 Okay the first five minutes are going to be the hardest and then I'm going to get on a roll so I've got a lot of notes but the good news is is I printed it really big so I could see it with my glasses so it's really not as much as it looks like. So yeah spiritual disciplines in the context of marriage and motherhood so first of all we want to ask what are spiritual disciplines and so this is a very simple definition biblical practices that a believer does to grow spiritually in Christ and to build their relationship with Him. If you Google it you'll find all kinds of different lists of what should be included on that list and lots of people have written books about it and study guides and blogs and podcasts but I just decided I'll touch on these seven basics prayer Bible study and fasting are the pillars journaling worship memorization and discipleship I think are also really important but there's lots of other things that could be included these are just the ones that we women can really do you know like we're not in charge of our charitable giving usually or where we fellowship or things like that so much so these are the the ones that are under our control as wives and mothers and as women and in the context of marriage and motherhood was the assignment that was given to me if you will but I know that there's a lot of you here that aren't married and you're not mothers and that's fine I think a whole bunch of what I'll have to say will be very applicable to your life just exactly where you are but I'm going to be unapologetic about the fact that that is kind of the context in which we're talking so maybe you'll be married or maybe you'll be a mother someday or maybe you won't either way that's fine but that's kind of where I'm coming from so that'll be the context and then also you know we could have dropped the s on spiritual disciplines and just made this a talk on spiritual discipline because I'm going to touch a little bit on some practical things but I'm also just going to talk about the benefits of being spiritually disciplined and I've got a lot of material and I'm hoping we're going to get through it all and still leave time for us to hear from you but I don't want to overwhelm anyone I don't expect that all of this is going to apply to anyone person here I want you to kind of go through and pick up the nuggets that apply to you even if it's just a phrase or a single thought something that's going to bring you courage like next Monday or two weeks from now when something just hits you you know right in the face that you weren't expecting so that's the goal here alright I'm gonna start since nobody really knows me with a very brief bio the reason I have a picture of that sign there that's a was the ice cream sign that my husband and I might met under 38 years ago he owned an ice cream shop and I went to work for him and it was the ice cream shop closed went out of business and the sign was forgotten and number of years later we found it the back of his dad's barn and we hung it up in our house and it has been a reminder for me ever since that my primary role since I said I do is I am Mike's I'm Mike's wife the father of Mike's children and now as he ages I'm Mike's helper and so that's the context of my life and there's some pictures of my family I should just say very briefly that we both my husband and I were raised in non-Christian homes we were born again a year after we got married which is 32 years ago now after about 10 years of walking with the Lord and the Lord graciously discipling us we decided to move to North Carolina to a more conservative church that was our first introduction to anybody like you all and after being there for 17 years we moved to Ohio which is where we live now we go to a very small church called remnant Christian fellowship that's not affiliated with anybody in particular we're a pretty eclectic little group but we are happy there so that's our brief bio oh and I have 12 children most of them still live with me yeah one is about to be married one is married I will say this everyone in my household is potty trained they can all tie their shoes they can all read I'm down to home schooling only four students and many of my children do have a sincere and growing relationship with the Lord so from this stage of life I can look back and I am so humbled and you know when I look around at some of you young moms with your babies in arms and your toddlers and you're trying to get them to sit still through these sessions and everything I am just so glad that I'm through that stage and I made it some of you older women are like yes I know what you mean but I am so humbled that God carried me through and I am just so confident that he will carry you through too and that's kind of yeah limitations 320 says my soul half them in still in remembrance and is humbled in me and and it goes on in the next first to talk about hope when I recall these things it just gives me hope for the rest of you so yeah in regards to the spiritual disciplines most of us know what we're supposed to do but I think most of us would also agree that there's higher ground and the problem is not our good intentions the problem is summed up here in Psalm 73 26 my flesh and my heart faileth and the answer is this God is the strength of my heart so what does the Bible have to say about the spiritual disciplines I think I mentioned that there is no biblical list of what you're supposed to do to be a good Christian on a daily basis but it does say in 1st John 2 6 he that say if he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked so how did Jesus walk out the disciplines what do we see from scripture I'm not going to do an extensive Bible study so you don't have to turn there but I'm just going to point out a few things in Luke 6 12 it says and it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God there's lots of verses that tell us that Jesus prioritized prayer even though he had a busy day of ministry he often went aside and prayed it also says in Luke 9 23 and he said to them this is Jesus talking if any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me so apparently Jesus really expected that this Christian life would require a daily denial of ourselves interesting that this was all said before the crucifixion and he said you need to take up your cross daily and follow me I'll touch on being a living sacrifice later but you know he wasn't talking about dying for Christ I hope we're all willing to do that but he's talking here about us being willing to just go through life carrying a cross and that's going to be probably more needful for all of us than just dying a martyr's death and sometimes a little harder and then in Matthew 22 29 it says Jesus answered and said unto them you you do air not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God in other words Jesus was implying that if you don't know the word of God and haven't tapped into God's power you're going to be an error you're going to wind up airing and then in Luke 10 41 and 42 Jesus seems to be specifically speaking to us mothers who are very busy and he says Martha Martha or Marielle Marielle thou art careful and troubled about many things but one thing is needful and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her so what was that really good thing that Mary was doing that he commended she was sitting at Jesus's feet and Jesus is saying here that is the most important thing that you need to do and I know some of you are going I know and I'd love to and if I just had an hour a day to spend at his feet that would be great I get that and if it were really an either or thing like either I spend time devoted to God or I have a clean house or either I