brothers and sisters." When we ask ourselves, “Well, what's our destination, where are we headed? Is it to be great at motherhood or have a nice house, job success, to save the Manatees?” [laughter] No! It's to follow Christ and to give it all for Him and we have a destination. “For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.” That, that right there: “To be conformed to the image of his son,” that is our destination!
Emily: Yes, it’s one of the things we ought to pause and do is ask ourselves, “Are we on that journey? Have we committed our lives to Christ?” We don't always have a super clear call for this in our show because we know that a lot of you who are listening have trusted in Christ, but if you haven't, there's limited time. We don't know how much time we have in our lives. If you hear the gospel today, do not harden your heart. Turn while there is still time. When we were on our Risen Motherhood retreat, one of the things we were looking at is the living water of Christ that's available to us right now.
He says, “Come and drink, thirsty, come and drink without price.” There will be a time when we die that we can't come and drink anymore. There isn't that opportunity. We’ve had it in this life. This is our time right now to repent of sin and turn to Christ. He wants to welcome us. He is full of mercy and grace. He wants the tired, worn down, broken people to come to him. If that's you today, we want to encourage you. Stop whatever you're doing, turn from your sin, pray, cry out to God and he will save you.
Laura: Amen. That is our prayer for every woman who listens to the show. That they would not only grow in their love of Christ but perhaps they would meet Him for the very first time. At this point, for those of you who are in Christ, this is something that is really, really encouraging, is that we can know that we have this destination in Christ. It's not, "Oh, this is maybe going to happen. If you do this, then you're going to get this." No, it's going to happen. It won't happen in full during your life on earth, but we are progressing towards being conformed into Christ, we're moving towards this.
Right now, we're in between that redemption and consummation phase, that “already but not yet,” as people say. We've had creation, we were made by God, and He gave us a design and purpose for our life. We had the fall and sin has impacted that and now keeps us from God's original design. Then we have redemption, where Christ conquered death, and now we have that restoration process where we’re being redeemed and we’re being conformed to the image of his son.
Emily: That's where we are! But the destination is consummation when God is going to make all things new, like that passage in Revelation said. He is going to make us fully new at that time, but right now, we're on the path. We're on the path and as we're on this journey and we're in our everyday life, in the midst of our griefs, and we're wondering, "Why does it matter that I'm facing this relational struggle? What’s the point of all this?" Well, we're servants of Christ! We’re busy doing the Master’s work. This is not our household, it's his.
This is tough for us to realize sometimes, but that has to be our posture like, "Yes, we're God's children. Yes we're his friends through Christ," but if Christ humbled himself and took on the form of a servant, then that's our role too. We're not seating ourselves in the place of honor and getting all of the things we want in this life but we're willing to do the hard, mundane, lowly work because that's what he does.
Laura: Yes, I think that has been a massive perspective shift for me in my motherhood and in my whole life. As I have grown in my understanding that my life is not my own—we’re called to lose our lives all for the sake of Christ. I think for me, as I have seen growth and change in my life, as I've seen myself grow into the image of the Son, that humility portion that Emily is talking about has undergirded everything.
Andrew Murray has a quote where he says, "Humility is not something that we bring to God or that he bestows. It's simply the sense of entire nothingness that comes when we see how truly God is everything. When the creature realizes this is a place of honor and consents to be with her will, her mind, and her affections, the vessel in which the life and glory of God are to work and manifest themselves, she sees that humility is simply acknowledging the truth of her position as a creature and yielding God to her place." What I love about that quote is that it talks about how this is a place of high honor, that the lowest path really is the place of highest honor as a believer.
When we can get that, which it's a mindset, it becomes something that God can work in, and that He uses. For me, I have personally seen the most growth in my patience as a mom, and my ability to handle my husband working long hours and being kind to him, iIn my joy that I can have while doing dishes or mopping the floors, my heart attitude. My circumstances haven't changed at all. As I've said, "Lord, I want to be more like you. Help me lose myself." That has been one of the biggest vehicles for me to be a canvas to change.
Emily: It's like knowing your destination and knowing that you're a vessel in the meantime allows God to work and use us and change us into the image of Christ. One of the examples I heard Jen Wilkin give a long time ago that I thought was so helpful to me is when she talks about going into a hotel room and saying we would never move into a hotel room and call the subcontractors, redo the floor, change the wallpaper, buy new furniture in there, because we're there temporarily. It’s not your permanent dwelling. It doesn't matter if the wallpaper isn't to your taste, and it doesn't matter if you don't love the floors that way.
You might get your clothes out of your suitcase and put them into the drawers, and you might try to make it as comfortable as you can or homey or enjoy what it is while you're there, but you're not viewing the hotel room as your permanent dwelling. As we're thinking about our lives, we have to remember we're sojourners. We’re aliens in this world. This is not our final home, this is not our final destination. Let's not set up shop here like it's all we've got, and everything better conform to our desires and better be the way that we want, and better give us all the things we want right now because this is all we have.
This life is not all we have. All that we have is coming, and we're walking and serving God day by day until we get to this final point where we get to dwell with Him forever like that Revelation talks about on the New Earth. That's what we're looking ahead to and living for and that's our destination!
Laura: Amen. I don't know the age of everyone listening, but you're probably anywhere from 20 to 60-years old right now, most likely, right? That means you probably got anywhere from 20 to 60 years left on this earth. You might have one more day. I might have one more day. We have no idea. At the end of your days, don't you want to say that you gave it all for the cause of Christ? You did everything you could, you gave every single piece of energy, of every piece of your mind, your heart-
Emily: Body, soul, spirit, strength!
Laura: Thank you! All those things! Everything about you to give it away because as Emily's talking about, we have eternity to look forward to, and that is so much longer, we can't even compare it to the short, tiny, minute thing that we are living for today! Karen Hodge, our board director, often says to us that you need to “live for the line, not the dot.” Often, I find myself living with tunnel vision, looking down at this day, this Monday, that I need to get all this stuff done. That's all I'm living for, but instead, how can I live to see all the way ahead to eternity?
If you can live for eternity with an eternal perspective, it will change how you live today. It will change how you order your time, who you spend your time with, how you talk, what you do. When that becomes your orbit, you can say, "I want to give it all for Christ because I know that I've got eternity, and glory awaits me there, true happiness, true joy—everything I've ever wanted, I will get someday. I don't have to have that here, because I've got Christ and He is worth it. This might not all be worth it, but Christ is worth it.”
Emily: So good.
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Emily: Hey there. Thanks for listening today. In case you're wondering where that conversation trail the hub, you can pick it back up next week. Laura and I got to talking and this was such a big topic, we had so much to say to each other and to say to you guys that we want to keep the conversation going. Come back next week. We are going to dive into how people can change into Christ-likeness. How do we actually do this boots on the ground? We're going to share a few things that we're learning about this personally, and we would love you guys to join us next week.
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