girl talk

One More Question

There is one more question we must add to our list of fellowship questions, and it is the most important one of all:

How are you preaching the gospel to yourself every day?

Milton Vincent, author of The Gospel Primer makes the case for why the gospel is vital to Christian love and fellowship:

“The greatest gift I can give to my fellow-Christians is the gospel itself. Indeed, I love my fellow-Christians not simply because of the gospel, but I love them best when I am loving them with the gospel! And I do this not merely by speaking gospel words to them, but also by living before them and generously relating to them in a gospel manner. Imparting my life to them in this way, I thereby contribute to their experience of the power, the Spirit, and the full assurance of the gospel. By preaching the gospel to myself every day, I mature the bond that unites me with my brothers and sisters for whom Christ died, and I also keep myself well-versed in the raw materials with which I may actively love them in Christ.”

Mr. Vincent references 1 Thessalonians 2:18 where Paul tells the church that: “Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.”

We may say that our friends are “very dear to us;” but if we do not live in the good of the gospel, we stifle the source and limit the scope of our love for them. May this motivate us to preach the gospel to ourselves every day--so that we can "actively love" our friends.

Fellowship Questions

Marsha, a reader and seminary wife, wrote to tell us that she and a friend are going to begin “holding each other accountable to the tough things of the faith.” They are comprising a list of helpful questions and she wanted to know if we had any to add to their collection.

Several years ago, we put together a list of questions to encourage fellowship among women: to provoke one another to pursue Christ-like character and cultivate biblical womanhood.

We hope these questions get you started, Marsha. And for all our readers, we hope they spark many Christ-honoring girl talks!

Describe your current practice of the spiritual disciplines.

What is a passage of Scripture you have been meditating on recently?

What fruit of the Spirit are you cultivating?

What sin are you seeking to weaken?

How can I pray for you?

Here is an evidence of grace that I observe in your life.

How are you seeking to grow in expressing biblical femininity?

Waiting With Liam

My middle son Liam can’t wait for his birthday to get here. He’ll be five. And he’ll get to go to Noodles and Co. for his favorite buttered noodles with Parmesan cheese. Actually, he didn’t quite understand why we didn’t go to Noodles today. I tried to explain that his birthday is still five days away. He keeps asking, though, not quite comprehending the delay.

Watching Liam eagerly wait for his birthday this week made these thoughts from Iain Duguid all the more relevant: 

“Those of us who have very young children know how difficult waiting can be. We live through their annual anguish of waiting for birthday parties. Each day of the week—or, in some cases, the month—before their birthdays roll around, they wake up with the question, “is it my birthday yet?” Finally, the great day arrives, and you immediately have to convince them that 6:30 a.m. is not the ideal time of day for a party. By 6:45 a.m. they are thoroughly convinced that you don’t love them, and that all this talk of a party is nothing but a cruel hoax. At this point, you know it’s going to be a long day!

Don’t we often act toward God like little children? We kick and fuss and scream because we want what God has promised, and we want it now. Never mind that preparations need to be made and that other people need to be invited. But, like a patient and long-suffering parent, God bides his time, neither delaying nor hurrying, until everything is in place. Then—and not a moment sooner—he gives us the good things he has promised.”

Liam only has to wait five days for his birthday. You might have to wait five, or fifty years for a good thing God has promised. But just as sure as Liam’s birthday will come on October 1, so God will not fail to fulfill His promises to you. So let’s all learn along with Liam this week to wait…patiently.

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him…those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.” Psalm 37:7,9

Waiting

A few weeks ago when I posted about a small difficulty, a kind friend sent me this meditation by Paul Tripp on Psalm 27: “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” It had encouraged her as she waited to have children and she thought it might encourage me as well. It did. So much so that I sent it to another friend whose husband is waiting for a job.

What are you waiting for today?

May these thoughts encourage you to make it a “Productive Delay:”

"Waiting on God isn't about the suspension of meaning and purpose. It's part of the meaning and purpose that God has brought into my life.  Waiting on God isn't to be viewed as an obstruction in the way of the plan.  Waiting is an essential part of the plan. For the child of God, waiting isn't simply about what I'll receive at the end of my wait.  No, waiting is much more purposeful, efficient, and practical than that. Waiting is fundamentally about what I'll become as I wait.  God is using the wait to do in and through me exactly what He's promised. Through the wait He's changing me.  By means of the wait He's altering the fabric of my thoughts and desires.  Through the wait He's causing me to see and experience new things about Him and His kingdom.  And all of this sharpens me, enabling me to be a more useful tool in His redemptive hands." 