spend time devoted to God or I can homeschool my children or you know you put anything in there even if it was really that cut and dried it would be worth it according to Jesus Christ to spend time at his feet that's what it says and I have found that that's the way it is if I prioritize prayer if I prioritize spending time with God it actually goes better you know homeschooling it goes better doing the dishes it goes better discipling my teens it everything goes better so it's not an either or but even if it was it would still be a priority to spend time at Jesus's feet so here's a few Greek words just to make myself look really intellectual I I like these orthodoxy is the Greek word that that talks about what we believe orthopraxy is what we do it's our practice and so what we believe needs to turn into what we practice or what we do that's what the spiritual disciplines are going to do pistas means faith pistose means faithful pistas is a noun it's a person place thing or idea pistose is an adjective it modifies nouns right so what we have becomes what we are faith needs to become faithful so sanctification is the goal of spiritual disciplines and sanctification is a journey and sanctification is also something really kind of unique sometimes you'll hear the phrase progressive sanctification it's the only part of the Christian life that we partner with God in he does the saving we can't save ourselves and our works can't save us and he does the glorification he will justify us and translate us in the end but in between salvation and glorification is what we call progressive sanctification and we partner with God in that process and yeah we partner with God we can we can cooperate with him or we can slow him down it's not an event it doesn't happen at a particular day our salvation our progressive sanctification starts on a particular day and it's nice if you know what that date is but but sanctification is not an event and it's not a to-do list it's not like we can go okay sanctification check did that and it's also not a race we are not going to get anywhere if we're just looking around saying I think I'm doing better than her or I think I'm doing worse it's not a race what sanctification is is it's a walk and I just was struck with this realization of several weeks ago that when Jesus walked on the water that time when he came to his disciples and they were in the midst of the sea he had been on the mountain praying and I looked at a map and you know based on where he had been preaching and where he probably went into the wilderness or up into the mountains to pray and where the midst of the sea was it's probably several miles from the mountaintop to the midst of the sea so he after a very busy day of ministry and then an all night of prayer he stands up and he walks down the mountain and across the seashore gets to the water and he keeps walking on the water and that was an amazing miracle wasn't it but he walked he had to put in the effort and do the walking and I think that's exactly what it's like for us as sisters you know God is going to do the miracles he's gonna make the water hold us up but we have got to do the walking it's a walk and it's a walk along a very narrow way and there are ditches on both sides and I don't care what issue you want to look at you can fall off onto this ditch and you can fall off into that ditch and some of us are more prone to go down one ditch than the other but we are all vulnerable on all sides and when we're over correcting from falling on this ditch we're especially vulnerable to fall into that other ditch so it's a very narrow way and it can be very challenging I just think of the context of being a life and mother I mean we've got to eat but we need to not give in to gluttony we need to fast but we have to prepare food for our family we have to push ourselves to do our very best and yet we need to not become proud we have to endure suffering and yet not given to despair I mean we're just constantly walking that narrow way but God gives us the grace to do it all right I just want to very quickly go through those seven things I had on the board prayer and whatever on the slide this is not a how-to there are so many really really good resources and probably so much wisdom in this room if you're somebody who after I go through these next seven slides says I need more specifics go find an older sister and I'm sure there's lots of information they could give you but I'm just going to give a couple little pointers on some of these disciplines so prayer I find that the two major challenges in prayer is finding the time and being able to stay focused when it comes to time I think it's really important that we incorporate prayer into the rhythms of our life if you're not in a season where you can spend a lot of time set aside for prayer then pray for things as you're going through your day and it will disciple your children and be a blessing to all the people around you yeah when you hear of a need stop and pray for it don't just say oh I'll pray for you because the reality is is if you actually set a time aside in your prayer closet to pray for all the things you say to people oh yeah I'll pray for you there's no way you get anything done right and so just go ahead and say well can we pray for that right now and do it and and it's a great way also to deal with gossip when somebody comes to you and they're just going on and on and on about you know kind of tearing a situation or a person down you know listen compassionately for a little while and then say you know since you brought that up can we just stop and pray about that and it's amazing people who really didn't want to pray for the situation but just wanted to talk about it they don't come to you anymore and it's wonderful the other thing we can do is the Bible says to pray without ceasing so what does that look like well I realized just recently it's kind of embarrassing to say this is recent but I realized that I have this running conversation going on in my head all the time I'm constantly like rehearsing a conversation with I had with my husband or that I want to have with a sister or whatever and I was just like why don't I take those thoughts captive why don't I make that running conversation in my head a conversation with God and then it will be praying without ceasing and it's working it's amazing then there's also intentional prayer and my daughter Isabel pointed out that if we are faithful in the intentional times of prayer it makes the praying without ceasing a lot easier and I have found that definitely to be the case but there's no certain amount of time that you need to set aside for prayer yeah different seasons of life require different things and will allow you more time or less okay so then the second thing is focus here's just a little couple things that I find helpful I set a timer on my phone and I set it for one minute and I start praying for the first oldest member of my family and just about the time when I'm either starting to fall asleep or my mind is starting to wander my little timer goes off and I switch to the next person on my list and so that's very helpful you can also write out your prayers you can journal your prayers you can pray scripture the other thing that's helpful is if you take your your distracted thoughts captive by doing this and say to yourself okay this thought keeps coming into my prayer time take it captive don't just try and get rid of it take it captive and look at it and say is this something that God wants me to pray about or is this something I'm really concerned about is it something that's bothering my conscience what do I need to do with this distracted thought that keeps coming back