Troubleshooting Where We Go Wrong | Obedience .03 Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily Jensen: Welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood. I’m Emily, and Laura is going to be joining me in just a few minutes for another episode in our Obedience mini-series. We want to let you know that we’re already thinking about summer. Laura and I actually live in a pretty cold place, so we're always thinking about summer, and we hope you guys do a book club with us this year!
We want to encourage you to gather a group of moms in your neighborhood, or some friends at your church, or women who are in your life, to discuss the Risen Motherhood book. We have some really great resources and incentives for you guys as well. We know you guys like your freebies, so if you sign up to lead a book club this summer, you are going to get a “Book Club 101” document, it has all the details for what it means to host a group, coordinate a group, all the logistics.
You're also going to get a really helpful guide to teach you how to understand the gospel, how to apply it to life, and we hope that will help you facilitate discussions and have real-life gospel conversations with your friends. Also, the first 1,000 book club leaders to sign up are going to get a gorgeous, unique, exclusive Risen Motherhood mug. We have not sold this one at any of our stores.
It's really fun and new, and it has some gorgeous artwork from our book on the outside. You're also going to get some freebies for the participants in your group, including some bookmarks, and it's going to be really great. We want to encourage you to go to risenmotherhood.com/book before June 6th because after that, the signups are going to close.
We hope that you're planning to start your book club and that you’ll have some great, intentional conversations over the summer with your friends. We hope that this is a blessing to you, and we're excited for book clubs! Let's get to the show.
Laura Wifler: Today, we're going to talk a little bit about some of the common ditches that we find in obedience, especially as moms. Em, I'll start. I think I tend to 100% think that obedience equates to holiness, it is what makes me holy.
Emily: Yes, I definitely think that can be a struggle, although, like usual, I probably experience it in a bit of a reverse way where I’ll know what I'm supposed to do, how I'm supposed to live and I'll feel like day after day, it gets really, really hard, and so I can get into, “I'll just do it tomorrow” mode, which is essentially thinking, "I'm going to wake up and start obeying tomorrow, but today, it's okay to have an off day."
Laura: That is so funny because I'm like, "If it's an off day, I'm going to muscle it through." I've joked with Emily before that my natural tendency is to say, "Is this hard? Is this difficult? Will it cause me pain because then, yes, I'll do it." I feel like the hardest path must mean the most holy path, and so I'll just crush the obedience because it's not that obedience is a sign of holiness, it's that obedience is holiness, that's the manipulation in my mind.
Emily: I'll just wait to take the pain tomorrow. How about that? [laughs]
Laura: I wish I was like you. [laughs]
Emily: I'll just relax today.
Laura: That sounds like a good life, girlfriend. [laughs]
Emily: I think obedience can have all of these loopholes. A verse in scripture even says, "If you know what you're supposed to do and you don't do it, it is sin for you." Yet, if you know what you're supposed to do, but there's an asterisk there and there's some fine print, and if I can just figure out what that is, then I can get around it. I think there are a lot of these ditches or loopholes that we try to find when it comes to obeying.
Laura: Let's set the groundwork for just a second of what obedience is, what it isn't, and then we'll dive into the ditches.
Emily: Something that was really helpful that I actually read in a book that we'll make sure we link in the show notes called, Impossible Commands is just the idea that we can't obey what God is asking us to do on our own. I do think we need to start there often. The example this book gave that I thought was so helpful was in John 11:43, when Jesus commands Lazarus to come out.
If you remember the story, Lazarus is dead. He literally cannot obey that command. He cannot get himself up. It was the power of Jesus' word and raising Lazarus from the dead that allowed Lazarus to obey Jesus' command. The same is true for us. We have dead hearts, we have to be born again, we literally cannot do the things that the Lord is asking us to do without the Spirit in us.
I know there's this quote that my pastor has said over the years that I really liked from John Bunyan. It says, "Run, run the law commands, but gives us neither feet nor hands. Far better news the gospel brings, it bids us fly and gives us wings." Again, another analogy from that book called Impossible Commands—the author talks a little bit about this—are some train tracks where he lives, there are two train tracks that keep the train on the tracks, but then it can't go without the power of the third rail. I thought that analogy was helpful in relation to the John Bunyan quote that, yes, maybe apart from Christ we can know what the technical law is, but we don't have the power to follow it. So, we need Jesus. There you go, all summed up. We need Jesus if we're going to obey.
Laura: Yes, absolutely. This goes back to when we were talking about my bent. For me, it's like, I can do all these acts of obedience, but at the end of the day, I'm just sitting there trying to earn my salvation, and I can't do that. I can't actually obey in the right way with the right heart, and the Lord looks at the heart. I need to walk in the power of the Spirit, trusting him for sanctification and growth.
