Gospel Mom 06: On Being Honest With Yourself + Other Things (GM - C9) Transcript

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

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Emily Jensen: I think this topic of heart motivations really hit home for us when we started talking about aging and beauty. I remember we were working on a show—I think it was a live show—

Laura Wifler: —like the aging stuff.

Emily: Yes—that we were going to do, and we were like, "We need to try to put our system for thinking about the why behind what we do on paper."

Laura: I remember we had a cornucopia drawn at one point and crazy triangle boxes, like all overlapping. We tried all sorts of diagrams.

Emily: I know. We went crazy on whiteboards for a while trying to—

Laura: —We were like, "We are going to get this. We were going to make a diagram that anyone can understand." We never got there.

Emily: We could never find the diagram, but we did, I feel like, get our arms finally around what we were trying to say.

Laura: We made a grid. We ended up making a very simple Excel grid. [Laughter]

Emily: Essentially, we feel like this piece of the puzzle is so important for gospel motherhood because what you worship with your life matters. It's what's driving you deep down in the decisions that you're making every day and really having a handle on why you do what you do and why you love what you love and what it is that you're actually living for.

Laura: Yes. This is just a worship question, and we all would say—I think if you're listening to this podcast and you are a believer, you'd say, "I worship Jesus. I follow Jesus. I love Jesus." That's the Bible school answer. That's an honest answer, probably, but very quickly, I think, our love for the Lord can get crowded by the love of other things—by what God calls idols. Those idols are really just something that we worship—anything that we worship other than God.

I think when we start to look at the practical ways worship is playing out in our lives— whether that's how we're spending our time, our energy, our brain power, our money, our words—like where are all those going? What's the common saying? “You want to know what someone cares about? Look at their checkbook.” Yes, a checkbook is one of them, but we would push at Risen Motherhood that it's far more.

Emily: Their time, their thoughts. Yes. All those things.

Laura: We can spend hours and hours and hours doing something that's technically free, but if all of our time is pushed towards that, then you get some question marks around, “Hey, what are you worshiping? What are you loving right now?” That's what we want to dig into today.

Emily: Oh, man. I think this can be identified a lot of times in our life when we have a disproportionately strong reaction to something that we feel is threatened—something we want in life or something that we feel that we have to have—and it's maybe going to be taken away from us. Or we maybe fear that we're not going to have it anymore. This can be things that are physical things, like “I have to have my coffee.” And if I couldn't get my coffee, I would freak out. We all joke about that, but there is a very real sense of—sometimes you feel like, “If I don't get my coffee, I can lose my mind. I can’t be kind.” 

Laura: You want to be angry, or you have a shorter temper, or you're impatient, and in your mind, you're blaming all of that back to "I didn't get my coffee crutch." I don't know. Then, we have a whole show on crutches that people could listen to that's very enlightening.

Emily: I think, yes—it goes through a lot of this. Maybe it's my glass of wine or whatever. You don't like it at all when people start to talk about whether or not that's healthy. That feels threatening to you. Or maybe it's certain self-care things that you do or certain time to yourself. Or maybe it's feeling like your kids need to be in certain activities. It can just really run the gamut.

Those might be real things of like, “Hey, it would be hard for me if I didn't have coffee.” Or “It would really be sad if we couldn't go on that family vacation I wanted to go on.” I feel like when we get those big reactions, again, it's just like a little flag that comes up and says, "Whew, let's pause and see what's going on here and ask, ‘Why do I want this so badly? Is my heart or my mind or my identity wrapped up in this in a way that is not healthy and is out of alignment, out of proportion, with my love and my identity in Christ?’"

Laura: Yes. I think a really easy one to see it in—and we mentioned this at the beginning of the show—but it's pretty easy to see it in some of the beauty conversation for women because I think—and that includes makeup, fashion, physical enhancement, surgical, needle-induced, or whatever—all those things. I think, for women, that is a really tender topic that—what I guess I'm trying to say is that it seems like it shines a spotlight—like you might be able to spot it easier around that topic and then be able to apply the skills that you saw within that to other areas of your life.

Like you said, family vacations or kids in sports or this date night you want to go on with your husband—whatever. I guess I would encourage people to try it around the area of beauty—and whether that's like a designer handbag that you really want or that's a—I don't know—just like a cute jacket that you're coveting, basically. Or it's like, "Hey, I'm thinking about getting Botox." There are a lot of questions, and I think one that we used one time, Emily, was just getting your hair dyed.