and then lastly I'll just say this that the Bible does say a few things about the morning in Psalm 5 3 it says my voice shalt thou hear in the morning oh Lord in the morning will I direct my prayer into thee and will look up I know that some people are mourning people and some people are not and that's fine I'm a mourning person the way I prioritize my day is anything that's really important that has to be done it gets done before noon so I pray in the morning but even if you're not a mourning person and even if you can't do a whole bunch of prayer in the morning it is a great time for you to at least start your day thinking about God just swing your feet over the edge of the bed and say okay Lord how do you want me to do today just just start there start the conversation in the morning I really like this quote which isn't there it's a good reminder that you know intercessory prayers is another really important kind of prayer and we are our children's and our husband's primary intercessor and what intercessory prayer does is it it's penetrating the hearts we cannot open shielding those we cannot guard teaching where we cannot speak comforting where our words have no power to soothe no ministry is so like that of an angel is this silent invisible known but to God it's a very pure ministry there's no pride in it at all okay the Bible it's the very bedrock of our faith second Timothy 3 16 says that it's profitable for doctrine reproof correction and for instruction and righteousness so therefore I say we should study it zealously meditate on it deeply and communicate it accurately it's it's just really important and I could go on and on but I'm not going to for the sake of time fasting I think what regular fasting does is it helps us reset our priorities it helps us better appreciate the things that we easily take for granted and we usually associate that with food giving up food I don't know about any of you ladies but while I was in the childbearing years I was either pregnant or nursing most of the time and I don't think I ever went a single day where I fasted all day I just couldn't so I didn't but I found out there's lots of other ways you can fast you can give up snacks or desserts or sometimes our family would do like just a family rice fast where I wouldn't have to think about what to make because we just had three meals of rice and the children could have rice with milk for breakfast and we have rice with you know sprinkled cheese on it for lunch and for supper and they loved it and if anybody actually absolutely had to eat you can have your rice and other than that we're fasting you know and it's kind of simple but there's other things to fast from besides food I found through the busy years I fasted from books and magazines I just didn't have any time I felt like how could I possibly sit down and read this really good wholesome book or this great magazine you know that sisters would give me the free subscriptions too because they wanted to be helpful and talked all about wonderful homemade cough syrup how could I sit down and read that when I hadn't read my Bible and so if I didn't have much time for Bible reading I certainly was gonna fast from books and magazines as good as they are and when I need a cough drop or a cough syrup recipe I'll ask somebody specifically for it so I also found that I needed to fast from sleep I was really hard but being a mom it's really stretching isn't it like some nights you don't sleep much and there were times and I was just like Lord this is really tough and now you want me to wake up and spend some intentional time in prayer and Bible reading but it was like the Lord just said well how much do you love me do you love me more than your bed I had to say yes I do of course I do I mean I might not wake up an hour earlier than the children but I can at least you know get out of bed if I made a deal with the Lord often Lord if you wake me up before my alarm I'm gonna give you the that time you would be surprised how many times he took me up on that just 15 minutes extra and I'd wake up and just like boom my eyes were open and then I'd want to just roll over and go back to bed and he'd say whoop remember you told me you'd give me these extra 15 minutes let's have some time together okay I'll fast my sleep we'll talk more about social media and and our phones maybe that's something we could fast from to but we'll get to that topic also I want to say this sometimes I I got bitter at God like how do you expect me to fast especially food when you know I'm just surrounded by food all day I'm in the kitchen I'm trying to feed a family and it's just no fair if I could go off you know in a mountain somewhere then sure I could handle this and he just so graciously told me Mario when I was in the desert every single stone could have been a loaf of bread for me I know what you're going through it's okay do it anyway journaling I just want to mention it really quickly it's not for everyone for me it's really really important because for me I haven't really learned a lesson until I've written it down other people you know they don't really learn a lesson until they write a song about it or whatever but for me writing it down is really powerful we talked about writing prayers that can be helpful it's not only a place where we can talk to God or express our feelings but we can also start hearing from God I have often started journaling my thoughts and ended journaling God's thoughts and that's really special it's a it's a real good way to to know God to expose our hearts but also to be safe worship it's pretty broad term but specifically through song again this varying levels of importance to people but singing is something that you can just incorporate it into life as a mom so wonderfully you can do that with your children it can alter the whole mood in your home if you just start worshiping the Lord and singing also worship family worship if your husband is not making a priority of family worship and if you have the privilege of homeschooling which I did then you can make worship part of your school day and and it won't get undone left undone memorization I think we all know how important it is also this is something that you can incorporate into your school day you can do it with your children I've been appalled at how bad my memory has gotten even though I'm not all that old yet but yeah it's just important it's important to have God's word hidden in our heart so just do it and discipleship I mean by this the need we have to all of us have a Paul somebody who's a little further along that can disciple us you know younger sisters especially avail yourself of the wisdom of the older sisters there are so many women in our midst in your congregation who have things they could speak into your life but they are not going to volunteer it necessarily I have found that the older I get the less I want to volunteer because I'm starting to realize how much I don't know I didn't realize that when I was 25 and so the same thing probably goes for other older women but if you younger ladies draw them out ask them specific questions there's probably a wealth of information and wisdom there for you but you also should have a Timothy you should have somebody younger than you no matter what age you are that you are discipling that you are pouring into in for most of us that's our children and if that's all it is is your children then don't feel in the least bit apologetic that's enough if you are actually raising true disciples it is going to take just about all you've got to give it and especially if you have you know a bunch of children that they're all at different ages they all have different needs pouring into their lives if