Episode 2 - YOUR HOME IS LIKE A SHEPHERD’S FOLD

On the desktop of my computer I have this picture of an eastern shepherd’s fold. It reminds me of my role as a shepherd mother and grandmother. There is only one door to this fold and do you notice that the shepherd sits in that door? He is the guardian. He will allow nothing or no one to come into that fold to harm his flock. We are to be like that shepherd, watching intently over our flock. That means more than physical mothering. It is caring for the spirit, soul, and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). We don’t do this for wages. The hired wage earner who cares for children may do her best for them, but she does not lay down her life like the true shepherd or mother. Check out John 10:6-15.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

We knew we say young dream found the same to me. Welcome to the podcast from our home two years with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of above rubies split. We learn to give him that.

Speaker 2: 0:28

Good morning to you ladies. Well, it may be good evening. I don't know when you're going to be listening to this, that whenever you may you be blessed of the Lord. Don't forget to tell others about the podcast. We're just getting started, so let others know about it and we will send it out to you once a week and we will try to keep to just half an hour. I forgot to look at the clock and our first session so I went a bit longer, but I promise you I'll remember to look at the clock in the future. Now, today I'd like to just talk a little bit more about that beautiful word Nava. Do you remember in a v, e Dot h, and just one of the words for home in the Bible, a word that means lovely, pleasant, satisfied. Isn't that beautiful? Now I'd like to bring you over to the new testament today because it's good to look at the old and to look at the new. I love both the old and the new testaments. I'm not one of those who likes to just read the New Testament only a or just the old. I love both because I love that saying that says, uh, the EU is in the old concealed but the old is in the new revealed and I find that there's so much that is so similar in both the old and the new testaments. And I want to take you to a passage in John Twenty one today, a beautiful story. This was after Jesus had risen from the dead and he was wanting to talk to his disciples to fellowship with them and, uh, give a special word to Peter Actually. So he went down to Galilee because he knew that's where they'd be odd fishing and yes, where they were, he could see them out on the lake fishing. And so what did Jesus do? He began to build a little fire on the shores of Galilee and he gathered stigs. And just got this lovely little fire going, and then he began to cook breakfast. He began to cook fish and bread and get it ready for his disciples. Now that was a lovely thing. But ladies, have you thought about it? Who was cooking? It was Jesus the one who had just risen from the dead. He conquered death and competition. Hell and a lot from the grave. And what is he doing? He's cooking all my. And you thought cooking was a little bit too lowly for you? Sometimes we think these Monday. No, they're not Monday, but we think they are these things that we have to do in a home. Um, all our duties and cooking, we can't get away from it because our husband is hungry and now children are hungry. And if we don't prepare food, they're not going to be nourished and, and looked after. And so we have to do them each day. But I want to encourage you did please don't look upon cooking as a chore. It is a powerful, powerful thing that you do in your home. Cooking has power to change lives. That cooking and preparing food is very powerful because it paves the way for greater things and we're going to see that in this jewelry and so Jesus was preparing breakfast and then he calls out to his disciples to come and dine these calm, come and have breakfast, and he got them all in around this fire and this lovely food that he'd prepared prepared for them, and the Bible says in Luke Chapter Twenty one that she's surfing. Once again, she says this one who has just risen from the edge. Oh goodness, May. If we're had risen from the dead, I guess we'd think we were too important to be just doing some very surreal thing, but no Jesus. He waited on that and so they enjoy food together and can you imagine the wonderful fellowship? They enjoy this. They talk together because the ladies, this is what food is or adapt. Food is not just eating to fill your hungry tummy food is fellowship. Say it with me. Food is fellowship. We're not ever meant to eat food in isolation. God intends us to eat food together. That's why it's so important to gather our family around the table to eat together. That's why God paints this beautiful picture of the family in Psalm 128, and what is the picture of a family sitting around the meal table? That's the picture God loves. Have a family. Check it out. So I'm 128, verse three. Your wife is like a fruitful vine within the heart of your home. Your children like olive plants all around your table. And why do we sit around a table so we can see one another? We can look at one another. We can talk to one another as one writer says, eye to eye, face to face, table fellowship. I love that. That's how it's meant to be eye to eye, face to face, and if it's not that, it's not the real thing. In fact, we don't even get the same nutrients or enjoyment or all the blessings out about food unless we are eating it with others. So always gather your family to your table. Make it a special thing every day in your home. Make it a habit and don't get out of the habit. If you've got out of