I thought it was so interesting because it's something that is very common to do. It's fine to do, if somebody does that, but also thinking through, “Okay, well how much money does that cost me and can our family really afford that?” Because it can be very expensive. Or, golly, I only like the salon that's an hour drive away to get my hair cut and dyed at. Then it takes me four total hours. It's a full afternoon away. It's hard to schedule, so I hate having to cancel it even if something good comes up.

There's just a lot of different things that you can start to think through about beauty. It's not to say driving an hour or getting your hair dyed is wrong, but there's probably a lot of things that need to go into that with an income that can support that—with a schedule that can support that. Then, there are questions, even, of thinking like, "Hey, would my time and money be spent somewhere else? Is the Lord convicting me here that maybe I need to try something different?” I need to dye my hair with a box at home or—I don't know.

It's tough. It's individual, which is what we keep talking about on the show, through Gospel Mom, on Risen Motherhood. It's that there isn't a one-size-fits answer for mom. What we want to encourage you to do is start to think deeply about these things that you're going through the motions on and you don't think deeply about—to maybe step back. And either you're going to come out one of two ways. You're going to either feel convicted to change and you're going to walk in freedom because you're going to make the change, or you're going to feel fully confident to continue doing what you're doing and walk in freedom. It's great because freedom's on either side.

Emily: Yes. I feel like it's really the difference between gripping something really tightly and holding it in your hands versus holding something open-handed. 

I think when something has become disproportionately important to us and we are sort of starting to worship it and we are clinging to it, it's like—how does it feel when someone grabs something out of closed hands? It hurts, right? You have to pry my fingers off of it. It takes time. I'm yelling as you're trying to get it away from me, versus coming to the Lord with open hands and saying, "All of these things you have given me—and I'm free to do them and they're fun. I color my hair, and I love it. I get my nails done; I love it." I've realized there are times when I'm getting my nails done and I can't hold that, though, with closed fists, as if this could never change. "I love this thing so much and don't take it from me." You guys, it sounds ridiculous to say that, but it's also like we do feel that way about material things.

Laura: We do. We are like children.

Emily: We are. There are little niceties that we all have and we all like.

Laura: That just might be my weekly latte that I want to pick up. 

Emily: My garden.

Laura: Oh, yes. I want to do my garden. I want to lay by the pool. I want to lay in the sun. 

Emily: My bread baking habit.

Laura: Yes. It's tons of things.

Emily: We all have those little things that we feel like—

Laura: "I'm owed. I'm due this."

Emily: "I'm owed this. I deserve this. This is my one thing in life." Then—but I can also do those things with open hands, which just says, "Okay, Lord, thank you for this. I'm grateful for this, but I'm not owed this, and I don't automatically get this for the rest of my life. If you need to take it away for some reason because my life is oriented around Christ and there's a reason why I can't do this thing anymore, I will give it to you willingly, and you can take it out of my hands because they're open. They are open before you." It's just—when we were talking about this topic, it's really, again, as you're asking the why. Maybe your decision doesn't change at all.

Laura: Correct.

Emily: You might keep doing the same thing, but the heart posture with which you're doing it may be radically changed. Now, you're not doing it in worship of the thing. You're doing it in gratitude to God because he's the one who gives you all things.

Laura: If, like the last show with your personal conscience, you're feeling, "Oh, maybe I get my nails done a little bit too much." You're feeling a little bit of guilt about that or your conscience is firing because maybe you're like, "Oh, should I be not working as many hours?" There's a lot of personal conscience at play with your heart motivation. Like Emily's saying, it's that—once we dig under, if our hands are open or not, we may continue to make the same decision, but you're not living with sort of like that little light cloud of guilt or angst.

Emily: The shame or like, "I have to hide this."

Laura: You have to hide this. That's always a good trigger or a flag. If you're trying to hide something, check your motivations.

Emily: We'll just run through sort of the strategic, litmus test, decision-making questions that we have in the book here. It's just asking like, “Hey, is the cost of this to me or to our family worth it?” Remembering that cost is more than money. Cost is time. Cost is energy. Cost is your heart. Cost is your thought life. How does this align with our circumstances and values? How permanent is this decision? Some things— you can go get your hair colored one month and then not another month.

There's a lot of things that are very flexible. Or you can say, “Yes, we're going to sign up for soccer this spring. Then, next spring, we don't have to.” But there are other things that are permanent, and there are other things that are very difficult to change and have lifelong consequences. You might want to think longer and harder about those if you can. Then the last one, which you were just talking about, is: how transparent can I be about this decision?

This is really being able to walk in the light around other Christians and not have things in your life that you're sort of like doing in secret and that you feel free to do, but you don't. We've also put an appendices—appendix?