that's all you do for the next 20 years is a totally full-time job but if that's not a full-time job for you then purpose to go out and find somebody who needs to be discipled and that should be easy enough if you're part of a of a fellowship there's usually somebody who could use your input all right so I'm gonna switch gears now and I'm gonna talk about the next bunch of slides is just benefits or the rewards of practicing the spiritual disciplines if we do the spiritual disciplines we will learn to embrace an eternal perspective Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and his soul was troubled just like ours are at times and he asked the Father to save him from this hour just like we often do we say oh Lord you know I can't face this whatever this is but then he did something that we can only accomplish if we are spending time at Jesus's feet and that is he acknowledged that his trial had a purpose that transcended his own concerns and he said but for this cause came I unto this hour Father glorify thy name if we're spending time in the spiritual disciplines we'll be able to say that too and and have an eternal perspective on it without an eternal perspective we will run from suffering and with it we embrace God's will regardless of the personal cost we will also learn how to evaluate our motives so the question here I had in mind was do I want to look spiritual or do I want to be spiritual what's good about the spiritual disciplines prayer and Bible study and memorization and fasting is it's basically hidden and so it guards our hearts against hypocrisy because nobody usually knows if we're really doing those things or not so you know we need to be painfully honest with ourselves with our motives and and ask ourselves am I am I more in in concerned about making good impressions or with pleasing the Lord I think I'll leave it at that spending time with the Lord in it helps us establish profitable habits we will be under pressure what we have rehearsed in our leisure I'm sure some of you have seen that come out if you're in the habit of running to the Lord on a normal day you will run to the Lord when the crisis happens but if you're not in that habit you won't you'll fall apart and this is really come to me as far as the habits part we had my mother stepmother-in-law living with us for five years until just recently and she has dementia and so I've done kind of a lot of study about dementia recently and when everything is stripped away from us including our minds the only thing that we have left is that which we have done repetitively it's our habits and those will still be there for us I'm just gonna read this quote it's from a doctor and a Christian who works a lot with Alzheimer's patients it says one woman I was testing to determine whether she had Alzheimer's disease asked to stop the testing she said to me my memory is just fine for what I need to do and I asked her a little bit more about her routine she lived in a nursing home and she would get up each day and walk to the chapel sit down and pray and read through scripture then she would walk back to her room she remembered the Lord even if sometimes walking back to her room she got confused so what she had made a habit for was still there for her my stepmother-in-law I mentioned already she had a habit of gratefulness and she has totally lost her mind she just doesn't remember most of her entire life but she is always grateful and she will tell you I know I've had a good life even though I can't remember it so she is so gracious that's a habit she made Hudson Taylor he made a habit of trusting God and what even when he was just facing extreme circumstances it was there for that him and it comes out in this quote I really like from him when I cannot read we've all been there it's like your brain is so fried you can't even read when I cannot think when I cannot even pray I can trust make it a habit if we learn to trust then we will also learn how to enter into rest rest and activity are both really equally important to God I like the the line of the song that says bless Trinity in whom alone all things created move or rest I'm just gonna give an example of why I feel like it's so important to learn to rest I probably about a year ago maybe two now I'm not sure had what I would consider a very close to burnout time the needs in my home were extreme I had two old people living there mother-in-law my stepmother-in-law and all the children and everything and my brain was just starting to tip and one particular day I had organized a homeschool event and there was just all sorts of ladies and their children all in my home and I was sitting at the table I was trying to be gracious I was trying to ask relevant questions and be engaged and my brain was just like done and it really scared me I just wanted to run and hide and cry because I thought I was losing my mind so I realized that my brain needed rest and everybody left the homeschool event and I knew I needed to rest my brain but I just didn't know how and so I would suggest that you all learn how to rest your brain it'll be different for each person I tried reading like Hudson Taylor it didn't work I tried praying I tried listening to the Bible I even tried listening to basic classical music it was all too intellectually stimulating I had to I finally stumbled across Dan Musselman is about later told me that Dan Musselman who just does like piano music no words he prays for the people who are listening to his music and I didn't know that at the time I didn't know who Dan Musselman was but my brain just started to be renewed as I just sat there and stared out the window so at that time the Lord directed me to a book it's called zeal without burnout seven keys to a lifelong ministry of sustainable sacrifice by Christopher Ash and I learned three things from that book there's a difference between burning out for Jesus and living sacrificially for the Lord the latter is sustainable we can live sacrificially for the Lord on a long term basis but burning out for Jesus is not sustainable and burnout looks heroic but it's very counterproductive and when you burn out everybody that was doing everything around you is gonna stop what they were doing so that they can prop you up it's not at all productive so it might look like oh what a hero you are but it's really not gonna help and it's probably fueled by your carnality and your pride so learn to rest and learn to say no and the other point that he made in that book is I'm dust I was made from dust and I'm going to return to dust and even though right now I have health and a mind that works I am still dust very vulnerable very close to disintegration at any moment and I need to just be reminded of that sometimes and I need a Sabbath rest sorry for things I learned and so I started taking a Sabbath rest that may not be Sundays for most of you moms it's not Sundays it that's not very relaxing especially if you happen to be like the pastor's wife or whatever so find other ways to have a Sabbath rest that might be nap time when your children go down make yourself not do the laundry take a Sabbath rest you know or maybe what I started doing was during that particular season I said to my family one night a week right after supper I'm not helping with any cleanup I'm not putting you all to bed I'm not getting up with grandma during the night I'm going to sleep in the cabin goodbye and I did that for a few months and it helped but yeah so we need to be be willing to do those things for the sake of everybody around us who are looking to us the other thing I'll just throw this in here is that I think sometimes we need to be okay with sitting before God in stunned silence I got that thought