it, established that habit again, and so the disciples and Jesus enjoyed that beautiful time together and then a to they had dined and fellowshipped. Jesus called Peter to himself. He had a special word for Peter, and I'm sure you remember the story in Verse Fifteen. Jesus said to Peter, Peter Lovers Thou me more than these, and Peter replied, you know I love you lord. And Jesus said to him, feed my lambs, but that wasn't enough. Jesus asked the question again and he said the same thing, although he used this time, he used sheep feed my sheep. That wasn't enough. He asked him again if he loved him and then he gave him the same word again. Peter Feed my she and cheeses was giving to Peter. He was seeking to pause onto Peter, his heart, his shepherding heart, because Jesus is the great shepherd. He is. The good shit happens and the oppression ladies, we learn to be mothers as we learn to shepherd light cheese, a shepherd shepherding because shepherding and mothering a so seminar. Now it's interesting in the first time Jesus said, feed my sheep, my labs, uh, that is just the word seed to seed. And actually that is a, the word that's used with other shepherd. He's a feeder, but then the second time the word is used, he uses a different word altogether and it's the word in the Greek monnier. And this time it means more than just giving food. It means to chained to the sheep in every single way in the full understanding of shepherding. Perhaps I could just read to you that full picture of what it means to a horse shepherd to shepherd his sheep. And therefore for we as mothers to mothers our little flock or our big flock, whatever it may be, now I have looked in to all the words of shepherding and into the Hebrew words and into the scriptures. And, uh, as I look at these, we get all these understandings of how to shepherd and to mother. Pretty amazing. Want to hear it? Okay? It means to be friend with an intimate relationship, to be a companion that is part of the word, a shepherd to be a friend and companion to bind and abandoned job the hurt and broken to bravely fight off all enemies. Just like David did. You remember when he was a shepherd boy out on the hillsides there and in Judah and the lion came? Yeah, bear came, but he was brave. He, he's so careful and so loved his sheep that he was willing to lay down his life for his sheep and he went after those enemies and he tells one story of how that he went. And, uh, he just got hold of that lion and uh, he just got it by the beard and rescued the little lamb out of it's mouth. Wow. That took courage. But that is part of being a shepherd mother. Yes. We're to be tender and loving, but we also try to rise up against anything that will come and against our children and would seek to take them off. That's why I think sometimes we it would be good for some mothers to go in with that same spirit that David hadn't go into that public school system and take their precious children out of the jaws of the lion, just like David. He took hold of that beer and he pulled out that little lamb. I'm not going to get my little land devout. I'm rescuing this lab. I'm going to save it because I love this little land and it means to bring back the stray ones to carry the lab. Your lab close to your heart to come fish, to encourage, to eliminate fear, to feed, to gather in your arms, to gather to your table, to gently lead to God and watch over your flock, to guide them on the right track, to heal the sick, to keep them safe, to lead to restful enrich, green postures to nourish, to persevere, to find the last one. To prepare a table, to protect, to provide rescue. When they turn, to bypass, to restore, to renew, revive and refresh. To rule with wisdom and discretion, and yes, encompassed in the meaning of shepherd is also the meaning to rule and to rule over our little flock that means to guide them with wisdom and discretion to sacrifice and lay down our lives, to save our flock, to strengthen the weak and ultimately to chained to our flock is we fold them in our fold. And that was the full meaning all. When Jesus spoke the second time, two Peter two times, he said, feed my sheep. And that one time he said, I want you to tend to them in every aspect of their lives. And uh, so Dhea, mothers is not really a part time job after or is it mothering is a full time job as we, uh, just fold our flock. I have a beautiful picture. In fact, I posted it on facebook the other week and I think I'd love to have it on my wall. It's a picture of a sheep fold in the Middle East and it's made out of stones and the stones, of course, our award, it was a rectangle, a sheep fold. And uh, the stones were high enough that no woo for no Predator could get in and there was just one door, one opening or one gate, whatever you would like to use the word, whichever word you'd like to use. And they're in this picture, is the shepherd sitting in the gate selling the game. Nothing could get past him to his sheep because he was the door. No one could come in or go out. The sheep couldn't get out, no credit, I couldn't get in except through him. He was guarding over his sheep. Such a beautiful picture. And the shepherd in the Middle East, he, he doesn't shepherd his sheep part time. He is always there with them. Night and day. He's with them, guarding over them and watch you go over them. And this is our role that we have as the folders of our flocks and the shepherd. So let me take you to Isaiah 40, verse 11. I'm finding care. I know you love this scripture for he, verse 11, he shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom. And shall gently lead those that are with young. This is a picture of mothering. The first thing is feeding. Yes. So once