PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 110: MAKING A HOME OF REST— PART 1
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Podcast 110: MAKING A HOME OF REST— PART 1
Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. I hope you got to listen to the last four podcasts where I did a series on the subject of TOGETHERNESS.
It’s a beautiful word in the Scriptures. It’s something that is really God’s plan. When we incorporate all the Scriptures about togetherness it can bring such a blessing to our homes and to our church life.
Togetherness—it’s one of those “ness” words with N-E-S-S on the end.
I love words and I love “ness” words. When “ness” is added to a word it means: “The state or quality of that noun.” For example, “sweetness” is the quality of being sweet.
“In loveness” is the quality of state of being in love.
“Darlingness” is the state of being a darling.
There are loads of “ness” words in the world, but I have found 80 of all these beautiful “ness” words that actually apply to us as wives and mothers in our home. Of course there are many more, but these particularly relate to us.
Now with all of these words I am not going to be able to speak to you particularly on every one because there are so many.
Let me just read you a few of them today. I have A down to Z.
Let me just start with A:
Adorableness, amiableness, availableness, blessedness, braveness, brightness, calmness, chasteness, cheerfulness, cleanliness, courteousness, darlingness, devotedness, dutifulness, faithfulness, femaleness, forgiveness, friendliness, fruitfulness, and so they go on.
I’ll leave some more till next time but today I would like to talk to you about restfulness.
I was thinking about this because I was reading a Scripture of how David wanted to build a house of rest for God. I began to think about it and think how this should also be our vision. We should also want to build a house of rest for God.
Our God is a dwelling God. He loves to dwell.
Right back in the Old Testament we read of how He wanted to dwell with His people, even in the desert. He dwelt in a tabernacle. He went wherever the children of Israel went. In fact, He directed where they went but He went with them. He went before them.
When they stopped, He stayed in their midst, right in the very center of the camp to dwell with them.
He wants to dwell with us now. He wants to dwell in our hearts. He wants to be with us personally. And He wants to dwell in our homes.
God’s favorite place to dwell is in a place of rest. God loves to dwell, but God also loves rest.
He is a God of rest. He wants to bring rest to us when He comes into our hearts, but He also wants our homes to be a home of rest where He can enjoy dwelling.
Shall we look at some Scriptures? In 1 Chronicles 28:2, David is speaking and he’s sharing his vision.
He says: “ . . . As for me, I had in mine heart to build an house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made ready for the building.”
David didn’t actually end up building this house. God said that his son would do it, but he got ready for it. You can read later in 1 Chronicles chapter 28 about all the materials that David got ready for the building of this house for God. Oh my, it is amazing how he gathered gold and silver. And everything that would be needed he gathered and had it ready.
There is another beautiful Scripture in this chapter, verse 11: “Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch . . . And the pattern of all that he had by the spirit, of the courts of the house of the Lord, and of all the chambers round about, of the treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries of the dedicated things: Also for the courses of the priests and the Levites, and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord, and for all the vessels of service in the house of the Lord.”
And He goes on. All this had to be absolutely ordered and God gave it to David by the Spirit.
I love that. He didn’t just think it up by himself. The Holy Spirit showed him. I think there is a beautiful thought here because, ladies, every one of us are different. Every one of us is unique. Every one of us is going to build our homes differently because we are different, and God doesn’t cookie cutter. He makes each one of us so unique and so different.
That is why we have to seek the Lord like David did. He sought the Lord so God could show him how He wanted him to build this house for Him.
That’s a wonderful thing to do precious mothers. Get before the Lord and ask Him: “Lord, how do You want me to build this house for You? Please show me.”
God will show you and He will show you all the very practical things. All the things that He showed David were so practical. Every little measurement and how to do this and how to do that, it all was practical.
The running of your home is very practical. God will show you how to do the practical things and how to do them the best way for your household.
Sometimes you read books and you read the idea of this mother and it works so amazingly for her. Her house just runs smoothly, and everything works just great. She writes this book about it and you read it. You try to put it into operation and somehow it doesn’t quite work how it did for her.
That is because you are not her. God has made you differently and so you have got to seek the Lord personally to hear from the Holy Spirit how He wants you to run your home.
Isn’t that wonderful?
We go down to verse 19 and it says: “All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern.”
Every detail of the pattern God gave him by the Spirit, and He will do that for you, too, dear mothers.
And so you’re going to be seeking to build this house of rest for God.
We go over to Psalm 132. David says here: “Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.”
The Passion Translation says: “ . . . I devote myself to finding a resting place for You! “What a beautiful vision to have: I devote myself to making my home a resting place for God.