from Ezra where he he rent his garment he plucked out his hair he sat down a stonied the king James says and sometimes I felt like this and sometimes we think that's a sign of defeat or it's a sign of psychosis but I think it might be exactly where God wants us sometimes I think of the Queen of Sheba she was in the presence of Solomon and yeah she had no more spirit in her that's sometimes where God wants us to be just unable to rally and that's okay so we need to learn to rest we also need to learn to cultivate the secret place Psalm 91 1 says he that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall be shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty so what does that mean the secret place I think of it as being intimate with God we need to know God but we also need to be known by God and that can be scary you know maybe there's someone in this room who just that word to know the King James uses it to to talk of intimate relationships with a husband and wife you know it's the same word here but the Bible says that we're a daughter of the King we're a child of God we're a joint heir with Christ a sister of the Lord a bride of Christ these are really intimate family relationships that he's talking about so when we're spending time with God we need to be okay with cultivating that kind of an intimate relationship and I don't mean anything weird here I just mean that we need to be God needs to be the first place we run don't run to your girlfriends don't run to your children don't run to your husband don't you know when you're facing something get in the habit of running to God let him be your bestie the first one you go to with with your intimate concerns and cares I think if we if we cultivate that secret place if we learn how to run there then we can withstand the betrayals and the shortcomings of other people Jesus did this you know he longed for the companionship of men when he was here on earth and that's why when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane he he invited Peter and James and John to be with him in his hour of agony but they they let him down they fell asleep he was alone with God and we will be too and similarly when we are when things are going well we want to share that with other people but Jesus was our example in that too it says when men were approving of Jesus and you know saying Hosanna he did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men and needed not that any should testify of man so the only way that we'll be able to follow Jesus's example and not be swayed by people's betrayal or their praise is to be intimate with God and to cultivate that secret place so we also need to prepare to be a living sacrifice dying is an event like I mentioned earlier but living as a sacrifice takes discipline and it's a daily thing it needs to be maintained over time it takes kind of a different kind of grace than just dying once first Peter 412 says beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you trials are not strange they're actually common place and we need to just be okay with that and that takes time in the spiritual disciplines we often feel like suffering is a test of God's faithfulness and we kind of you know Lord where are you and I need you but but suffering and trials they're they're a test of our faithfulness they're a test of our character yeah so we need to learn to be okay with that and I realize that I know I am a very pampered Christian compared to so many who have walked through so much so being a living sacrifice is just sometimes being really honest about how little it takes to make me irritable how very little it takes to ruin my day or you know yeah if I if I feel like it's not taking much to ruin my day it probably means that I need to be spending more time with the Lord and recommitting myself to being a living sacrifice so practicing the spiritual disciplines give us an opportunity to exercise our willpower good soil is a soil that possesses sufficient intelligence to recognize a wise choice that's important but also sufficient willpower to accomplish it and if we're not exercising willpower in our daily lives it's not going to be there for us when we really need it must is a really it's actually an easier task master then should and this is what I mean if you must do something if your child falls down and is hurt you run to them because you must you drop everything and you go if your church has certain standards and if you didn't do them you would be excommunicated then that's a must and you're going to make it a priority right but there's lots of things that falling into the should category and I think the spiritual disciplines are that nobody's going to enforce or or or even know if you spend any time this morning reading your Bible so it's a should and it's easy to put it on the back burner because it's a should it's not a must so what you need to do is rally your will and see the shoulds of life as an opportunity to exercise that willpower muscle there's a lot of examples in the Psalms of this Psalm 77 I'm not going to turn there right now but look at it later if you want to it's a really good example of the power of the will in a renewed spirit if you look at verses 1 through 9 I think it's David is the writer of that Psalm he's rehearsing the trouble the confusion the despair but then he he switches and in verses 10 through 12 he starts exercising his will and he says I will remember I will remember I will remember and then he goes on to say I will meditate I will talk of your doings he just starts exercising his will and then the rest of the Psalm just kind of ends on a much happier note with him being more positive also the thought why art thou cast down on my soul and why art thou disquieted within me hope in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God that's repeated a couple times in different places in the Psalms it's like the renewed spirit talking to the soul and saying come on you can do it exercising the will lastly for this section practicing the spiritual disciplines will help us to create a legacy I don't know if you can see that's kind of small if we did the best we could with what we had that fact will gradually become more and more apparent to our children as they become parents but if we consistently made soft decisions and selfish choices that too will become increasingly obvious to our children as they view their past through the lens of adulthood what is your legacy going to be are they going to look back and say well mom she met well but she made a lot of soft decisions they're going to see it once their adults what's your legacy going to be what are you going to inspire them to do I think the goal is to live without regret as I look back over the last 30 plus years I do see that there was higher ground there were things that I could have done and I didn't do and there's things that I did that I could have done a lot better but I think I can honestly say that I was walking in all the light that I had and that there was never a time when God prompted me to do something and I said no I think we can all have that kind of a testimony that when we get to the end of our child raising years or whatever we have in front of us that we can have no regrets and know that given what we had in the moment we didn't turn our backs on God and we did all that we could and yeah I think when we give God all that we've got he multiplies our efforts and I think when we do our very best he comes along and he perfects it and that is definitely been my testimony okay we're going to switch gears and talk about some of the possible hindrances or pitfalls things that can draw us away from being spiritually disciplined so the first one is