Laura: Appendix. Appendices would be plural.

Emily: We have multiple appendices. We have appendices.

Laura: Yes, but one appendix.

Emily: One of them specifically about mom guilt, which is what you were talking about before—what to do when you're like, "Hey, I am struggling with guilt. I am feeling like I want to hide this." But there is freedom on the other side of that.

Laura: That also means you don't have to shout it from the rooftops. You don't have to blast Instagram with it, but you're willing to tell a few close friends about your decisions. Ultimately, the whole heartbeat behind this is we want to encourage you guys to really think through “What is your heart worshiping?” Yes, it's probably Jesus, but also, is there something sitting up on the pedestal next to him?

Are you sometimes replacing him with something else periodically, and what is your heart posture if you miss out on that thing that you really love? What does that look like for you? We just want to encourage you to start evaluating those things more deeply and to take your decisions prayerfully to the Lord, not elevating other things over him.

Laura: What is your favorite part of this chapter?

Emily: We were just talking about it a little bit, but I think the discussion about transparency. I remember whenever we were writing that section of the book, it was so difficult, and we reworked it and rewrote it several times with different examples because, again, when you're talking about a decision, you're trying to give an example of something that a mom feels like "Well, I might need to hide this," or "I kind of feel bad about this." You don't want to put that mom's trigger issue in the book and then she's feeling called out. [Laughter] It was really, really difficult to find the right thing.

We put this quote in about transparency and just saying, “The aim of these questions isn't to prompt guilt or condemnation or to size yourself up. The aim is to be able to walk in freedom—to be able to live for God's glory without fear, guilt, or shame.” I think that was something that—I don't know. I just hope that moms, as they read this and they walk away, they realize all these kinds of hard, uncomfortable, painful questions are really being asked with the ultimate aim of getting to freedom and joy and having this flourishing relationship with Christ.

It's not about making your thought life really cumbersome and like having to just over-analyze every single thing and be super deep and dark all the time. But probably, if there's a spectrum, right, most of us just do what we do. We don't really think about it. And like, "Well, I don't know. That's just what I started doing, and that's just what I like, so I do it," versus asking some of these harder questions. But we really feel like, if you can do that occasionally and as the Lord prompts, there's so much freedom on the other side. What about you, Laura?

Laura: Yes, I mean—I would just go back. I love the questions that we added because I know we talked at the beginning of the show about all the ways we were trying to diagram it. It was kind of complicated feeling and had a lot of different inputs that you could do. Ultimately, we just simplified it to these questions that you could probably build out even further or drill deeper, but I do think that they are really good sort of—to use a David Powlison word—"X-ray questions” on your life and on your heart. I think, ultimately, as you can work through them, the exciting part is that you can go get your nails done for fun.

I can feel guilt about little luxuries. I think I'm that type of person that is a little bit more minimalist anyway but can feel a lot of guilt around little luxuries and even judgment around other people of like, "Well, should you be giving that money away?" I can get some of those thoughts of like—I don't know. That's just most honest. I think, when we got to these questions and just recognizing that everyone's going to come to different answers on these—I don't need to worry about other people and what they're doing before the Lord. That's between them.

Even for myself to say, “Okay, yes, my husband said I could go. We're at a place where we can afford this, and I have an afternoon free, and things are lining up. Lord, I can go, and I can freely enjoy this, and I can worship.” To do whatever it is— lay by the pool or go get the nails done or get my hair cut—whatever. I think that is really helpful for someone like me who can tend to have really more strict standards on some of those things. I feel like we're really drilling into beauty, and there's just so many other areas that this applies to, but it's probably just because it's on our minds.

Emily: Yes. It definitely applies to so many other areas of motherhood. I think this applies widely to all different decisions that we make and even, "Hey, are we going to move somewhere different? Are we going to live in a different place? Are we going to the mission field in a really intentional way? Are we going to enter into foster care?" This can go on and on and on. I think that this sort of decision sieve that you can put things through is really helpful in a lot of different circumstances.

Laura: Okay. What is something you've learned since writing or are thinking about right now related to the topic?

Emily: I think something that we have gotten—my husband and I have gotten—better at over the years that we still utilize a lot is evaluating the cost of something. I think I didn't used to really think about what something costs. Again, we're using that word broadly. I don't think you always know, right? The first time that you do something, you can estimate, but you don't really know. 