My, that’s a big vision, isn’t it, dear ladies? ‘
We know that, just because what life is like, that our homes are not always this beautiful place of rest. Tension comes and things happen and oh my, it seems to be nothing like a place of rest!
That’s why we have to devote ourselves to make our home a place of rest. As we seek the Lord, He will show us by His Spirit.
I’ve written 10 points here. I don’t think I’m going to give them all to you. There will be more than 10. I know you will have lots of wonderful ideas also, but I will share these 10 points with you.
In fact, perhaps before I even get to sharing them, I should also share with you how God also sees our marriages as a place of rest. Did you know that?
Yes, in the Bible, marriage is aligned as a place of rest.
In the story of Ruth in Ruth 1:9, Naomi was leaving Moab because her husband had died, and her sons had died. She was in a state of depression, sadness, and self-pity. She was just going to go back to Judah.
She said to both of her daughters in law: “May the Lord enable each of you to find security in the home of a new husband.” The King James Bible says: “That you may find rest.”
That is the word: Rest.
The Hebrew for rest is menuwchah and it means: “repose, peaceful, consolation, abode; quiet, comfort, refreshment, a resting place; and specifically matrimony.”
In that Hebrew word menuwchah, which talks of rest, refreshment, quietness, and peace, it also means marriage and matrimony.
It’s the same word in Psalm 23:2 where our good Shepherd leads us beside “still waters.” That’s the same word. Our marriage is not meant to be turbulent waters.
Dear ladies, God means it to be still waters. That’s what He desires.
We continue with the story of Ruth and we know that Ruth would not leave her mother-in-law. She went back to Israel with her.
Naomi was very concerned about Ruth finding another husband. She needed to have someone who could provide for her and care for her.
In Ruth chapter 3:1 she says: “ . . . My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?”
The Good News Translation explains it a little more clearly: “ . . . I must find a husband for you so that you will have a home of your own.”
That’s what Naomi was talking about. Although she says, “I’m seeking rest for you Ruth so that it will be well with you and you will be looked after” she was concerned about finding a husband for her.
That word, this time, where the word rest was used, it is a similar word that was used, but not the same. It is the word manowach.
It has a very similar meaning. It means: “a settled spot, a home, a place of rest.”
Sometimes marriages are not always a place of rest, are they? But this is what God intends. God has a beautiful vision for marriage.
He wants our marriage to be a place of rest and a place where we find security, stability, and provision, and a resting place to fulfill our God given career of mothering and nurturing.
It’s very hard for single mums. Maybe some of you are listening today and you are trying to provide for your child or for your children. At the same time you are trying to nurture them and make a home for them. I know many single mums find themselves in this position through no fault of their own.
They need so much encouragement and help because it’s not something we were meant to do on our own. God intends there to be a husband and a wife in the home so that as children come along the wife can be secure.
When she has a husband who knows his mandate from God is to provide for his wife, and to protect his wife and children, then the wife can live in quietness and rest.
She can give herself to the work of managing her home and caring for her children because she doesn’t have to do her husband’s career. You see, God gives a career to the husband and a career to the wife. If we both have the same career, then we can’t really function properly because God has given to the husband that mantle to provide.
God says that if a man does not provide for his family, he is worse than an infidel (1 Timothy 5:8). That is his mandate from God: to provide well for his wife, for his family, so that she can be at rest to do her job, to manage the home, to bear children, and to train and nurture children.
That is a huge career and we cannot do it adequately when we’re trying to do a career out in the corporate world. It just is too difficult.
God has planned that marriage and the home become a place of rest when it is functioning correctly, and the husband is doing his mandate, and the wife is embracing her mandate from God.
THEN WE CAN LIVE IN REST!
It is so sad that there are husbands who want to get their wives out to work and help them earn more money for the family. What happens to the children?
I did mention that when we are living in the plan that God has, the wife and the mother has the opportunity to work in the home and give herself to this work of building her family and raising her family.
There we see two opposites: work and rest.
Did you know that they can actually go together? if we are living at rest, it doesn’t mean to say that we are sitting on the sofa looking at soap operas.
No, that is not the rest that we are talking about here. The rest we are talking about is a state of our soul where our soul is at rest. We can be busy. We can be working hard. We can have many projects that are going but we are in a place of rest.
We’re not doing them because we’re fretful about them. We’re doing them in rest. We can have rest in our soul so that we have this state of rest.
I love Matthew 11:28-30 where Jesus said: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest . . ..”