ignorance I think is women we tend to feel limited by what we were taught or how we were raised but I think God wants to give us everything that we need he's not limited by what we were or weren't taught as a matter of fact Jeremiah 33 says call on to me and I will answer the we're all familiar with that part of the verse and then it goes on to say and show the great and mighty things which thou knowest not so when we call on him he's not going to tell us what we already know or what the good things we were raised in he's going to tell us the things we don't know and so that doesn't need to be an excuse what a blessing idle idealism I don't know about any of you but for me it's easy to say oh if I were a missionary to Timbuktu then I'd be faithful or if my husband was a pastor then I'd really press in and be faithful but that's all just idle idealism he wants us to be faithful right here like with the dishes and the children and the diapers and whatever right here right now where we are that's where we need to be faithful and if we really would be willing to go to Timbuktu and to die for Jesus Christ then why don't you just wake up early and pray and read your Bible it's really much easier and it will be productive for you so sometimes we need to be willing to go but sometimes we need to be willing to just stay and be faithful another really big stumbling block is disorganization has anyone seen my time I don't want to meddle here at all and I know people have different ways of organizing their time but I do want to just say a few things and that is that for some being good stewards of our time is easier for some people than it is for others but we can all learn how to be good stewards of our time and I have been really greatly served by being scheduled and organized when I'm exhausted my brain is foggy then my schedule tells me what to do next and when I was in the midst of morning sickness and I would open the refrigerator and nothing looked edible to me if I had a meal plan it told me what to make and when I feel stretched thin and pulled in all kinds of different directions it helps to have a regular place where the school books are kept and I can just go there and find them it's not that I'm an organized person because I am some superhuman I am an organized person because I am very weak and frail and my organization is my crutch and helps me get through my day so I think that's the purpose now there's a there's a need for balance there your schedule should never become your God it's it's not the end of the world if your schedule isn't followed there's a place for spontaneity and flexibility those are both very important things but if you don't have a routine from which you are flexing then you're not being flexible you're being undisciplined right and I think children do best with it with a schedule I mean children are going to be fussy sometimes but children that have a rhythm to their day they know when to get hungry and they know when to feel sleepy and it just makes them feel more peaceful so also the other thing about organizing our time is that those things that are limited are precious the reason gold is precious is because there's a limited supply when you know gas prices go up it's because something's happening in the Middle East and and gas is becoming precious and so anything that is limited is precious but we all have the same amount of time so how do we teach our children to steward their time and treat it like something precious none of us knows exactly when our time is going to run out so how do we teach that well I think the way we teach that is by organizing our time and I'll just give you an example the other day this just hit me I was about to jump in the shower it was something had come up and I hadn't been able to go through my morning routine the way I wanted to and I knew I was gonna be running late for 8 o'clock group time which is how we start our school day and so I just shouted out of the bathroom guys we're going to be a little bit late on on group time today a little bit of flexibility needed and the reason I did that is because I taught my children that I value your time otherwise they would have been all sitting there at 8 o'clock and I would have been running five minutes late even if it was just five minutes they're sitting there twiddling their thumbs waiting for mom I value their time and so I'm going to tell you ahead of time that we're going to have to flex a little bit and it also teaches them to do the same to value the time of others to treat it as something that needs to be stewarded all right enough of that got lots more notes on all these things social media in quotes because it's a buzzword social media is not the only distraction any kind of technology can be a major distraction but yeah there's a lot of different opinions on the use of technology I realize that probably a lot of them represented here I think all of us would agree that technology is not simply good or bad so I think what we would all agree on is that it does need to be managed and I use my phone a lot I have a smart phone it's my calendar it's my to-do list it's my calculator it's my Strong's Concordance it's my encyclopedia sometimes it's my shopping cart I use it a lot but what I don't want it to be is something that it's not my entertainer my escape I don't want it to be what I grab when I'm bored or I'm discouraged or I'm lonely I want my phone to stay a tool and not become my toy because if that phone is allowed to be my toy it may soon become my addiction and it's really just a matter of priorities there's plenty of good things you can do on your phone podcasts and blogs and people across the country that you can be in communication with it's just a question of can you afford this right now can you afford to stay in touch with the person across on the other side of the world have you talked to the people in your home yet have you talked to God yet today you know just prioritizing your time but smartphones are not the only distraction you know books could be a distraction magazines hobby sports your health all kinds of things can can take the preeminence in our lives so we just need to be careful of that doubt and disappointment so sometimes when we're practicing the spiritual disciplines I found this particularly the case when I'm fasting I lose my resolve because I'm not sure was this my idea or was this God's idea and I think of Peter when he was really eager to demonstrate faith and Jesus came walking on the water like we talked about earlier and Peter said Lord if it's you tell me to come walk to you on the water and so he jumped out of the boat and he started walking on the water why did he start to sink because he started to doubt and I do the same thing I jump out of the boat and I go whoa was this my idea or was this God's idea and in Peter's case it wasn't God's idea I mean it was his permissive will he said sure Peter come but Peter initiated that and and he jumped out of the boat so I just find that I need to be very careful not to add more to my list than God is adding to my list or my husband is adding to my list I I find it's really important to prioritize him H I am with a capital for God and him my husband and not they you know that elusive they will they say we should do this and they say we should do that you know just kind of silence the they sentences and and and ask what he wants and what he your husband or father or whoever your he is in your life is the other thing we need to look at when it comes to doubt is am I trying to prove something by doing the spiritual disciplines the spiritual disciplines are not a remedy for a guilty conscience if you're finding yourself you know like I got to pray