I remember early on—early-ish on in Risen Motherhood when we were traveling more and speaking at different things, and we were like, "Okay, yes, we'll go speak at that conference, or we'll go do that." We didn't really know what the cost was. We sort of went, "Oh, yes, it's one night away, but you get paid this much. Maybe it all works out." For us, personally—I shouldn't speak for you—but for me, I went, "Oh, no, no, no, wait. I have to engage like six adults back at home for me to be gone. It's actually—the day before, I'm packing, and I have to prepare all this stuff for the kids, and then I'm recovering for two days after."

There's all these different facets of it that now, whenever something like that comes up, I might still say yes, but I'm able to much better evaluate, “How is this going to impact me? How's this going to impact our family? How's this going to impact our kids?” And then make a more informed decision about whether that cost is worthwhile.

Sometimes it is, right? Sometimes it's talking with the kids and going, "This is going to be hard for you for a couple of days, and pray for mommy. This is part of spreading the gospel." Then, other times, it's like, "Hey, this doesn't make sense for our lives." I think it's just—I utilize that question so, so often when we're thinking about things.

Like kids' sports, right? It's not just the practice times. It is the missed dinners. It's the time in the car. It's the rushed bedtimes. There is so much more that goes on to that. I actually think for us in that, as fun as it would be to go to a few baseball games or whatever it is, all of the stuff that goes with it is, for us right now, too high a cost.

Laura: Your kids do some sports though.

Emily: Oh, yes. 

Laura: It sounded like you're like, "No sports at all." I mean—either way would be fine.

Emily: Yes. It's hard because sometimes you get into that stuff, and it feels like, "Oh, I do want it. I want to do all of them." I think we've gone, “Okay, which ones is the cost worth it to us?”—that we're like, "Oh, our kids especially like this sport and this sport. This sport, we can kind of take or leave.” And like, “Oh, we're going to have a time of the year." This is where that wisdom and trial and error—

We had a time this winter where like—we have a little bit of a family rule about how many sports at one time, and we broke it for a month. We were like, “This was awful.” We were just rushing all over the place. It was a good indicator for us of like, "No, this is too much," and you just recalibrate. I think that's the other thing. When something's not permanent, you're like, "Oh, we can change."

Laura: Yes, for sure.

Emily: What about you?

Laura: Okay. I would say, for this, something that I'm thinking about right now is just the importance of me bringing people into some of my darkest areas that I want to hide. I think I'm generally a pretty open person. People can know a lot about me, and it doesn't bother me too much, or I share pretty freely, but there are a handful of topics in my life that I'm like, "No, those are just for me." I can even not talk to anybody about them.

Doubt would be a good example—like I went a very long time not speaking to anyone because I'm ashamed of it or scared of it. There are just a few areas of my life like that. I feel like I've learned over the past year or two just how important it is to bring people into those dark areas—just one or two people. Maybe I'm feeling guilt or I'm feeling shame about a decision—or even just dreaming and excited and almost don't want to tell people because I'm afraid it won't be real and then I'll be a failure and all that stuff.

I think that it's so much better to bring people in because I don't stew so much. I think that it sort of cleanses icky desires out of me as I bring other people in. I think that it also holds me accountable to be better about my thoughts with it—of like, "Okay, I've shared this with this person." And I'm a verbal processor, so that part probably helps it not to stew so much. When I share it with someone and I get feedback and I get advice and I get wisdom, then I think I'm just more equipped to handle it when it continues to pop up. I don't know. Is that making sense?

Emily: Yes. I love that. I feel like we're just so disconnected these days in general and don't see friends and talk through things as much, like that's not—I don't know. I don't feel like that's as baked into our Christian culture as maybe it used to be.

Laura: I think there are a lot of things we carry around. I think everyone has their secrets they carry around, whether that's that they hate their body or that they're trying a weird food restriction diet and they're not going to tell anyone or that they're fighting with their husband. I don't know. I just think there are a lot of secrets that people feel too ashamed of to share.

Maybe this is moving outside of heart motivations a little, but it's building on holistically Gospel Mom and what we're trying to do. I just think bringing one or two people in has been stunningly helpful. I know you and I have talked about that—you're one of the people that I tell, and it's good.

Emily: Yes. Usually, if I come tell you something, and I'm apologizing, "I'm so sorry. I need to stop talking about this right now. I can't believe I'm sharing this"—or I'm venting or whatever—you're also good at being like, "No, it's good. You need somebody to be able to say these things to." It's healthy to have other believers in your life that you can speak openly about your fears and why you're angry, but it's somebody who's going to point you back to the Lord.