Instead of focusing on what we’re waiting to receive, let’s turn our gaze to God and ask Him to make us “a more useful tool in His redemptive hands.”

And if these thoughts encouraged you, why not send them to a waiting friend.

The Question God Always Answers

In difficulty, my first question is often “Why?” I can be tempted to demand an answer from God. Sometimes He makes his purposes clear: in many cases, our trials are indeed “preparation for the task.” But God is not obligated, nor does He always tell us why.

But there is another question He will always answer, as JI Packer asserts in his new book: Praying the Lord’s Prayer:

“If you ask, ‘Why is this or that happening?’ no light may come, for ‘the secret things belong to the Lord our God’ (Deuteronomy 29:29); but if you ask, ‘How am I to serve and glorify God here and now, where I am?’ there will always be an answer.”

Our Father in heaven will show us how to glorify Him, if we simply ask, ready to obey. So which question are you asking today?

“And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” Isaiah 30:21

Are you in Training?

Last night was girl’s night out. Over dinner at a sidewalk table (for which we waited, like hungry vultures, for forty-five minutes) our conversation bounced from one topic to another. At one point I mentioned a small difficulty I am facing. My mom and sisters encouraged and challenged me and the conversation moved on. This morning, my dear sister Kristin emailed me the following quote she read in her quiet time:

"Like an astute coach or a gifted teacher, God prepares his saints for the tasks to which he has appointed them before he uses them.  Moses, for example, spent forty years in the desert, herding sheep, before God called him to lead his people out of Egypt. What better preparation in patience could there have been for his assignment of leading an equally stubborn flock of people through wilderness for forty years? Similarly, David learned courage from his own experience as a shepherd. Later the one who had learned how to take on wild animals in the defense of his flock would be called upon to take on the biggest wild animal of all, mighty Goliath, in the defense of God's flock. God knows how to prepare his people for the tasks to which they are assigned" (from Living in the Gap Between Promise and Reality by Iain M. Duiguid).

Kristin wanted to encourage me that my present difficulty is “preparation for a task.” It isn’t simply something to get through. It is a training tool—to conform me to the image of Christ and make me more useful for him.

How about you—what herd of sheep are you called to look after today? Maybe it’s a laborious task such as a full credit load at school or backed up loads of laundry at home. It’s preparation for a task. Or what about a wild animal? Is there a prowling trial in your life—physical, relational or otherwise? It’s preparation for a task.

Our astute—and, might I add, loving—coach has us in training. Let’s look to Him in faith and meet our task with courage.

Trusting God

To conclude our topic on “trusting God” for this week, we want to leave you with a few of our favorite quotes (besides the ones we’ve included in our posts):

“It is a very easy thing for us to get into a desponding state of heart, and to mistrust the promises and faithfulness of God, and yet, all the while, to look upon ourselves as the subjects of a disease which we cannot help, and even to claim pity at the hands of our fellow-men, and to think that they should condole us, and try to cheer us. Perhaps they should; but, at any rate, we must not think that they should. It will be far wiser for each one of us to feel, ‘This unbelief of mine is a great wrong in the sight of God. He has never given me any occasion for it, and I am doing him a cruel injustice by thus doubting him.’” Charles Spurgeon

“It is just as important to trust God as it is to obey Him. When we disobey God we defy His authority and despise His holiness. But when we fail to trust God we doubt His sovereignty and question His goodness.” Jerry Bridges

“Difficulties heaped upon difficulties can never rise the level of the promise of God…Unbelief looks at the difficulty. Faith regards the promise.” Charles Bridges

“Where faith is deficient the gospel is sufficient.” CJ Mahaney

He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how shall he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things. Romans 8:32

Never Dream of It

With all this week’s talk about “trusting God,” I was reminded of a chapter we wrote in our book, Girl Talk: Mother-Daughter Conversations on Biblical Womanhood. Though the content pertains to mothering, I hope you will find the following excerpts from “A Mother’s Faith” instructive and faith-building--whatever your season of life:

Several years ago C.J. and I, along with Nicole and Janelle (Kristin was living in Chicago at the time), were interviewed at a parent’s meeting at our church. The moderator asked C.J. and me, “If you could parent your daughters all over again, what would you do differently?” It was not a tough question. While I am aware of numerous ways I would want to be a better mom, one thing stands out far ahead of the rest.

I wish I had trusted God more.