more I got to spend more time in the word I've got to memorize more scriptures another chapter you know are you driven by a guilty conscience first John 1 9 tells us what to do with a guilty conscience confess and repent and allow God to forgive you and to cleanse you but the spiritual disciplines are not going to take care of your guilty conscience also disappointment I'm not going to have you turn to this but make a note of it second Corinthians chapter 4 I think is just a beautiful encouragement for especially those that are raising teenagers which is really a place where we start hitting disappointment head-on I think there's lots and lots of things that disappoint us but sometimes when you get to the place where your teens are starting to make choices for themselves it's just like oh Lord wow what happened what went wrong I tried to be so faithful and so intentional and did such a good job training them and now they're making bad choices and they're becoming their own people and what am I going to do you know and we can turn away from God and say well why should I bother you know spending time in prayer look you know what's happening so in chapter 4 there are second Corinthians in verse 1 it says as we have received mercy we faint not at those times we need to not faint verse 5 says for we preach not ourselves but Christ we need to not take it personally we just need to remember what isn't our idea we're preaching Christ and verse 7 says we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power maybe of God and not of us you know we're imperfect and our teenagers start to realize that and they sometimes pointed out to us and that's okay we're earthen vessels right and then it says in verse 12 so then death worketh in us but life in you that is death to the parent life to the teen and I find that that just helps with disappointment also acts 28 24 says and some believe the words which were spoken and some believed not that was Paul talking or it was just after he was preaching and in acts there it says that some believed the words that were spoken and some believed not and Paul's a better preacher than I am I'm sure of it and he had people that didn't believe and didn't follow and not only that but God is a much better parent than I am and God has had lots and lots of rebellious children all through the ages so yeah don't let that be a huge disappointment to the point where it keeps you from fellowship with God one last point on that I think as mothers as wives as women part of our calling is to just do the next thing Joseph of Arimathea was a very good example of that I think in John 19 we read about how after the crucifixion Joseph would have felt the same disappointment of that all of the disciples were feeling like we thought he was the Messiah and now he's dead talk about disillusionment and disappointment but he didn't just run away and hide and cry like a lot of the other disciples did he went he begged the body of Jesus he prepared it for burial he provided a place of burial and he took the body there he just kept going and did the next thing and I think is as women that's what we need to learn to do spiritual snobbery what I had in mind here is that God is not obligated to make us feel his presence all the time we don't we shouldn't be spiritual snobs to the point where it's just like well I'm not going to spend time in devotions because right now I'm just in such a dry season and I don't feel his presence anyway you need to do it anyway you just need to keep going there are times when I sit down with my Bible and it's just fresh and and I'm getting new insight and it's exciting and it's wonderful and that's great but I still need to open up my Bible and at least read one chapter when it's totally dry and God feels totally distant we just still need to keep going and trust the process go through the motions and trust the process I just want to touch I don't know if this is totally related but it seemed like a good time to put it in on the topic of emotions and how we feel I have found that sometimes I have just this underlying low-level anxiety now sometimes that's due to hormones but if you don't have a hormonal explanation for that and there's just like this low-level anxiety I found that it's usually that God is trying to get my attention in one of two areas either there's something God wants to change in me so I need to ask him Lord what are you putting your finger on what do I need to confess what I need to change what I you know what is it that you want to change in me or there's something that God wants to change in somebody else and he wants to do it through me and so he's giving me that little feeling of anxiety every time I think about my certain child and so I have to say okay Lord what are you trying to say what do you want me to do in regards to that situation or whatever so that you can either change something in me or change something through me and if we're quick to check our conscience and we're quick to do whatever the Lord tells us to do even if it's really small and simple or if it's big and hard then we don't really need to live with that low-level feeling of anxiety for very long we can clear that up all right old and gray we've come full circle so you've all probably heard of Corey 10 boom and she was just an amazing woman she preached the gospel encouraged others when she was in a Nazi concentration camp and then afterwards she traveled the world teaching others about the power of forgiveness and telling her story and it just hit me all the sudden once that she started all of that when she was over 50 but she didn't go to the concentration camp until she was in her 50s and then she had a 30 year ministry so it is never ever too late to start God can certainly take you from where you are and and move you forward yeah it may be that you look back on your life if you're old and gray and you say oh I've missed all my opportunities I just didn't do a very good job when I was a mom and I have so many regrets and and I understand I totally understand but you know you may be at the very beginning of your life's work what you will go down known for like Corey 10 boom may not have even started yet you know we often talk about giving God the best years of our life who are we to determine when those best years are it might be when you're in your 20s but it might be when you're in your 60s or 70s just determined to give God whatever you've got and you know sometimes as we age like I mentioned we tend to be very aware of what we don't know and so we're maybe a little bit more reluctant to open up our mouths and to teach and we become a little bit less dogmatic if you will because life is just softened us a little bit that's okay but do recognize older ladies sisters we are called we are mandated the Bible tells us to teach and so whether it's comfortable or not if you're an older woman here you're you're in a season where you are called to teach the younger ones and we need to show God's strength to this generation the generation that is surrounding us right now that was a lot so I want to just give you a couple pointers for going forward in faith first of all identify the biggest area of need if anything I've said today has raised a standard or brought to your mind things that you could be doing better in just identify what that biggest area of need would be and don't try and tackle it all at once yeah I've noticed that there were several things said already this weekend by different speakers that I think all of this ties into if you've heard the same thing in two or three of the sessions already maybe that's what the Holy Spirit is putting his finger on for you so just look at that one area set concrete and