I just deeply resonate with that Lazarus story too, of that idea that he couldn't get up without the Lord saying, "Lazarus, come out." Without his command, without God's help. That’s us, we’re dead in spirit. That’s actually a huge encouragement, but also a big check for me to consistently ask, “Where am I operating from?”
Emily: I liked what you were saying about the heart because another conversation you and I have had oftentimes about obedience is, “Well, does God just want me to act on the outside, and is it okay if my heart's not in it? Or can I feel it in my heart, but then my hands eventually follow, but maybe it takes a while? Is it both? Which comes first?” I know a phrase that I read that I think was really helpful is, “God desires obedience from the heart, it's both.”
Laura: Yes. Absolutely. I think it's John Piper who says, “Duty into delight.” Yet, I think sometimes there are moments where it's delight turns into obedience. It doesn't feel like a duty, right?
Emily: Yes.
Laura: I think there's this element, and it depends perhaps on your own personality. It probably depends on the actual circumstance of where you're being asked to obey. Sometimes, it really is saying, "Okay, I'm going to obey here. I'm going to wash the dishes even when I have a bad attitude, my heart doesn't feel it, but I know that in this moment, a way to obey the Lord is to serve my family and to keep a clean home."
Then there are other times I think where it's like, "Oh, I feel really passionate about adoption or foster care or about my neighborhood." For me, it’s my neighborhood book club, I'm super passionate about that. I feel like it started out as just this moment of delight in sharing the gospel with other people and feeling like I can foster these conversations. Therefore, now, I’ve gone and done things to make that happen.
Emily: Absolutely. I think what you're saying is so true. I've noticed that a lot with habits. I think that's why it’s so helpful to remember whenever we establish a daily Bible reading plan, one of the realities of that is that some days we're going to wake up and have this amazing time in the Word, and it's going to refresh us, and we're going to have this refreshed, pep in our step or whatever.
Then there's other days that we're going to read and we can't necessarily feel that transformation going on, but it's still important that we maintain that habit. Or I've been thinking about this a lot with corporate habits with the church. The routine of going to church week in and week out. In our church, we have a liturgical service where there's this confession of sin and proclaiming the gospel and we go through the gospel in the service.
It's just amazing to see how that ministers to my heart. On the surface, it might be like, "Okay, I'm reading along with the congregation because that's what I'm supposed to do now.” Then it ends up affecting my heart. It's kind of that both/and.
Laura: Oh, man. How often do you feel like church is so crazy and hard to get to, but then once you get there, you're like, "Oh, this was so worth it, totally worth it." With obedience, Em and I have noticed—let’s speak about ourselves here—that we've definitely noticed there are a lot of ditches we fall into. It's funny because while we both have our natural bents, when it comes to obedience, I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say, "I have done every single one of these things. I need the truth of the gospel to be preached to me when I slide into one of these ditches."
The first one that we want to talk about a little bit is just this idea that I don't really have to obey because Jesus already obeyed for me. He lived this perfect life. He gave me this grace. I'm really thankful for it. It means that I get to do whatever I want. It's just all of the relationship and no rules.
Emily: Exactly. I think this can be the misuse of the phrase, "Freedom in Christ."
Laura: How often was that used in the 2000s especially? Raise your hand if you're our age. [laughs] It happened a lot in the early 2000s.
Emily: We've said it a lot on the Risen Motherhood podcast. We have freedom in Christ. But I think many times that can mean something truthful, and we can also distort that to mean whatever we want it to mean in that moment. An example that comes to mind is sometimes when I know that I'm creeping past the line of my personal conscience, maybe it's screen time or something, and the kids have watched a show, and they're asking to watch another one.
I'm like, "Oh, this really wasn't the boundaries that I set. This really wasn't the way that I had planned for us to use our day. But, you know what, freedom in Christ, there's no boundaries on this.” I think that there is a seed of truth in that. But when it becomes more like— "The grace that Jesus gave me is an excuse for me to not live faithfully or to not love others as well"— that's dangerous territory.
Laura: I think this is where we don’t fully understand the depth, the gift, and the cost of salvation. When we're doing this, we're cheapening grace. To get out of this ditch, we need to take some time, reflect, and really understand the cost that Christ paid to be able to give us the grace and freedom that we enjoy today.
I think, for me, a lot of times, it's been asking myself, "Okay, it's not about how much freedom can I have and how much fun can I have without crossing that line, but it's, how close to holiness can I be?” It is a far, far different question to ask yourself, "How successful or how fun or how much freedom can I have?" versus asking yourself, "Well, how faithful can I be in this moment?"