again, as I said before, lovely ladies, don't despise feeding. Feeding begins the moment a little baby is born and the baby comes to the breast to nurse and finds Austinites. And that baby just wants to drink night and day. If you're a breastfeeding mother, just give yourself and make yourself available to your little baby. Don't try and just, you know, schedule your feeding. Babies want to feed on and often breast milk. It's a, it's a very, um, perfect milk for your baby. And it digests quite quickly, far more quickly than formula or cow's milk, which takes quite a while to digest. And that's where long ago this for hourly scheduled feeding came in because when people turn to bottle feeding, they had to wait so long for that cow's milk to digest. But today I think most mothers and nursing their babies and, but we have to remember that breast milk digest quickly and babies and ready to have another thiede so quickly. And also babies don't just seed for milk. Uh, and that's something we have to get out of our brains. That is, that feeding is just for physical. No feeding is far more than just the physical. And even when we start off with our baby feeding is far more than just the physical, yes, our baby is hungry, but there are times when your little baby just wants to nurse from you and he's not hungry. Why does he want a nurse? I just fed him 20 minutes ago. Goodness me, my tnat God created your baby with a sucking instinct. Your baby wants to suck. Have you noticed that? Well, some of you may have babies that quite content, but the majority of babies, they want to suck and they want to suck even when they're not hungry. And why do they want to suck? Because God created them that way, not only for their blessing because the more they sacked from the breast, the better for their own development, but also for your benefit because the more the baby socks from the rest, well the more milk you make. So you will always have adequate sustenance for your little baby and your baby will also be to emotion knee because when we go to Isaiah 66 and we look at the picture of breastfeeding here, once again, it's an allegory and a inverse, 10 to 13, God is talking about Jerusalem, but he likens Jerusalem to a nursing mother. So when we read this passage, we find out how God looks upon a breastfeeding mother. And uh, as we read, we, we don't read anything about feeding actually, but we read the word satisfying, consoling to lighting piece flowing, comforting. And uh, so nursing from the brands is far more than just giving milk. It's consoling your baby, satisfying your baby, comforting you. Baby is the baby socks he is confident in and you don't know what is going on within his little heart. And so, but you're bringing content because food is far more than physical food ministers to the soul. And the spirit is wow. And so we begin with our baby and we as we continue, we just have to keep on cooking. And the bigger your children get, well the more you go to have to cook. So that's just part of it all. All right. Let me just read you one or two more scriptures that have this word Nava. Actually, this word is found 36 times in the Bible and I'll just read you one a true passages. Proverbs 3:33, he blesses the habitation, the Nava have the just proverbs 2120. There is treasure to be desired. And oil in the twirling in the Nava have the wise proverbs 24, 15, they not wait. A wicked man against the dwelling or the Naba of the righteous spoil, not his resting place. That's another beautiful word God uses for our homes, our resting place. Here's another beautiful scripture. Isaiah 32, 18, and my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation. There's the word Naba again, and ensure dwellings and inquired. Resting places. Did you notice lovely ladies that in that one scripture there, there are four different words for the home. Just in that one scripture. This is how much God thinks about the home. Let me tell them to you and my people shall dwell. That's the Hebrew word. Your shop meaning to dwell. We talked about this last part, uh, to really live in your home, to make it your life. And we talked about our home will be what we make it. It can be the most exciting place on earth if we make it that way, or it can be the most boring place on earth have. We don't just get up our seat and do something and we determine the atmosphere. We just determined the lifestyle of the home that we live in and so my people shall wow. They go to live and make life. They're in a peaceable habitation. That's a novel or a place of peace and ensure dwellings. Here's another word, Ms Dot Karen. Oh, that's a beautiful word. Who? That's a word that's often used to have the temple of God where God dwelt, but he also uses it of our homes. Isn't that wonderful? He wants our homes to be dwelling places filled with his presence and the last one, and in quiet resting places. That word is the Hebrew word, Menuca. And it literally means to just take rest, sit down, enjoy your whole. May you be blessed. Ladies, let me pray for you. Dear father, I thank you for these precious ladies listening again today, and I ask that you will give them a new vision for their whole law. That you want them to be beautiful places, peaceful dwellings, restful places, places, Lord, where your presence to well, just as you dwelled in the holy of holies in the Tabernacle, you use the same word for our homes. You now want to come and dwell in our homes to you. Father, I pray that you will come into each whole, manifest your presence, help each dma bother Lord God to, to just seek you and to, to what you would have to do to make your presence felt and more special in their homes. I asked this in the precious name of Jesus.