Jesus loves to give us rest. He is rest. When He comes into our lives, He brings rest because He lives in rest. Nothing takes Him by surprise. Nothing gets Him in a state of nervous tension or depression or overwhelmingness. No, everything is under His control.
When we come to Christ and we receive the forgiveness of our sins, we have rest from sins forgiven. I believe that is the first rest we experience but then the Scripture goes on.
Jesus continues and says: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
I love that phrase: “rest unto your souls.” I believe this is something even deeper than the rest of forgiveness of sins and the guilt of sin taken away.
Then Jesus says: “Come, come with Me. Come and sit at My feet. Come and learn of Me. Come and spend time in My Word. Learn of My ways and as you do, you’ll find more and more rest in the depths of your soul.”
This is what God wants to give us. He wants us to have rest as mothers in our souls and in our homes. It’s difficult to do this if we are trying to do careers at once. That’s why God calls marriage a rest.
Of course everything that God ordains Satan seeks to destroy everything. He seeks to destroy marriage. He seeks to destroy the plan for marriage and God’s beautiful plan of the career He has given to man to be that ultimate provider.
Of course wives in the home, many times with gifts they have, they are able to do things that can help generate some income into the home without leaving the home, things that they are able to do in the home.
That’s of course also in seasons. When we have little ones, we don’t always have time to do those things. God has ordained for the man to be that ultimate provider. We have to watch, dear ladies, that we don’t let Satan get his foothold into the home and woo us out of the home, getting involved in not maybe even a career but maybe other things.
There are so many things that we can get involved in outside of the home. Often many of them are very, very good but they’re not very good for you if they are hindering you in the home and taking you away from managing your home affectively and nurturing your children, which is your ultimate mandate from God.
We have to watch that. We dare not be like the woman in the Song of Solomon and she said, “They have made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept” (Song of Solomon 1:6).
We have to watch that. If we haven’t got time to keep own vineyard, well don’t let’s go and keep other people’s vineyards. And so we guard that.
We also have to guard other things. We have to guard tension coming into the home. If we notice tension, then we better do something about it. If we notice evil creeping into the home, we better make sure we cast it out.
We resist all rebellious and selfish attitudes and especially bitterness and hardness of heart. We have to watch those things and those attitudes.
Marriage is all to do with our attitude, isn’t it, ladies? We can choose which attitude we will take.
It’s easy to just go to the negative one. That’s easy. But it’s not so easy to take the godly attitude but that’s the one that brings blessing and God will enable us as we trust Him.
We see that God wants our marriage and our home to be a place of rest. He wants to come and dwell with us and enjoy that rest.
Let’s see some ways that we can do this.
Number one:
MAKE A TIME AND PLACE TO MEET WITH GOD EACH DAY
That’s in 2 Chronicles chapter two. I’ve talked about this before so I will briefly mention it.
This is where Solomon is now beginning to build the house. Remember, David had the vision and he passed it on to Solomon.
In chapter two of 2 Chronicles, verse four, Solomon says: “Behold, I build an house to the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to him, and to burn before him sweet incense, and for the continual showbread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening . . .” and so on.
Now Solomon was making a house of rest for God, but it was also a place where he could come before God morning and evening and sacrifice to Him.
We see in verse 6 where Solomon says: “But who is able to build him an house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? who am I then, that I should build him an house, save only to burn sacrifice before him?”
Back in the tabernacle days there was the principle of the morning and evening sacrifice, the morning and evening lighting of the candles, the morning and evening attending to the fire upon the altar, and the morning and evening lighting of the incense, speaking of praise and worship.
These were places where they met with God. God wanted them to do it morning and evening.
It’s a principle we should continue. We no longer need to do sacrifices, lighting menorahs, and lighting incense, but we are just doing it because we want to meet with God.
We don’t have to do all these external things now but we need to find a time and a place each day where we gather our families and we come into the presence of God to meet with Him, to seek Him, to pray to Him, to worship Him, and to listen to His voice from His Word.
As we do this, we are building a house of rest for God. We’re building a place where He can literally come to us and speak to us. It is a place where we can literally make this time to worship Him and spend time in His presence each day.
I don’t mind sharing this with you again because I know that so many of you have it in your heart to do this, but doing it is another thing. But I have found that unless I make this happen in my home it doesn’t happen.
I have to make it happen. My whole day revolves around our morning time with God and our evening time with Him as a family.
I meet with Him personally, but these are our family times. This paves a way, it builds and prepares us as we make a house of rest, a place for our God to dwell.