Emily: I heard Paul David Tripp recently say, "It's standing in the shadow of the cross." What that means is you would have to come close enough to really see the suffering that Jesus endured and to realize, "Oh, that was for me. Now I am going to die and my life is going to be with his." I know I've been reading through Leviticus lately, and have been reminded that every time they sinned, or every time there was an uncleanness, or there was any type of violation of the law, they had to sacrifice an animal.
Can you imagine how big of a part of our daily lives that would be if we still had to do that? When we meditate on those types of things, I think I'm a lot slower to be like, "Oh, yeah, grace."
Laura: Another one would just be this idea of, "Hey, I really like the idea of obedience. I think it's cool. I don't really want to do it." It's like we have a lot of knowledge, and we like to learn, and we like to read all the right books and go to church and be really spiritual. But, we never are intense in our fight for sin or against sin or really pursuing obedience.
It's this knowledge without the wisdom, which is applying the knowledge.
Emily: The thing I always think of when it comes to this is how much I like to talk about working out but then not workout.
[laughter]
Laura: Exactly.
Emily: When it comes down to it, actually, I have really flabby muscles. I bought new tennis shoes. I got the new workout gear, I downloaded the app, I am ready to go. I can talk about a 5k all day. But if I never actually run, or I never actually train, or I never actually do the hard work of sweating and building the muscles, well then, yes, I’m not actually doing it. I think we can all think of areas of life, where maybe you've watched the cooking show over and over again, but you never make a home-cooked meal for your family, or whatever.
Laura: The reality is, you can't actually cook. You’ve watched the shows, and you might think, “I'm an expert cook.” But, actually, you're not. Until you're getting into the kitchen and you're messing up and you're growing and you're practicing, that's when you actually become the cook. I think about one of my kiddos who loves watching piano players on YouTube. The video just shows their hands, no faces or anything.
He will watch those forever. At the end of the day, he's always wanting to learn piano. I'm saying, "Well, you have to practice." It's not just this osmosis soaking in. If you actually want to learn how to play piano and be a great pianist, then you're going to have to practice. That's the thing with Christ.
He modeled obedience for us. He showed us—like the piano video shows us on YouTube. But at the end of the day, it's not about us just watching Jesus. It's actually applying what he has taught us and having that whole heart surrender to the death.
Emily: A plug here for a couple of strategies. This is where it's good to pray. I think if we're feeling like we have a little bit of that, “I want to watch, but I don't want to have to do it” syndrome, God can change our motivations and change our hearts. He can give us conviction and motivation to act with boldness and courage and strength when we don't have any.
It's okay to come to him and say, "I am weak. I'm struggling in this. I'm delaying in my obedience, Lord. Will you help me?" Then second, just practically, I think sometimes we need to set up good scaffolding for ourselves. At least, I know I need this. It’s kind of an offense-defense strategy against whatever it is I'm struggling with.
Get accountability. Maybe have a friend you can check in with if there’s something that you really know you're supposed to be doing, and you're not doing it, or get into a group. It's like saying, "Hey, I don't want to eat as much sugar, but I don't want to have to remove any sugar from my house or whatever." We know that with other things. This is true for sin, too.
I just read—I can't remember what passage it is, but where Jesus talks about, "If your eye is causing you to sin, cut it out because it would be better to live with one eye than to keep sinning." I think we have to kind of have this mentality—don't literally “cut out your eye.” That's not what I’m saying. That's not the point of this. But we have to find those areas of life where we set up practical strategies to help us.
Laura: Another one is this idea that we obey, but it's just so that we can impress other people. It's very, very outward. It's that “white tomb” syndrome where we want to look like a good Christian or fit into Christian culture because that's where our friends are at, or our family is at, or we are working really hard to be this Godly mom. But inside, there's a lot more happening and a lot more under the surface. Perhaps there's bitterness or emptiness, or just a very parched and dry relationship with God.
Emily: Sometimes I think of this as wanting to comb my kids’ hair before we get out the door, even though they've had crazy hair all day. [laughs]
Laura: It's totally fine at home, but we're going to church, kids. You got to comb that hair for once.
Emily: You got to look like we were doing some grooming here.
Laura: We brush it every day, we promise. [laughs]
Emily: Or like, “Let's get that Bible verse memorized in the five minutes on the way to whatever church thing is going on because I don't want you guys to look like we didn't work on that at home.” I think many of you guys can relate to that, I hope I'm not the only one.
Laura: Oh, absolutely. I think for this, the thing that we have to recognize is none of this holds up long term. This is a really frazzled and horrible way to live your life where you're just putting a Band-Aid on it, when really you need surgery.