Laura: Right. It's not gossip. I think also, I'll get afraid like, "Oh, is that gossip or is that judgment? Am I speaking unkindly about a person?" if maybe that's one of the issues. It's like, “No, with certain people who are there to help, we have to be able to share.” You don't have to share in anger or slander or whatever, but there are ways to talk about deep, hard things that are constructive and healthy and ultimately bring everybody up towards the truth. Anyway, good stuff. Let's go to the next one.

Emily: Okay. Where do you think moms are most likely to fall into error here?

Laura: I'm just going to go back to my last answer. [Laughter] We're not honest. I think sometimes we're not even honest with ourselves. We might have a hard enough time being honest with somebody else, but I think sometimes we just want to believe our motives are pure. I think you said this earlier in the show; we just don't slow down enough to think about it. We just do what we've always done. We do what our parents raised us to do. There's no checking. There's no vetting of our decisions and our actions. We sort of just assume like, “This is the water I swim in. Therefore, I get to do whatever I want.”

Even when I think about giving or tithing, so often, I'm like, “Exactly how do you do it? Exactly how do you do it?” You want to hear what everybody does so that you can make sure you're doing it right. It's like—the Lord's going to lead. And, yes—talk, gather. Heart motivation there is—

Emily: —Be a cheerful giver. Give whatever the Lord has convinced you to give.

Laura: But sometimes, you don't even check those. You're like, "Well, this is what my parents said," or "I'm 10% because that's what God said"—whatever. That was kind of a weird example. The point is: I don't think women or men—I don't think we think super deeply about our own actions, and we trick ourselves or justify things weirdly.

Emily: Oh, yes. There are some Bible verses about that. [Laughter] I was writing down Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" I know that's not the only verse in Scripture that talks about how we can't even really accurately discern our own minds. We can't actually discern our own hearts. We give ourselves benefit of the doubt all the time.

Laura: We do.

Emily: "Oh, I probably am right about this. I have such good motivations in this, and I'm doing the best thing that I can here." We're so gracious with ourselves.

Laura: We're so gracious with ourselves. It's true.

Emily: Yes. I have the best intentions, right? All those things. We can trick ourselves—we can convince ourselves something that's false is true. I love this because right after that Jeremiah 17:9 verse—it's like, “Who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:10 says, "I the Lord, search the heart and test the mind." The only person who can accurately discern and know our hearts is God. That's why it's so important that we come before him—we bring our decisions before him and ask for wisdom. Because we can sit all day and go through Becoming a Gospel Mom and do our little workbook and map everything out, but we can't even fully trust ourselves.

I think there's somewhere in Corinthians—one of the Corinthians—that Paul talks about—he's like, "I don't even judge myself." He's talking about like, "Are you supposed to judge me? Who's supposed to judge me? I don't even judge myself." He's like, "The Lord judges me." He's like, "I'm not even a good judge of whether or not I'm being faithful with the gospel, but God is a good judge, and I will come before him and lay it before him." 

I love Psalm 139:23. I pray this as a prayer often. "Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts." And just ask the Lord as you're going through these things: "Lord, try me. Try me and know my thoughts and make it plain."

Laura: It's a scary prayer, but you should do it. But a good one.

Emily: If a mom wanted to do one or two things right now to help her grow in this area, what would she do?

Laura: I'm going to go to what feels like my theme this show, which is: bring a friend or two in, and be transparent about some of those decisions. It doesn't have to be like, "Hey, what do you do?" But more like, "Hey, I'm feeling this." Maybe even work through those questions that we shared on the show earlier of, “What's the cost?” Remembering that's not just monetary. “What is your family value? Does it align?” Walk through those with another person.

I think it's great to do alone on your own, but again, we have hidden biases. We justify things. I think when you bring in another really wise mom who can look at it, that could be really helpful for you—and freeing. Then, get that advice and walk forward in it. I think it starts to inform your conscience. As we talked about in the last show, you need to do what your conscience is telling you to do.

Walk in that strongly and feel like you can get some freedom on these things. You don't have to live with mom guilt. I think that's what we tend to do is we all live with like this low level of mom guilt. I think the Risen Motherhood survey a couple of years ago—it was like 97% of moms. I was like who are you 3%? Who are you that have no mom guilt?

Emily: They already living gospel motherhood already. They don't need this book. [Laughter]

Laura: I want to meet them, but 97% of us are living with a continual low level of mom guilt. It's like, oh, man, that doesn't have to be the case. I want that for every mom.

Emily: This is a heavy show. These are heavy topics. If you guys were here, I'd give you a hug.

Laura: Oh, I need a hug.

Emily: It's like, "It's okay. You can do it." All right. I think we've got one more topic after this. Let's go.