If there is no meeting time, if there is no time in the day when we bring our families before the Lord, where is God in our homes? Do we make any time for Him?
You see, we have to make these times. We make these times around the mealtime, around breakfast time, and at the suppertime, the chief evening meal of the day.
We do it at the end of these meals. They become meeting places with God.
I encourage you to do this. This is such an important part of our making a home of rest.
Number two:
FILL YOUR HOME WITH GOD’S WORD
In the same passage in 2 Chronicles chapter two, verse four, it’s saying that Solomon wanted to make this house where he could burn sweet incense for the continual showbread.
The showbread was the twelve loaves of bread that were baked every week and put on the Table of Showbread in the Holy Place. They were always to be there, never, never off the table.
In fact, once a week the priests would eat the showbread and fellowship together before the Lord. But before they took those loaves off, they had to put the new loaves on.
How they did it was: so many priests would come in and as they took the showbread and the other utensils off the table, then another set of priests would immediately put the new, fresh bread on the table so that there was never a second that the bread was not on the table.
It was called the CONTINUAL BREAD as it is here in 2 Chronicles 2:4: “The continual showbread.”
It speaks of Jesus Who was is the Bread. He is our sustenance. He is our Bread. He is our Life.
It speaks of feasting upon Jesus. It speaks of feasting upon the Word for He Himself is the Word.
It speaks of the written Word and Jesus Who is the Word. We’re to feast upon Him continually.
Of course you can’t just sit and read the Word all day long. But once again, I find it so important that we read the Word at these times, morning and evening, as that principle was established in the tabernacle. It was that morning and evening principle that we read in the Word of God.
You can also have the Word of God around your home. You can have one in the bathroom where you do have to go throughout the day. You can have it open at Psalms and maybe pick up a little Scripture there. You can have another Bible open on your windowsill where you are preparing your meals and doing the dishes.
I used to do that when I was a young mum. I always had a Bible on my windowsill. My windowsill, at the moment, won’t fit a Bible, which is very sad. I hope you have got one that does fit a Bible because it so great. You can look up and get a little bit of sustenance to encourage you throughout the day or whenever you’re at the kitchen sink. That’s a place where you need encouragement too!
And so we fill our home with God’s Word. Psalm 119:165 says: “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.”
Number three:
FILL YOUR HOME WITH WORSHIP AND BEAUTIFUL MUSIC
Psalm 22:3 says: “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.”
Now our God, Who is a dwelling God, loves to dwell amongst praise and worship. Precious ladies, if you want God to live in your home and fill your home, fill your home with beautiful worship music.
God loves to inhabit praises.
I was thinking about this the other day. If God loves to live and dwell in praises, don’t you think that we who are His creation, would also want to live in an atmosphere of praises? I think so.
So as we seek to make our home a home of rest, let’s make our home a home of praises where we’re not only praising God, but we’re also praising each other.
We’re praising our husbands. Do you praise your husband? How many times a day do you praise him or speak loving things to him? Make your home a place of praises so they’re just coming out of your mouth. When you see your husband, you’re praising him.
Your children: you’re just praising them, encouraging them, affirming them, and uplifting them.
Just get into the habit. Make it a habit. Seek to think about it, to try and make this a habitual thing that comes out of your mouth, praises and encouragement, and these kinds of words are coming out of your mouth.
It is true how in Proverbs 12:25 it says: “ . . . a word of encouragement does wonders.”
It does miracles!
Ladies, is your home a little bit depressing at the moment? Maybe there is tension. Oh goodness me!
Hey, here’s the remedy: make it a home of praises. Praises to God, praises to your husband, praising your children, praising them all day long.
Oh my, you will be absolutely amazed! Yes, wonders will begin to happen. Miracles will begin to happen. Yes, do it! Okay?
I have something a bit more about this, but I have to wait till next week because time is up.
Let me pray.
“Father, I thank You for every precious wife and mother who is listening today. Father, I pray that You will come into their hearts in a wonderful way. I pray You will come into their homes.
“Lord, where there is tension, where there is strife, where there is bitterness, where there is hurt, oh God, I pray that You will help these dear wives and mothers to change the atmosphere by filling it with praises, with encouraging words, affirming words, praising words, uplifting words, positive words, exciting words.
“Oh God, I pray that You will touch their mouths and take them from the negative into the positive, that You will take them, Lord, from the despairing words and grumbling words into thankful words and praising words and encouraging words.
“Lord, You’ve told us that these kinds of words release wonders into our midst. I ask that You will do this in every home, Father, in the precious name of Jesus. Amen and amen.”
Transcribed by Morgan Roth.