For every fearful peek into the future, I wish I had looked to Christ instead. For each imaginary trouble conjured up, I wish I had recalled the specific, unfailing faithfulness of God. In place of dismay and dread, I wish I had exhibited hope and joy. I wish I had approached mothering like the preacher Charles Spurgeon approached his job: “forecasting victory, not foreboding defeat.”

The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Fear is sin. And as my husband has often graciously reminded me—God is not sympathetic to my unbelief. Why? Because fear, worry, and unbelief say to God that we don’t really believe He is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ps. 86:15). We are calling God a liar.

Even in the most trying situations, we have much more incentive to trust than to fear, much more cause for peace and joy than despair. That’s because, as Christians, we have the hope of the gospel.

Perhaps your home is a place of peace and tranquility, your fears as insignificant as gnats to swat away. Or maybe trials are washing over you like relentless waves. Your anxieties are consuming and overwhelming. They rob you of sleep and plague your waking hours. But no matter the size or the shape of your fears, may I encourage you to take them to the foot of the cross? The gospel isn’t an out-of-date message; it is the good news of a saving God who is “a very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1). So repent from worry and put your trust in the glorious gospel.

My husband has a Charles Spurgeon quotation as his screen-saver, which we would do well to have running across the screen of our minds: “As for His failing you, never dream of it—hate the thought. The God who has been sufficient until now, should be trusted to the end.” 

No matter what your temptation to fear or anxiety may be today,remember that the God for whom nothing is too hard can be trusted to the end!

Do I Believe It?

In my daily fight to trust in the God for whom nothing is too hard I often find myself going to my feelings as my starting point. Instead of first consulting the truth of God’s Word I check in with myself. What do I feel today? Am I tired? Fearful? Angry? Happy?

My dad describes this sinful tendency in his book, Christ Our Mediator: “Even when it comes to our spiritual life, at any given moment we direct and locate our faith in our emotional state rather than in clearly objective truth. We tend to ask God for more ‘experience,’ then assure Him that if He’ll give it, we’ll acknowledge and believe His truth. And one of the tragic results is that we're seldom amazed by the reality of the cross and of the gracious disposition of God toward sinners that the cross reveals.”

Sound familiar? I have experienced seasons where feelings of fear and anxiety seemed overwhelming and I was tempted to despair. As I pressed more deeply into the Scriptures and sought the counsel of those around me, I realized that I was exalting the truth of my feelings over God’s clear and objective truth. I was placing my faith in my unstable and inaccurate emotions. It was only after I repented and began to fight for faith in the Lord and His Word, that feelings of peace and joy followed.

Martin Lloyd Jones says, “I must never ask myself in the first instance: What do I feel about this? The first question is, Do I believe it?”

Where do you find yourself today? Are you being tempted to put your faith in how you feel about your circumstances? Maybe it’s exam week and you are anxious or maybe you were up all night with a sick little one and find yourself tempted to anger or discouragement. Whatever you might be up to today, I want to encourage you to look first and only to the Lord –and not your feelings--and trust His grace to carry you though. 

False Messiahs

Why is it that we so often fail to trust in the God for whom nothing is too hard? Well, for one—and for me this can be a big one—it’s because we seek approval from other people.

This morning as I read my Bible, I came to these words of Jesus addressing His opponents: “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (John 5:43-44)

My first thought was: how stupid! They believed in mere men who came with nothing but their own name and failed to believe in Jesus who came from God Himself? But then, I realized: that is what I do every time I frantically chase after other people’s approval! And it’s not just stupid. It’s failing to trust in God.

D.A. Carson commented on these verses:

“The chief judgment on those who deny that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Son of God, is not so much that they have no Messiah, but that they follow false messiahs…Like most people then and now, they were heavily dependent on accepting praise from one another; they made no effort to obtain the praise that comes from God.”

Far too often I run after false messiahs, convinced that if I can simply amass and maintain a certain level of approval from others, I will be happy. But when I do so, I am failing to believe that the glory that comes from God is the only glory worth seeking after. I am choosing NOT to trust God.

John Piper says it better than I can:

“Itching for glory from other people makes faith impossible. Why? Because faith is being satisfied with all that God is for you in Jesus; and if you are bent on getting the satisfaction of your itch from the scratch of other’s acclaim, you will turn away from Jesus. But if would turn away from self as the source of satisfaction (= repentance), and come to Jesus for the enjoyment of all that God is for us in him (= faith), then the itch would be replaced by a well of water springing up to eternal life (John 4:14).”

We can’t be trusting God while trying to garner a little praise from others on the side. No, trust in God requires a wholehearted pursuit of the glory that comes from God—a glory that never fails to satisfy!