I think when I've been in these seasons, one of the most helpful things for me is to learn to sit quietly at the feet of Jesus, to really appreciate him and love him for who he is. Sometimes, though, that can be hard to figure out, “What does that mean?” or “That sounds vague.” When people say that, I totally get it.
I have always appreciated letting someone in and having somebody speak into that and encourage me. Maybe an older wiser woman to disciple me. Sometimes just that vulnerability piece of just saying, "Here's what's really going on, and here's what's really inside," and allowing them to speak truth over you, and then help you find some practical strategies, because this can feel really unique depending on what your life looks like.
Emily: Related to that, just the other day, I was letting someone into something I was struggling with. I found myself just saying, "I'm just a weakling. I feel like such a weakling." I was saying it like, “It's a bad thing that I'm so weak.” This person encouraged me in the gospel and was saying, “That's exactly what we need to be to come to Christ. God welcomes weaklings.”
Then I could turn that truth around, which I think can be helpful in motherhood when we want to obey, but we’re tempted to slap paint on the outside of our lives, but inside we don’t really have it together. We can say, "No, it's okay to bring others into my weakness and to show them the beauty of the gospel in that and that Christ welcomes weakling and conforms us into his image.” There's some hope there.
Laura: Yes. I think the Lord doesn't ask for obedience to be frenzied and harried and stressful. That's not the way of the gospel. If we’re truly motivated out of love, then the call isn't, "Oh gosh, I just got to do this really quick to make me look good or be accepted." That's kind of what we're doing. That's how we're acting. We don't have a deep understanding of the gospel if that's what's going on.
Emily: This pours into the last ditch that we thought of, it's this idea that we obey because we don't think that God will accept us apart from perfect obedience. It's that idea of earning our salvation or righteousness before God and holding ourselves to the law and forgetting grace. That's the exact opposite of where we started, where if cheap grace is, "Oh, God just forgives me. I'll just disobey now and ask for forgiveness later." This is like, "I can't come to God until I obey perfectly."
Laura: This was helpful for me because when I get in this mode I tend to begin putting rules on other people, too. I'm seeing this personal righteousness as also, “This is how everyone should have righteousness.” There's a pretty big judgmental spirit for me behind it at times. I think what's been helpful, both for my own life and then as I look at others and have expectations for them, is to remember that God knows we're all in really different places on the road to sanctification.
We tend to hold everyone, including ourselves, to the standard of perfection, but the Lord knows where you are, and he's not asking for you to be who you're going to be in 50 years. You've got 50 years of time to grow into that person, and he's asking for obedience, not just even for that day, but for that minute and second. Sometimes, it's that specific.
I have to remind myself that the Lord knows my personal tendencies, my struggles, my pitfalls, and he's not going to ask more of me than what he's going to sustain me for. That saying, “God doesn't give you more than you can handle.” The reality is, it's going to be more than you can handle. I know that from personal experience as I've walked through suffering.
It's like, "Lord, I cannot do this." Like Emily's saying, the weak spot, I think those are those moments where you have to lean on the Spirit to show up for you. You realize finally, perhaps for the very first time in your life, that you cannot hold to the perfection that you want to tell yourself that you can.
Emily: I can tell that I'm operating out of this when thoughts start cycling through my head like, "You're such a bad mom. Look, you can't even do X, Y, and Z well enough." I can really hear that voice of the accuser just reminding me how many ways that I let God down, and how many ways I didn't fulfill his beautiful design for motherhood or whatever that is.
There is a song that, I haven't listened to it in a while, but it's called “Embracing Accusations.” It walks through this idea where we challenge the voice of the enemy with like, "You're right. He’s right. Those accusations are true, and actually so much worse. I don't even know the depths of how sinful I am and how sure I have fallen, but Christ. That's not the end of the story. Christ has paid it all, and he has been obedient on my behalf.”
This is really where I think I need to rehearse the good news of the gospel. We have a show that talks through how you can preach the gospel to yourself because I think that habit really helps me when I'm in this mode.
Laura: That's really good. I think there’s a consistent, required dependence on God that we all need to have no matter where we fall in any of these ditches. I don't know where you guys are at today, Risen Motherhood community—we'll just talk right to you. We do want to encourage you that no matter how you're feeling about obedience or perhaps where you've been or what direction you've been leaning with things—whether that's leaning really heavily on grace only and all that freedom, or it's on the other side with a heavy legalism and just talking down to yourself about how terrible you are. We want to encourage you to preach the gospel to yourself today. If you need to after you turn off this episode, maybe just stop and pray and ask the Lord for forgiveness and for him to help you to obey.