attainable goals you know if you're not spending any time on a consistent basis in intentional prayer do not start even with 15 minutes start with five and do it consistently and and just yeah be successful with five minutes before you try and bite off more than that focus on his sufficiency and not your inadequacy you know Moses he basically when he was given the assignment from God to lead his people out of Egypt he he said you know I can't do this I can't speak well and God basically said I know my major mouth and I know exactly all about you so just go doing anyway you know and don't look at your inadequacies look at my sufficiency really the the the easiest way to be successful in the Christian walk is to recognize that we're dead and that our life is hid with Christ in God and and our Heavenly Father is not in the least bit surprised by our inadequacies so if we just allow the Lord to change us and to use us then we can relax because we're just the channel right and he's the teacher all I need to do is sit in his presence and become a better Christian and then when I stand up to go do whatever life requires then the extra I've received from him is what's gonna splash out onto all the people around me I'm just the channel and I'm not responsible it takes all the pressure off and then lastly tell someone about it a quality decision usually starts with a willingness to talk about it and it's usually maintained by a willingness to be accountable to someone so if there is something that God is putting his finger on then be willing to talk about it tell someone lastly please please please please don't leave here overwhelmed please don't say well Marielle says that we are supposed to fill in the blank yeah there is no spiritual bar these spiritual disciplines they won't save you and I didn't come here today to place this heavy burden on you and have you go out feeling overwhelmed I wanted to lift up a vision and so yeah I hope that comes across it's a vision of leaning into him when the going gets tough we are going to fall somebody said this recently and I liked it when you fall just make sure you're falling towards Jesus not away from him you're gonna fall but fall towards him and yeah we're not going to get to heaven by accident Jesus called it a narrow way he said few there be that find it but we need to believe that he is and he's a rewarder of those that diligently seek him so the whole point of all of this of the spiritual disciplines of being spiritually disciplined is to be faithful that's the word that just keeps ringing in my mind is faithful faithful faithful I may not do anything great for God but I can be faithful different speakers already brought this out the the first evening is his name Kevin or Keith he brought out being mature brother Joel he brought out being an overcomer you know just now brother Philip he he brought out being a pillar in the church and he said brothers and sisters you can be pillars in the church you know we can be faithful we can do this but what does it look like what does faithful look like faithful is not complaining faithful is not fainting faithful is pressing a little bit past comfortable faithful is refusing to make soft decisions that pamper the flesh faithful is putting God first and others next faithful is serving our local congregation faithful is being a godly example to our families faithful is rising early to read the Bible faithful spending time in prayer faithful is fasting faithful is dying to myself and allowing Christ to live his life through me so may God grant that each one of us can be found faithful okay ladies we have just a few minutes here for questions comments input from you and I feel like my plate is really full of things to think about and digest from this and yeah there's so many things we could talk about but maybe I'll let you if you have something that you'd like to share here just raise your hand and I'll quickly bring the mic to you we'll just take a few minutes for this so something that I really struggle with you talked about getting having burnout and sometimes you just have to take like a Sabbath rest and I would love to have an older woman teach me because a lot of times I feel like and it could be the enemy but I feel like it's selfish to do that like I feel like when I feel at my wits and I really should be leaning to God and saying I can't do this today I can't I need to I need to and so it's I've really struggled with that like you know and I know sometimes it's guilt and I know Gill is not from God but even just taking time to say okay I just really need this I just I really deal with selfishness and thinking that that's selfish to do yeah that's a hard one and there's the narrow way again and if if you're not sure if you're falling into the selfish ditch or the trying to be heroic and never say no ditch if you have a husband ask him sometimes husbands can be a really marvelous resource that way God's ordained it that way also ask others around you other sisters in the Lord but ask the Lord to but but sometimes it's really helpful to ask other people you know have I been making a habit of of saying no I can't do this because that can become a ditch too but I know what you mean I you know sometimes you can get into the overachiever thing and you want so bad to to do the right thing that it feels selfish to give yourself any time and I'm not talking about me time and pampering yourself but you know sometimes just being really practical yeah you were saying how we should not let our guilty conscience be the driving force for thinking we need to pray so one thought I had on that was that we should cultivate a hunger if we don't have the hunger as God for the hunger and that's a journey I've been on years past where I just asked him for the hunger and that is the driving force that takes me to the Bible and into prayer and just seeking his heart that's good yeah to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet amen let's ask for the hunger and thirst after righteousness I'll just say one quick little thing that's helpful with journaling to is even when you write down your prayers it's helpful because you can go back and see where God answered it and then right in the answer and you might find it was three weeks later or three months later just a few days later and it's an encouragement that God really does answer those prayers I don't know if you can give some advice on this but one thing I really struggle with is I'm you know I have a chronic disability and you know finding finding the time and finding you know what happens when that schedule to gets disrupted not by my own wanting or or you know the children or anything like that but it's purely you know I end up in bed for a couple of days because my illness is taken over and then I often find myself you know then my my mind goes down that path of you know that guilt I don't want to say the guilty conscience but I get very overwhelmed you know the house isn't clean the children haven't had baths you know it all falls to my husband sometimes and and I don't know how to grapple with that and I don't know how to come to terms with this is my law in life and how do I how do I make use that for his glory that's a very good question and that sounds like a hard situation and yet I think the way you can make that a beautiful thing is by not giving into complaining or self-pity in the midst of it if you can say Lord the fact that I'm laying here in my bed for the last two days I am just gonna make it an act of worship and obedience to you because I didn't ask for this disability and it's not in my power to take it away and so do you just use it make it a beautiful thing with gratefulness I bless you in it